We changed the title to make it more accuarte. Initially the title of the thread was, "HS Coach has his own athlete DQ'd". Please note the athlete ran the mile under protest and finished high enough to qualify to states if him being scratched is overturned.
What is the athlete supposed to do if the coach tells him to get off the track? Which coach does he listen to?
The athlete was CLEARLY IN THE WRONG.
2:11 is slower than his 1600 PR pace, it's embarrassingly slow for a 1:57/4:17/9:23 athlete. He had plenty of time to recover based on the schedule, especially considering he only had to run 9:53 to win and had 45-60 minutes of rest.
The head coach didn't disqualify the athlete, he scratched the athlete. It is fully in his right to do it. If you give a poor effort in any other sport, your coach benches you.
What is the athlete supposed to do if the coach tells him to get off the track? Which coach does he listen to?
The athlete was CLEARLY IN THE WRONG.
2:11 is slower than his 1600 PR pace, it's embarrassingly slow for a 1:57/4:17/9:23 athlete. He had plenty of time to recover based on the schedule, especially considering he only had to run 9:53 to win and had 45-60 minutes of rest.
The head coach didn't disqualify the athlete, he scratched the athlete. It is fully in his right to do it. If you give a poor effort in any other sport, your coach benches you.
I bet this kid's teammates were furious to see their championship hopes crumble because this dude didn't try in an event he should have won.
By the time the 1600 came around the team title was already lost because he cost them 10 points in the 800.
You bet that his teammates were furious that their championship dreams weren't carried by one guy? Glad the coach was there to ensure their hopes were absolutely buried by his move to remove him, scratched or DQd? Was dude depleted or dehydrated on the 800? How dare he have a bad race because that never should happen to a good runner. That's why you have temper tantrums and yell at your kids, because that shows you have what it takes to look like you want to win? If my best guy isn't performing, I'm doing my best to get him back in again regardless. Coaching starts when things become difficult. Virtually anyone can "coach" a great athlete by riding their coattails to the finish; real coaches lead them there.
2:11 is slower than his 1600 PR pace, it's embarrassingly slow for a 1:57/4:17/9:23 athlete. He had plenty of time to recover based on the schedule, especially considering he only had to run 9:53 to win and had 45-60 minutes of rest.
The head coach didn't disqualify the athlete, he scratched the athlete. It is fully in his right to do it. If you give a poor effort in any other sport, your coach benches you.
I bet this kid's teammates were furious to see their championship hopes crumble because this dude didn't try in an event he should have won.
By the time the 1600 came around the team title was already lost because he cost them 10 points in the 800.
You bet that his teammates were furious that their championship dreams weren't carried by one guy? Glad the coach was there to ensure their hopes were absolutely buried by his move to remove him, scratched or DQd? Was dude depleted or dehydrated on the 800? How dare he have a bad race because that never should happen to a good runner. That's why you have temper tantrums and yell at your kids, because that shows you have what it takes to look like you want to win? If my best guy isn't performing, I'm doing my best to get him back in again regardless. Coaching starts when things become difficult. Virtually anyone can "coach" a great athlete by riding their coattails to the finish; real coaches lead them there.
The dreams weren't carried by one guy. He scored 10 of the team's 94 points. He wasn't even the highest scoring kid named Aidan on his team LMAO.
he had already qualified for the 3200. by the 1600 they were losing by 50+ points so there is no need to risk his safety if a 2:11 800 dehydrated him so badly.
2:11 is slower than his 1600 PR pace, it's embarrassingly slow for a 1:57/4:17/9:23 athlete. He had plenty of time to recover based on the schedule, especially considering he only had to run 9:53 to win and had 45-60 minutes of rest.
The head coach didn't disqualify the athlete, he scratched the athlete. It is fully in his right to do it. If you give a poor effort in any other sport, your coach benches you.
I bet this kid's teammates were furious to see their championship hopes crumble because this dude didn't try in an event he should have won.
By the time the 1600 came around the team title was already lost because he cost them 10 points in the 800.
They lost the team title by 91 points. They never had a shot at the time title. And they still finished second despite the coach willingly forfeiting his 1600 points.
Are there any meet officials or race organizers at these races? Why didn't the meet official/organizer just tell the coach, " No...I'm not DQing anybody without a valid reason."
The distance coach, Samantha Gerrits, coached the boy XC team to the state title as a first-year coach. She is a former 5:00+ marathoner who recently ran 3:28 at Houston and took 3rd overall at the Space Coast Marathon.
It's a district meet which is a championship meet. The coach's job is to win the team title. The athletes job is to contribute as much as he can. Yes, the athletes safety is a priority but running the 3200, 800, and 1600 isn't going to hurt anyone.
I had roughly similar hsvprs as the athlete in question. My junior and senior year, I ran the 3200, 800, and 1600 at our conference meet. This was at a boys only meet that took less than 90 minutes from the first final to the 4x 4. I probably had 45 minutes between the 3200 to the 800 and maybe 25 mins from the 800 to the 1600. It was 90s degrees and humid each year. I ran every event hard and got 2 firsts and 1 second each year. We just barely won conference my junior year and just barely lost out my senior year.
I qualified for state both years a week after the conference meet with PR times so its not like running the triple hurt me.
If i had run 2:11 and no pointed in the 800 i would have been ashamed of myself and I guarantee my coach and teammates would have lost respect for me.
If you want to run for yourself, have someone bike pace you and post the results to Instagram and Strava. There's nothing wrong with that but 17 year old kids don't "deserve" to use team competitions as a vehicle to promote themselves.
The athlete gets to run state in the 3200. Butler isn't going to withdraw his scholarship because he doesn't run the 1600 at the FL state meet. The athlete is a solid 4:17 hs miler. Maybe he'll break 4 someday. Maybe he won't. Not running one event in the Florida state meet won't make any difference to that or any other significant part of the kids life.
If a star basketball player half-a$$ed defense in one of the last games of the year, people would applaud a coach who had the courage to bench his best athlete.
Refusing to run hard in your off event because it might slightly hurt your time in your best event is a punk move.
He started with a 9:53 (so 30 secs worse than his PB in the 3200) and ended with a 4:37 (20 sec worse than his PB in the 1600, to finish 4th). So maybe he was trying and just having a bad meet. We would expect in the 800 hed probably be about 10 sec off his PB, given how tough he was going in this meet. That would be nearly a 2:08. So not really much different than what he ran here to be honest.
If the coach said, man you look rough in this heat (30 sec off your PB in the 3200, and 13 sec off in the 800, and it looks like its going down hill) I want to scratch you for your safety, you can continue your season in the 3200, I'd say yeah that's reasonable. Scratching him for "not trying hard enough" when the evidence shows he was just struggling with the heat accross all events is insane.
He started with a 9:53 (so 30 secs worse than his PB in the 3200) and ended with a 4:37 (20 sec worse than his PB in the 1600, to finish 4th). So maybe he was trying and just having a bad meet. We would expect in the 800 hed probably be about 10 sec off his PB, given how tough he was going in this meet. That would be nearly a 2:08. So not really much different than what he ran here to be honest.
If the coach said, man you look rough in this heat (30 sec off your PB in the 3200, and 13 sec off in the 800, and it looks like its going down hill) I want to scratch you for your safety, you can continue your season in the 3200, I'd say yeah that's reasonable. Scratching him for "not trying hard enough" when the evidence shows he was just struggling with the heat accross all events is insane.
Struggling with the heat? 1) He won the 3200 and 2) By finishing top 4 in the 1600, he ran fast enough to go to the next round (if the scratch is nullified).
It looks like nearly everyone on here is siding with the athlete. I'd need to know more about it.
Think of it this way. Your college coach says, "I need you to run 10k and 5k at conference." You say, "No I ony want to run 5k." Coach reiterates, "We have a shot for top 2 finish. I need you to double."
You then jog the 10k. Coach pulls you from the meet. Would everyone immediately side with the athlete?
He started with a 9:53 (so 30 secs worse than his PB in the 3200) and ended with a 4:37 (20 sec worse than his PB in the 1600, to finish 4th). So maybe he was trying and just having a bad meet. We would expect in the 800 hed probably be about 10 sec off his PB, given how tough he was going in this meet. That would be nearly a 2:08. So not really much different than what he ran here to be honest.
If the coach said, man you look rough in this heat (30 sec off your PB in the 3200, and 13 sec off in the 800, and it looks like its going down hill) I want to scratch you for your safety, you can continue your season in the 3200, I'd say yeah that's reasonable. Scratching him for "not trying hard enough" when the evidence shows he was just struggling with the heat accross all events is insane.
Struggling with the heat? 1) He won the 3200 and 2) By finishing top 4 in the 1600, he ran fast enough to go to the next round (if the scratch is nullified).
It looks like nearly everyone on here is siding with the athlete. I'd need to know more about it.
Think of it this way. Your college coach says, "I need you to run 10k and 5k at conference." You say, "No I ony want to run 5k." Coach reiterates, "We have a shot for top 2 finish. I need you to double."
You then jog the 10k. Coach pulls you from the meet. Would everyone immediately side with the athlete?
Rojo,
You are 100% correct. The kid dogged a race that his coach entered him in expecting him to do his best. Every good coach that I know would have sctratched him from his remaining events for that. Can you please change the title of the thread? The title is incorrect and many of the posters here are not very smart and believe the titile of the thread and are responding to that. The kid was not DQd, he was scratched. Officials should never have allowed him to check in for the race or to even compete in the race at all. Not sure how that even happens.
He started with a 9:53 (so 30 secs worse than his PB in the 3200) and ended with a 4:37 (20 sec worse than his PB in the 1600, to finish 4th). So maybe he was trying and just having a bad meet. We would expect in the 800 hed probably be about 10 sec off his PB, given how tough he was going in this meet. That would be nearly a 2:08. So not really much different than what he ran here to be honest.
If the coach said, man you look rough in this heat (30 sec off your PB in the 3200, and 13 sec off in the 800, and it looks like its going down hill) I want to scratch you for your safety, you can continue your season in the 3200, I'd say yeah that's reasonable. Scratching him for "not trying hard enough" when the evidence shows he was just struggling with the heat accross all events is insane.
Struggling with the heat? 1) He won the 3200 and 2) By finishing top 4 in the 1600, he ran fast enough to go to the next round (if the scratch is nullified).
It looks like nearly everyone on here is siding with the athlete. I'd need to know more about it.
Think of it this way. Your college coach says, "I need you to run 10k and 5k at conference." You say, "No I ony want to run 5k." Coach reiterates, "We have a shot for top 2 finish. I need you to double."
You then jog the 10k. Coach pulls you from the meet. Would everyone immediately side with the athlete?
there is no world where running the 3200, 800, and 1600 all at one track meet is beneficial in any way aside from situations where this one runner is way faster than everyone else and can just win via sit and kick. if you need the team points, then the coaches should've harvested a better team throughout the years than to put all their chips on one runner in one track meet. running these 3 events is only going to waste energy that was better spent on the next interval workout. the coach isn't wrong if the athlete violated the "bonafide effort" rule, but if that coach put an unprepared runner into all 3 of these events and expected quality throughout all 3 races, then principal of the school should starting questioning this coach's intentions.
At the FHSAA 4A District 10 meet, the Viera HS Head coach had his own runner, Aedan Rendek, DQ'd from the 1600 because he "didn't run hard enough" in the 800 earlier. Kid also ran the 3200. Here's video of the head coach and the distance coach arguing at the starting line.
I guess Rendek was DQ'd from everything and his season is over. I've been a coach for 20 years and I have never seen anything like this. I think this is seriously F'd up.
Sounds like my old coach. No offense to the boomers and Gen Xers, but I'll be glad when the "you're just not tough enough" generation retires out of coaching.
This gave me a nostalgia trip from my HS days lol. I can't remember which meet it was (maybe county champs?), I asked our distance coach if I could run just the 3200 because I wanted to see what I could run all out and I was going to triple anyways at State. I ended up running both the 800m and 3200m at the meet, but got the okay from the distance coach to take it easy and just try to get some points in the 8 and then go all out in the 32.
I ended up scoring in the 8 and nearly got a PR in the 32 but the head track coach didn't even care or watch the race. However, what he did see was me smiling and laughing after the first lap of the 800m and apparently he was pis*ed that I "wasn't taking the sport serious enough." The day after the meet he took me into his office alone and told me he was going to kick me off the team if I "pulled something like that ever again." Dude was a grown 50 year old yelling at some 15 year old girl as if some HS meet was like the Olympic freaking Games. He didn't care at all to hear anything me or our distance coach had to say, quoting "excuses."
Some coaches have some serious power trips when they get in a position of authority... it's crazy. Blows my mind that some schools don't do more background checks to see how these adults treat kids and the kind of environment they foster.
On a side note though, I PR'd in all my events when I tripled and made sure to smile through the last 100m of each race just to spite that ludicrous coach that cared more about athletes looking like they're dying rather than having fun pushing themselves to their limits. It's a bit petty, but I'll always remember that story whenever I see those pictures. : )
Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win a LetsRun t-shirt.Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win one of 10 LetsRun t-shirts.