Is Fernandez the next Jeff Nelson

From The Stands wrote:

Fernandez does seem injury prone, but he is in a lot better situation than Nelson. I think Smith will do whatever it takes to try and keep him healthy. Nelson probably didn't have that luxury at Oregon. Not a knock on Dellinger, it just he had a lot of athletes, both college and post college, was head track coach, and coached more at a team level, not individual.

Dellinger was a meat grinder who was not able to coach athletes individually, as was Bowerman's approach.

Consequently Dellinger burned out or turned off hoards of athletes. For every athlete Dellinger had success with, there are 50 he failed. He failed them by not delivering the individually prescribed coaching that Bowerman founded the Oregon way on, and he failed them personally, as he was a simple man without much social intelligence.

List out the guys who availed themselves of not being coached by Dellinger after they graduated.

List out the guys who dropped out during or after their freshman years.

The record of that side of Dellingers' career has never truly been written.

But the stories are all out there in ever year that Dellinger coached.

In that hayday at Oregon there was a few different kinds of profiles...

1. The stud talents that could survive and succeed under almost any workload and approach - the undeniable great talents.

2. Top talents that gave it there all but fell short due to burnout.

3. Top talents that knew they were being over worked and got burned out and dropped off the team. --This includes freshman who had run 1:51, 1:52 in high school. And other solid talents, that Bowerman would have nurtured individually/...Dellinger trained in a pac, and burned the majority out.

That is the truth about Dellinger that you rarely see written.

Why do you think it took so long for Oregon to have another great era?

After Dellinger destroyed a hoard of athletes that Pre attracted to Oregon (for every Salazar there was 5 guys Dellinger failed), if not for the J. Cruz era, Dellinger would have had a totally pedestrian legacy after Salazar's era. And, Salazar was very self coached.

It is all ancient history now, but I doubt a real critical review history of Dellinger's real career results and his real legacy will ever be written.

He was a nice enough guy, but he fluked into Pre, an athlete who could handle his workload. He tried ever after to give that same workload to everyone else, and after the wave of guys attracted to Oregon by Pre's limelight...Dellinger's bright spots became fewer and fewer.

His two best athletes? Salazar half coached himself. J. Cruz, arrived with his own coach.

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