First question I'd ask is "Have you ever heard of EPO?"
If you like to ask questions like that, you would never be invited to press conferences. If you did ask that question, what response would you be looking for? Insults are not really questions.
Taking a page from the letsrun/jgault school of running journalism, this is a totally fair question considering he "had never heard of nandrolone," one of the most commonly used prohibited PEDs.
First question I'd ask is "Have you ever heard of EPO?"
If you like to ask questions like that, you would never be invited to press conferences. If you did ask that question, what response would you be looking for? Insults are not really questions.
Except in one small corner of the LRC message board. In that corner, the EPO question is seen as a way to force JS to out himself as a liar, no matter how he answered. If he said he didn't know what EPO is, he'd obviously be lying; and said he did know what EPO is, he'd confirm he lied when he said he'd never heard of nando.
If you like to ask questions like that, you would never be invited to press conferences. If you did ask that question, what response would you be looking for? Insults are not really questions.
Except in one small corner of the LRC message board. In that corner, the EPO question is seen as a way to force JS to out himself as a liar, no matter how he answered. If he said he didn't know what EPO is, he'd obviously be lying; and said he did know what EPO is, he'd confirm he lied when he said he'd never heard of nando.
In a word: Gotcha!
Anyone that would ask a question like that is more of a heckler than a journalist.
I watched Jerry's press conference. What strikes you immediately is that his demeanor is the direct opposite of Robert Johnson's, namely, positive and friendly, and to replace Johnson's 14 NCAA team titles, he has the assistance of some great assistant coaches like Brian Blutreich, whose throwers won 15 NCAA individual titles at ASU alone, Shalane, and their sprint coach. Where Johnson alienates, despite his tremendous success, Jerry builds relationships and his athletes have had nothing but good to say about him, except with the continued presence of Houlihan around BTC. The same is the case for Shalane. Jerry will reverse the athlete flight once they settle the scholarships issue, and maybe he can even build a McDonnell like program (in strength, not duration) with the combination of resources to all elements of xc and track and field, NIL monies coming in to supplement scholarships, and possible roster limit increases they were talking about at the presser.
No, he's not that articulate, but then few big-time coaches are. That is something that always surprises, that inarticulate people, often not that smart, rise up to great heights. In his case, however, it's justified, because he has the results to back it up, and his demeanor is perfect for the present moment in American collegiate coaching. Raise no hackles and you'll do well.
ASU with Blutreich had 1st in women's discus, 3rd in men's discus, 3rd in women's hammer, and 2nd in both men's and women's shot this year.
That's roughly 24 pts for the women and 14 for the men. Winning team scores were 74 for the Florida women and 54 for the Florida men. Add a javelin coach (ASU didn't score in men's or women's javelin) and maybe throws will get Oregon a third of the way toward men's and women's titles most years. I'm expecting Oregon distance to score 20-30 a season per gender with Jerry.
As far as I can see, Oregon women didn't score any distance points outdoors this year.
The men scored 1 point (8th) in the 10000m. Those results were probably the straw that broke the camel's back for Phil Knight.
Princeton distance men alone had 3rd-5th-7th in the meet (12 pts).
Bowerman is losing prestige as a group. Jerry knows it Nike knows it. Elite NCAA athletes were going elsewhere the last few years. This is an unethical move and will keep Nike at the top.
First question I'd ask is "Have you ever heard of EPO?"
If you like to ask questions like that, you would never be invited to press conferences. If you did ask that question, what response would you be looking for? Insults are not really questions.
Perhaps that is why the press is a giant pile of $hit. Avoiding the gigantic elephant in the room. There really should be some serious scrutiny when a professional track coach claims to have never heard of a very common performance enhancing drug, and the response I'd be looking for is an answer to why someone would think such a complete lie would be believed by anyone, why he is so afraid to own up to the fact that one of his athletes tested positive, why he continues to defend and coach that athlete after an official ban that held up on appeal was issued, and why anyone should believe anything that comes out of his mouth after such an absurd statement. We are something like a year beyond that press conference and still no answers from hero coach Jerry. In the meantime, one of my favorite runners, Grant Fisher, runs fabulously and I'd like to believe he is clean, but his association with that team now puts a question mark next to him, which is not fair to Fisher.
I will add that I don't have any reason to believe that Jerry was involved in Shelby's doping, but that I lost total respect for him for not being able to shoulder the responsibility to condemn a convicted doper. It's time for him to come out and declare Shelby the dope cheat that she is, or he should step down from professional coaching, or maybe we can just all admit that track and field is a fake sport where everyone is a dope clown.
I will add that I don't have any reason to believe that Jerry was involved in Shelby's doping, but that I lost total respect for him for not being able to shoulder the responsibility to condemn a convicted doper. It's time for him to come out and declare Shelby the dope cheat that she is, or he should step down from professional coaching, or maybe we can just all admit that track and field is a fake sport where everyone is a dope clown.
Wow! Did you know that he has children in college, others in HS and what about his mortgage payments? According to LRers, there are many elite runners that dope but Schumacher is the coach that has to answer for doping in the sport?
I don’t believe he had anything to do with Houlihan’s doping and it’s not criminal to have loyalty to someone he might consider to be a friend and maybe he does believe, like some posters on LR, that her having nandrolone in her system was unintentional. He has that right.
No matter what he says, I won’t be calling T&F a clown sport, anytime soon.
Given that you are passing judgement on Jerry’s intelligence, likely knowing almost zero about him, you must posses genius-Iike intellect.
The guy above me was doing that, not me. But it's not that unreasonable to pass judgment on how articulate someone is from watching them answer questions, which is what I did. (His son at Stanford was all-academic Pac-12 or NCAA this year).
I do not believe for one minute that Jerry is press shy. I sense that he wants to control the narrative and that he is rather calculating (and even deceptive) if necessary.
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