Believer in Groups wrote:
It appears that groups are a thing of the past.
Hansons lose Linden
Beasts lose all their women and Coaches wife says bye-bye
Hoka NY/NJ has budget cut in half
Lee Troop closes up
Brad Hudson runs off with one athlete
Zap loses sponsorship
Hoka NAZ entire men’s team leaves other than Fauble.
Linden left Hansons in April, and honestly was all but out prior to Boston.
Beasts needed someone with better coaching acumen.
NY/NJ slipped in developing athletes, same as the Farm Team years ago.
Troop and Hudson offered coaching services, only, they had no corporate backing to offer contracts. That sort of group will always see high turnover, personal agendas, and shifting allegiances eroding group culture if and when athletes are good enough to attract even modest sponsorship. It's a collection of mercenaries.
Zap switches sponsorship, and even going to Altra would have been an improvement over Reebok's product development and marketing hustle.
NAZ is just fine. Like Hansons, anytime you have athletes with the education and drive for better you'll get several who have a spouse who needs to follow a career path or they want to get on with developing their own. Living like a college student got old for many of us in four years, imagine continuing that sort of lifestyle for 4-8 more years with no advancement in education or employment opportunity.
What, no talk of Bowerman? Furman? Coburn/Bosshard? Tinman? Here's the thing: without a corporate structure to recruit and groom leadership, these things always have a limited life tied to the consistency and energy level an individual's or small cohort's passion and vision. Pro running is basically a stew of free agents (individual or collected) of athletes, sponsors, and races. There's no true, strong structure there like a real pro league or tour. There will always be short lifespan cycles to it. Groups work, of course, but in our country we don't have anything close to Honda, Toyota, etc. teams like in Japan.