entitled 19 year old wrote:
Why anyone would want to become a college coach is beyond me. After what happened to Metcalf and things like this. You’re at the mercy of idiot 18-22 year olds. If they decide they don’t like you they just make up or embellish some crap to get you fired and publicly shamed.
What’d you do to get the team united against you? Sounds like poor coaching.
A reply to a post validly points out the tightrope coaches today have to walk in order to not fully emotionally appease 100% of their athletes, particularly those who are basically emotionally unfit to handle reality and/or the world around them.
The first unreasonable emotionally charged response? Name calling people who don't share your beliefs 'right wing' and 'incels' because you don't actually have anything to bring to the table intellectually. You just want to stamp your feet and be mad that you're also emotionally unfit to deal with any sort of discomfort - helpfully intentioned or not - whatsoever and force society to cave to you and your likeminded lowest common denominator weakling peers' way of thinking. Brave. Courageous. Powerful. Jezus F'in Christ.
I find this thread sad. With the exception of some posts, basically read the testimonials. A huge amount of people spoke out about horribly unfit practices on their team. Instead of, like elsewhere, people being pleased that they have spoken out and crediting them with the strength for doing that, here they're torn down, criticised. Are the people who are doing this people who have actually read the testimonials? Or have they just childishly jumped to conclusions, assumed, without actually reading peoples' experiences? It's a lot of people. And a lot of wrong. And some of those people are still dealing with the after effects - physical and mental - 10 years on, and may well do so for the rest of their lives. All for D3 cross country. Is that worth it?
crumpolina wrote:
I find this thread sad. With the exception of some posts, basically read the testimonials. A huge amount of people spoke out about horribly unfit practices on their team. Instead of, like elsewhere, people being pleased that they have spoken out and crediting them with the strength for doing that, here they're torn down, criticised. Are the people who are doing this people who have actually read the testimonials? Or have they just childishly jumped to conclusions, assumed, without actually reading peoples' experiences? It's a lot of people. And a lot of wrong. And some of those people are still dealing with the after effects - physical and mental - 10 years on, and may well do so for the rest of their lives. All for D3 cross country. Is that worth it?
Just end government funding of sports: high school, college, Olympic, tax breaks and funding for pro stadiums. Then outlaw using any male sports that survive from being linked to the female version, so female pro tennis can't leach off male tennis revenue, etc. 99.9% of the problems you're complaining about will go away, although women will find a way to be traumatized about some other aspect of their life.
If you had taken the time to actually read the demands and testimonials, you would have realized that a) many of the testimonials include positives about the coach as well and b) that it is explicitly stated multiple times that the point of the article is not for the coach’s removal, or even cessation of nutrition/weight loss advising, only that there be a nutrition expert present at those meetings and a trainer who is familiar with the mental and physical injuries faced by many endurance athletes.
These are thoughtful comments and demands that are asking the system to be more educated about women’s physiology and nutrition. That’s it.
Finally, if you’re going to blast someone for calling people names because they don’t share their beliefs, maybe you shouldn’t do the exact same thing yourself by calling them “weaklings” or “the lowest common denominator.” You want to have a reasonable conversation, let’s have a reasonable conversation! There is no easy answer in all this and it’s normal that there is some disagreement but no one has to degrade others in the process.
You and I are in agreement that it can be difficult for a coach to toe the line between being tough and pushing their athletes too far, but I feel that this line can and needs to be found for the health and well-being of all athletes, both men and women.
Bonkers wrote:
ggkjfdfgbbhjjfserghj wrote:
So, how to handle it? The fact is, carrying more weight makes you slower.
If gal, or guy, is getting heavier and slowing down, do you just say nothing and drop them next year? Or do you say something and get branded as a horrible person for opening a can of worms?
Of course, encouraging the loss of weight from the athletes long term baseline is not the thing to do.
You focus on training towards fitness, not training towards weight. If you do the proper training you will fall into your correct racing weight quite naturally. Focusing on cutting weight as a path to fitness is putting the cart before the horse. In addition to endangering the athlete's health, it's just bad training methodology.
Nope. If you’re carrying excess fat you have to eat less calories. There’s no way around it. Bringing your body to an ideal weight (through diet) is the best way to get there and should be viewed as part of the training.
+1
times a changin wrote:
A reply to a post validly points out the tightrope coaches today have to walk in order to not fully emotionally appease 100% of their athletes, particularly those who are basically emotionally unfit to handle reality and/or the world around them.
The first unreasonable emotionally charged response? Name calling people who don't share your beliefs 'right wing' and 'incels' because you don't actually have anything to bring to the table intellectually. You just want to stamp your feet and be mad that you're also emotionally unfit to deal with any sort of discomfort - helpfully intentioned or not - whatsoever and force society to cave to you and your likeminded lowest common denominator weakling peers' way of thinking. Brave. Courageous. Powerful. Jezus F'in Christ.
+1
I don't have a Username wrote:
I ran in college at a D1 school, and I am a female. I think coaches have to be really careful about how they talk to their female athletes about body weight. I had several teammates that said our coach had called them fat in individual meetings, which I just don't believe he did. We had to log our body weight in our training log which he would look over during weekly individual meetings, but I don't think this was for him to be able to body shame us, but for us to keep track and be mindful about it. I remember, during my first season, I lost 4 lbs and his comment about it was just "you're getting fit", which I did. But I think other girls probably would have interpreted this as "keep loosing weight".
One of my former teammates came back after Christmas break one time and she had obviously lost a lot of weight. She went from about 105 to 98 at 5'7. She then went on to gain weight and within 2-3 weeks she was back at 107. At that point, she told everyone coach had called her "fat", but when I asked how he had worded it she said he had told her to not gain any more weight. This was just so ridiculous. So she interpreted "don't gain any more weight" as "you're fat". At 107, she was still underweight, but so much fluctuation in weight is not good, so coach told her to keep it the way it was. Well, later it turned out she had an eating disorder.
Maybe athletic departments should have a dietitian on staff to talk about these things. You are right, some girls are being stupid about these things, but you have to remember that at 18 years old, most girls just went through major changes in their bodies and are sensitive about it. I don't know about other girls but I was being really weird about it and almost ashamed that I had gotten boobs. It's just not an easy time. And as I said, some girls may interpret comments in a wrong and harmful way.
Well, your post pretty much points out that a lot of coaches have little to no training or expertise in talking about or understanding of how body weight relates to performance but yet it is consistently used in discussion with athletes across genders.
First off if this accurate an athlete who is 5'7 and 107 or 98 pounds is way underweight so a coach saying they are fit is...wrong and probably should stfu and was most likely guiding the rest of you wrong too despite your own impressions or interpretations.
Coaches seem to use weight as an easy talking point to improve performance, but its a red herring and this silly post overall is a red herring.
If a woman is struggling in her running, then guess what male coach, its time to look at the constellation of factors and take responsibility including examining if your training system has flaws, is communication breaking down, is there a trust issue, if there is a diet issue or confidence issue get them to the proper people.
The reality is there are a lot of really poorly trained coaches out there with basically no credentials except experience in running telling women they "look fit" based on nothing more than their own eyeballs and anytime they are called to task for their mediocrity they wither up and write posts like this saying they want to stop coaching women BC its hard.
ggkjfdfgbbhjjfserghj wrote:
So, how to handle it? The fact is, carrying more weight makes you slower.
If gal, or guy, is getting heavier and slowing down, do you just say nothing and drop them next year? Or do you say something and get branded as a horrible person for opening a can of worms?
Of course, encouraging the loss of weight from the athletes long term baseline is not the thing to do.
Your second sentence is true to an extent, but once you cross into unhealthy weight loss that causes the female athlete triad then it is not only extremely unhealthy, but likely will make the athlete slower at a certain point. If you don't understand this then you shouldn't be coaching women.
Poor coaches love metrics.
I don't have a Username wrote:
We had to log our body weight in our training log which he would look over during weekly individual meetings, but I don't think this was for him to be able to body shame us, but for us to keep track and be mindful about it.
Might be well intentioned, but this is a horrible idea for a collegiate coach. As an assistant I've had a head coach who insists on weighing only his female athletes, not the guys ever, and it's a total cringefest. Literally the weigh-ins are done in public too. The head coach means well, truly, but has no clue about eating disorders and how easily they can come on with stimulus like that. I won't be coaching there anymore after this season. Ticking time bomb I don't want shrapnel from.
In the running on om podcast with Molly Seidel, there is a point where she says she got so light while injured that when she returned to running she was flying in workouts because her body mass was so low that it gave her a false sense of fitness. She also ended up breaking her back two weeks later.
As a former D1 runner myself who had a coach that pushed the lighter equals faster agenda, I saw this scenario (molly's and the Wesleyan girls') play out many times with my teammates. We were never able to sustain any real consistency as a team b/c someone was either getting injured or burnt out. Individuals would get their body weight around 100lbs, have one great season, then disappear. We would even be advised not to lift weights for fear of 'bulking up' and were given lower mileage mediocre training plans yet were still expected to 'look fit.' If you're interested in hearing more about my experience, I have an e book called She Was Once a runner
Question--Yuki competed for 12 seasons? I thought even with redshirting the most you can compete is 5 years?
My name is Yuki Christina Hebner ‘17 and I competed for Wesleyan’s cross country and track teams for 12 seasons.
I was in my 20s before I realized the importance of maintaining my weight. Whenever I dropped below a certain number, injuries began to pop up like clockwork. As a male physician who has over 100k miles on my legs, I really wish college coaches and high school coaches would teach their athletes that scales are to be used in this manner: go below this number and you’ll be forced to reduce training.
I don’t understand why coaches would log athlete weight.
I don’t understand why coaches would even talk about weight.
What coaches should be taking about is good nutrition and appropriate training volume for the athlete. Then let the cards fall where they fall.
These type A coaches need to learn how to create positive health cultures. It’s just really weird what some are doing.
jecht wrote:
Question--Yuki competed for 12 seasons? I thought even with redshirting the most you can compete is 5 years?
My name is Yuki Christina Hebner ‘17 and I competed for Wesleyan’s cross country and track teams for 12 seasons.
XC, indoor, outdoor =3
3 per year x 4 years
I read their “complaints”. I call it the victim hood of the rich . The coach says something they don’t like or they don’t do as well as they hoped and the coach has victimized them . It reminds me a lot of Donald Trump always complaining he has been wrong .
it is good that women are speaking out about how they want to be trained. how they need to be trained differently then men. the current way of training is to train men and women the same way. there should be no punishment for the coaches who coached women in the standard accepted way to coach men. they should be retrained and certified and allowed to keep their jobs is they want them.
Thanks; that makes sense now.
When I first read it I was like lol 12 years in college? I'm not the brightest but even I got through in 4 years.