Martin Bingisser

HMMR Podcast Episode 233: NCAA roundtable

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Over the last eight months we’ve heard from high school coaches, professional coaches, and others about how they’ve adapted their training to pandemic. One voice we haven’t heard from is NCAA coaches. The NCAA system puts some unique restrictions on coaches and athletes, and on this episode we invite on several NCAA coaches to discuss how they’re planning in uncertainty and dealing with other uncertainties like program cuts.

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Notes and quotes

Joining us on the roundtable were Carrie Lane (Assistant coach for throwing, University of Wyoming), Alex Heacock (Director of track and field, College of William & Mary), and Peter Miller Carrie Lane (Assistant coach for throwing, University of Minnesota).

  • 0:00 – Introduction.
  • 3:45 – Current training situation at universities.
  • 11:00 – Strategies for spring semester quarantraining.
  • 19:00 – Examining the restrictions in difference conferences.
  • 25:30 – Looking at the financing of “non-revenue” sports.
  • 30:30 – The boom of collegiate budgets and looking at the past. “The NCAA system is money in, money out. I have a family of 5. If that’s how we ran our family we wouldn’t survive. My kids future would be in doubt.” “The model is broken at the Power 5 level. If you look at it as a for profit business it is failing. It is not making a profit. If you look at it as a non-profit business it is failing because we’re not spending revenue on the people we say we’re spending it on.”
  • 41:45- How can listeners help reverse program cuts.
  • 46:30 – Diversity and track and field.
  • 48:30 – Avoiding program cuts at other schools. “There was no noise about programs being cut until a Power 5 program was cut. It shouldn’t take a big program being cut to realize we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a problem for decades.”
  • 51:30 – NCAA as an Olympic development program. “Look at men’s gymnastics: if the cuts go through there will only be 12 Division I NCAA programs in the country. USA Gymnastics will have to figure out how to develop athletes as the NCAA system won’t work. Is this where track is headed?”
  • 56:30 – How will training change planning for the upcoming season.
  • 1:03:00 – Helping athlete motivation levels.

To hear more on these topics, listen to the full episode above. Also be sure to subscribe to our podcast and review it on iTunes.

Further reading