Running as an Oregon duck almost ended my career - My NCAA Story

Precisely, and someone with a propensity for disordered eating is going to hear criticism in any feedback or questioning around the topic of weight and eating. As an adult, she needs to develop some self-awareness around that. Her comment on her legs feeling heavy opened the door. The coach either could have ignored the complaint or could have responded with an open question, which was the case here. Rather than clarify in answer with something like, "well, I'm not recovering well muscularly from the workouts this week," her mind immediately went to body weight and eating and she was off on a roller coaster ride she couldn't pull back from.

As a coach, instead of being defensive about this kind of thing, a more effective way of looking at it fir everyone involved is saying, "we got one or two people on podiums, how do we get more of that success?"

Bc that's really what your athletes are saying too. "We wanna be where they are, can you help me?"

Your response seriously implies a " I can help some, not all, and definitely not you" mentality, which fosters a fantastic motivational climate (sarcasm) 👏

i completely disagree

just because 2 people do the same thing doesn't mean the same outcome will occur

there's a reason everyone doesn't run the exact same training some things work for some and some don't

I can’t imagine why anyone would defend this interaction:

At the end of a horrible workout, an athlete with a known history of an eating disorder states “my legs feel heavy” and the coach responds by saying “ARE you heavy?” and telling the athlete to work with the nutritionist. I get that working with athletes with eating disorders in their history is complicated, but there is nothing complicated about the described situation. Whatever line there is, that interaction was well past it.

I get that some people might not believe that this happened and that’s one thing (although I watched the video and found her credible), but there are a number of people here assuming it went down the way she described and saying that was ok. It’s not.

I too tried to watch it but couldn't get past a few minutes.

I don't fault her of posting the video... that's what all the kids do these days.. but it just didn't hold my interest.

If she has an ED that's unfortunate and I hope she has resolved it. Running is fun and all but it shouldn't ruin your life.

Beyond anything else, what this story shows might indicate that Oregon isn't a perfect fit for everyone... that's not meant to bash Oregon ... it's a good fit for many runners, just not everyone.

People like you with this logic shouldn't be coaching

You sound like a terrible coach and person.

Assuming she’s not lying then “are you heavy?” is a pretty clear cut reference to her weight.

Of course Oregon and those coaches have been over the coals for the issues repeatedly.

Bingo.

Several are creating fictional scenarios and come across like they never even listened to the YouTube at all.

It's a reference to the comment that voluntarily came out of her own mouth. She was in a perfect storm. Greg Metcalf is coaching again, sadly I don't think there's any gains in beating a dead horse.

You guys just have difficulty in understanding because you're not at my level and will never be at my level. I can send you a postcard too...

Don't get lost in the catacombs when you go to Paris

This is the correct answer. Too many young athletes chewed up and spit out by the process, if you are looking for individualized training you should probably look elsewhere. Tony Holler of "Feed the Cats" fame has complained of the same thing: "On a further note, I wish college (and professional) coaches who label high school coaches as “developmental” coaches would start attempting to be developmental themselves. When 90% of college track athletes fail to exceed their high school PRs, the college model should be reexamined." And he's talking about sprinters!

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10 Common Misconceptions About Feed the Cats - SimpliFaster

Tony Holler

Misconceptions happen when we take other people’s word on something without trying it out ourselves. In this new series on SimpliFaster, we’ll be presenting articles on methods and concepts in athlete development that are all...

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I think the Oregon coaches are receiving a lot of understand unwarranted criticism here. They inherited an athlete who ran her best times while going through an eating disorder. As you all know, eating disorders in the short term can significantly improve performances until their bodies can't take it any more.

So Oregon had to take this athlete with "fake" PBs from the eating disorder and her confidence clearly broken, and somehow fix everything. It's almost impossible. Just look at Allie O and countless other examples.

The athlete is wrong to think higher mileage is the only reason she ran fast before. She ran fast because she dropped an unhealthy amount of weight. Higher mileage at Oregon would have caused more injuries and even possibly triggered the eating disorder.

A lot of what?

She was an adult. People her age are on Marine boot camp being broken down mentally, emotionally, and physically because it builds character. She was just mentally weak.

Wow.

Do you not understand that you shouldn't train everyone the same. I get it, you don't want to have 50 different workouts but if you do a good job recruiting, ,there should be 2-3 kids on every team that are talented enough to do well no matter what the coaching is.

Having 2-3 studs doesn't make you a good caoch, it makes you a good recruiter. What percent of your roster is better now than they were in HS? It should be near 100% barring injury.

Restrictions on students transferring to another school are unethical and take away agency from students. Get rid of all of them and compete on the quality of training. It's just as wrong to restrict the career of an athlete as it is of a coach. A boot camp sergeant has more incentive to treat the teenagers he's responsible for fairly than a powerful D1 coach does.

all coaches give 10k runners and 800m runners separate workouts, and don't treat their freshmen the same as their 6th year seniors. but top coaches aren't going to turn their backs on their basic principles, nor should they. they might use different variations but the themes will remain the same.

When Sahlman tells Mike Smith he doesn't like the mileage and wants to be an 800m runner, Smith will laugh in his face.