Jerry Schumacher on 60 Minutes

Anonymous Pseudonym wrote:

I have talked to both Jerry and Alberto, and found Jerry much more approachable and friendly, but that is at least somewhat situational.

I have spoken with both Jerry and George and found George more approachable. That is very situational.

GEORGE: What kind of a person are you?

JERRY: I think I'm pretty much like you-- only successful.

Go Jerry wrote:

Some other coaches like to hog the spotlight and get more PR than their runners do.

I immediately thought of Percy Cerutty. No Doubt!!

The more I think about it, I think he should go back to college and just be a great college T&F coach who thrives on competing in dual meets and team competitions. That's what he seems to be what he cares about. The irony is that he was happy at Wisconsin and only through Salazar pushing him and prodding him to come out to Portland did he finally accept the offer from Nike. That's all he cares about. For all the cr@p that people give Salazar, its time to consider that Salazar is right about Schumacher. Shumacher uses his athletes to try and show up Salazar with shady team tactics in US trial races. Or has his athletes in peak condition for some meaningless spring race in an off year (i.e. Solinsky at the 2010 Payton Jordan) to run behind Rupp and show him up.

The Dingo wrote:

Anyone else watch the 60 Minutes feature with Shalane? Jerry actually does an interview and answers some questions! I didn't even really know what he looked like up until that.

I'd say I root for his group more than any other. I think the guy should be less private. I haven't seen an interview on LR or Flotrack pretty much ever (don't know if he's spoken in some FloPro material?) but he'll speak to the entire nation!?

I get it, this interview's not about the secrets of training, it's about coming back and supporting Boston after last year, but I want this guy to open up at least a little bit to the running community. Any idea why he doesn't?

outside of his athletes Jerry is one of the biggest jerks out there!

BTW: why all the Secrecy....what is he covering up?...Jerry should be srutinize more, I don't trust his type!

Solinsky was just as peaked for Payton as Rupp was. Pretty sure Solinsky continuesly fast for the rest of the outdoor circuit.

Ha yep I love the desperation of some supporters (not just of Rupp, btw)

Rupp was going for an AR at this "meaningless spring race." Solinsky beat him soundly.

He didn't peak and squeak by Rupp in a so-so time. He ran that AR and, again, beat Rupp soundly.

No. I think its pretty well established that Solinsky was running a higher volume than Rupp in the weeks leading up to Payton Jordan. In fairness to Schumacher I think even he had been warning Solinsky that he was risking injury with the training he was doing.

ryan foreman wrote:

No. I think its pretty well established that Solinsky was running a higher volume than Rupp in the weeks leading up to Payton Jordan. In fairness to Schumacher I think even he had been warning Solinsky that he was risking injury with the training he was doing.

Regardless if Solinsky focused his whole season on an April US 10,000 and targeted for that, he still ran great throughout the year. And broke 13:00 for 5000 several weeks later.

Salazar and Rupp believed Rupp was ready to break 27:10 at that race and didn't consider that any other American would be challenging that. They thought it was a lock.

As far as Jerry, he's no more of an oddball than most top distance coaches or runners. Actually he's more animated and talkative than most when he is in his environment.

I ran with him in college. The guy was never in a sour mood or changed on a day to day basis. Almost annoying, like people at where you work that are high energy at 7:30 in the morning and ready to go without a slow break-in to the day with a cup of coffee.

Chris ended up running sub 13 for 5k four times that year ended up ranked 3rd in the world in the event. I don't think he peaked just that once at Payton Jordan

On a different note, Jerry seems gay to me. As a gay man, I know one when I see one, and I'm right about 97% the time. He's an amazing coach with the right athlete. His only fault has been not telling solinsky to chill the f?#k out when he was training like a mad man.

1 hour wrote:

Shut up Dennis. You are just mad that a white man was on 60 minutes without being made to look like a criminal.

Ah, you noticed that we do that. Make sure you don't point this out again. Or else.

Hey ha wrote:

On a different note, Jerry seems gay to me. As a gay man, I know one when I see one, and I'm right about 97% the time. He's an amazing coach with the right athlete. His only fault has been not telling solinsky to chill the f?#k out when he was training like a mad man.

I am not gay, but I feel like I am pretty good at detecting gay people, too. I don't think he is gay. I ran for Jerry and found him to be a really devoted husband and father. His wife is very attractive and - while he is very professional - he definitely noticed the ladies (not his athletes). This was never done in an overt way (like a cover-up). Not that there is anything wrong with being gay. I just think he is your typical straight, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth midwesterner. A real Tom Joad type without the troubled past.

Somewhat related, I think he is the kind of guy that has benefited from having such a solid running-related profession. I think that if he wasn't so successful as a coach, he would have found another passion. He is 100% all the time, so he would be a nightmare weekend-warrior type. A solid runner in his own right, he transitioned well into a coach.

Running Guy Man wrote:

Anonymous Pseudonym wrote:

I have talked to both Jerry and Alberto, and found Jerry much more approachable and friendly, but that is at least somewhat situational.

That is because Alberto is a weirdo and Jerry is a genuinely good guy.

For all of his success, Alberto is far more down-to-earth than most people would imagine. When his athletes are training or competing, I have heard he's difficult to talk to to, but you can't hold that against him. Although I know him more as an athlete than a coach, but from my few interactions over the last couple of years, he is still pretty much the same guy from 25 years ago.

I have one question regarding Jerry's "secrecy" /lack of openness about his training:

Do his guys/gals use artificial altitude ? Alberto is very open about this, but I've never heard Jerry or his guys/gals openly state that they use it, and in fact, they generally mock alberto's "gadget" mentality. Well, do they use the biggest "gadget" of all, the one that would most likely enhance performance to the largest degree? As I stated, I wonder because they've never, as far as I know, said one way or the other. And yet, I know for a fact that Shalane's Dad has stated (in private) that Shalane huffs the synthetic air. So.....do the rest of them?

This is important to know, because many of the most shocking performances of by non-african athletes have been possibly enhanced due artificial altitude: Paula 2:15, Ritz 12:56, Rupp silver medal/26:48, Farah, 3:28 and multiple gold medalist. What about Sol's mind-boggling stretch of sub 27 and easily sub 13 5k's ? Was this produced on good ol-fashioned miles, talent, and guts, or.....did the blood-boosting synthetic altitude play a role?

#ocl wrote:

My beef with Jerry is that he is unoriginal in his training program.. stole everything he learned from Alberto.

If it works it works. I had a parent criticize me because I wasn't original and compared me to another team. She actually told me that I should go to him for advice.

I asked when the last time was that HIS teams (B & G) beat mine. The answer is- his teams, with their creative training, have NEVER beaten mine.

Creativity is useless if lack of creativity works better.

runn wrote:

I had a parent criticize me

This has nothing to do with Jerry, but I volunteer coach my daughter's 6-year-old soccer team and one of the parents came up to me after practice the other night to suggest that I might want to have the girls focus on position play - he fancies his daughter a forward.

I reminded him that we play 3-on-3 without goalies and we don't keep score. We aren't going to have positions. I also told him that he is welcome to join me as a coach if he wants to participate.

Sometimes parents are just kind of odd. I think most of the time they mean well, though.

Anyone in P-town ever seen Dobert and Julian hanging out at a bar?

I will say that some of the most notable performances from Jerry's male athletes do not come from intl championships. It wasn't just Sol who ran phenomenal at Cardinal invite that year in the 10K, all of their 10K guys did. Wasn't it last year when they seemed to really get up for the PRE 5K, but not so much worlds?

It feels a little bit like they get over excited to take down a NOP guy in any race, where the NOP cats are racing through it saving the excitement for the intl champsionships.

Salazar is not a nice person. I put him in the same category as Lance Armstrong.

I wonder what Salazar and Nike expected when they brought Jerry out to coach a high caliber group in Portland.

I imagine it was only for Nike to have two dominant groups and at the same time allow Salazar to focus on a few of the best. And it is hard to coach more than 6 people effectively at one time. Its hard to coach one person if you are really putting in all your energies to do everything just right.

So they bring in Jerry to coach the other world class prospects and wear the Nike singlet and yet Salazar thinks Jerry's runners don't want to beat his runners but just thinks its good to make sure they fill out the National Teams with Nike runners.

I know Jerry is hyper-competitive. And I bet he does use team tactics at US Championship with his group.

Why not? Isn't that the point?

What is he supposed to do? Have Nike tell him that his job is to coach the next best runners that Salazar doesn't coach and make sure you put them on National Teams but make sure you know your role?

What's Jerry supposed to do coaching those great athletes?

I mean seriously the way that was set up how can you expect it would be any different than it is?

Those runners devote years and put everything in it and good money shoe contracts won't drive you to do the daily work and focus and abnormal life like they live.

Competition does.