Greenville University

"Horrible coach and program. Unorganized. Full of false promises. Makes sexual comments. Body shames. Fat shames. Spends most of his time at practice outside smoking. "

"Ruined the love i had for the sport. Quite possibly the worst coach in all of NCAA. go anywhere than where he is, your life will be better if you don’t meet him. "

"Coaching for 25+ years in the program. I’m happy he is committed and invested in running. He provides a christian spiritual belief to set the standards of being Christ followers. He is devoted to in students improving their running career and academic to be successful. I recommend him for anyone that wants a Christian old school mentality coach that bring a team together. Many things I wish he can improve on is the workouts and routines daily. Many things feel the same and don’t benefit much out of at all as threshold and sprint workout every week. I feel his methods are outdated or can be improve on with new outside ideas, but this doesn’t happen because he can be closed minded to where it’s his way or bust. Another concern is how much he is invested in every student on the team. Lifting and morning runnings with team I believe is critical in a cross country program that isn’t represented at GU, as well as, the decrease of low milage of running. He also picks and chooses student athletes to get better and doesn’t connect with even the not so great runners. This team only trains to win the under developed SLIAC conference and not regional, national, or Christian nationals to compete at higher upper level d3 schools as North Central College, Wartburg, Illinois Wesylan, or Millikin University. Overall, he does respect players and cares about academics of students. I wish there was more motivation or new ideas instead of things being shot down or disband. It’s hard to want to compete with a team when the connection and communication isn’t seen on a daily basic. "

"Would not recommend this coach."

"Political coach Doesn’t care about players physical or mental health Only cares about winning "

"Coach Potts is passionate about the sport of track, and after he had a stellar breakout college career, he now is committed to helping other athletes achieve their dreams, become contributors to a highly successful program, and most importantly, win. "

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"Not a completely honest coach. He has many evident favorites. When recruiting he will tell the family and potential player that “best players play”, yet statistically does the opposite. SLIAC is one of the worst conferences in the nation for D3, and though his team wins most years, they never get past the first round of the NCAA tournament. Speed and strength are not a top quality on his team, though he claims they are. Training and working out is not a legitimate requirement. He actually creates a “depth chart” for all the players to have access to at all times. He literally ranks each player, in each position, best to worst based on what he and his coaching staff (who are just as bad) have agreed on. To make matters even worse, he is the athletic director, therefore no one can really tell him what he needs to improve on in the athletic department. Out of the many years I played volleyball, one of which was for a nationally known D1 coach and is heavily applauded for his work, Tom Ackerman is by far the absolute worst coach I ever had. I truly regret attending Greenville University and playing for him. He attempted to destroy the love of the game for myself and many (many) others."