Michael DuPaul Reviews

I had a fantastic experience with this coach. Coach DuPaul took over the worst team in the Patriot League, by far. Before his arrival, Lafayette was 10th of 10 teams in cross country with 284 points. With no scholarships, he led Lafayette to a 3rd place finish in the Patriot League. We were 32 points away from winning the championship! This was the COVID year where Navy did not compete, Army won with 41 points and Lafayette had 73, scoring 5 athletes in the top 20. In his 5th year, despite losing two of his top runners, Lafayette placed 4th (as Navy competed again) with 134 points. In just 5 years, Lafayette went from 10th to 3rd and 4th, improving 150 points in the league championship in a small, 10 team conference. All without scholarships. 2 years after he left, Lafayette just placed 9th with 256 points. Athlete development has halted since he left. The talented recruits that he brought in, such as a 4:08 high school miler, are not improving. The new coach is doing worse, despite having more talent on the team. It is not a coincidence that Lafayette improved so drastically once Coach DuPaul began, and not a coincidence that the team has declined so rapidly after he left.

Coach Mike means well but is disorganized, doesn't communicate clearly, and doesn't seem to know what he's doing all the time. Our team should be better than we are.

I ran on some of this coach's earlier teams. Maybe he has improved, but I had a challenging experience with him. He lost all of our trust in him as he would constantly complain about each of us members on the team to the other members of the team in private meetings. Of course, he would not say any of this to our faces, but it just created a toxic relationship between much of our team and him. I also heard that he said nasty things to the team about me after I graduated which was upsetting because I put a lot into the program for him and was respected by my other coaches and teammates. Our team rallied around each other and did well but I certainly wish we had had a different coach.

Coach DuPaul was the lone bright spot among the Lafayette coaching staff. He always had a positive attitude and went the extra mile to support athletes in other events. Even though I was a thrower and he coached the distance team, he always talked to us and cheered us up. He was well respected by everyone. The angry kid below is probably one of the troublemakers that everyone on the team disliked.

This coach struggles with a high degree of the basic necessities of scholastic coaching such as caring about and putting the athletes first, communication, fostering a structured and competitive team environment, and being an educator. Not to mention he also lacks the knowledge of the sport to generate the best competitive results out of his athletes and is to vain to admit that and attempt to learn from other, more successful coaches in the sport. The results at Lafayette were misleading as they were achieved after the pandemic in which the athletes were largely away training on their own and their success had nothing to do with this coach and was about the ambition, dedication, intentionality, and locker room vibe facilitated by the athletes themselves. Worst of all, this coach makes everything about himself and suffers from "blame the kid syndrome" when things go poorly on race-day. A coach in a collegiate program owes it to their athletes, institution, and community to be a servant leader, educator, and instill skills in their athletes that can foster success both competitively and after graduation in the professional world. This coach comes up markedly short in those areas.

At Lafayette, Coach DuPaul turned the worst team in the Patriot League into one of the top teams in the league. It was a transformation that none of us thought could happen because we were so far behind the other teams. We ran bigger PR times and stayed healthier compared to schools we competed against. We were consistently beating athletes from other teams that were a lot faster than us in high school. He improved the team culture by making small changes over time. Changing it all at once wouldn't have worked. Over time we grew more passionate about the sport and now more than half of us that he coached are running marathons after college.

Has a lot of time to be there for his athlete and does care for their success. Needs more intensity to form motivation. Would also help with controlling his athletes. Too much flexibility mostly occurring because lack of effective communication.

Coach Dupaul is pretty knowledgeable in the sport and overall a good coach. Some workouts I question on why we’re doing them or if the time is really right but for a vast majority they’re fine. He creates an emphasis on making the team closer together outside of the sport. I don’t have any real complaints other than at some points the program seems a little bit disorganized and things are put together at the last minute.

I think Coach Dupaul is very dedicated and cares a lot about his athletes and this program. He is extremely flexible and easy to get along with, which works better for some and not so well for others. I do think the team could benefit from a little more structure and organization, and I also think Dupaul needs to be more vocal about the team culture and mentality he expects from us. Seeing as how he has only been coaching here for a little less than a year, I think he will develop his coaching style here with time.

Very good guy. Genuinely cares about your well-being. However, does not really create a good team culture and doesn’t really seem to know how to create fast runners.

I like Cocah DuPaul, he really loves coaching and has made me love track and field again. I think he does struggle a bit with creating a rigid structure for us to follow but some athletes work better with flexibility. Overall a good coach!