I will list some attributes of my bad division 1 xc coach:
- Inflexible. Still doing the same kind of workouts they did in the 90s and unwilling to adapt
- Claims to be a "Lidyard disciple" but can't elaborate further
- Encouraging eating disorders
- Mind games / manipulative behavior to get athletes to do what he wanted
- Flying off the handle at seemingly normal questions. Generally prone to fits of rage.
- Forwarding confidential emails from an athlete (without their permission) to the entire team for the purpose of shaming said athlete
- Being weird when interacting with black people
- Carried himself with spiritual guru vibe
- Lacking people skills and awareness of said lack of people skills.
- Telling people on the team to spy and snitch on their teammates for things like eating a candy bar
Good start. I would add a person more interested in what you can do for them (a transactional situation) than how they can help you optimize your performance and meet your goals.
Running an athlete when injured where that running might make the injury worse or delay its healing or put you at long term risk.
All of those and my daughter experienced a coach who never had recovery days. Every day, except the pre-meet day, was hard. By the end of the season every girl except one was injured or quit.
And she would belittle the runners in front of the team if they didn't hit the prescribed pace.
I will list some attributes of my bad division 1 xc coach:
- Inflexible. Still doing the same kind of workouts they did in the 90s and unwilling to adapt
- Claims to be a "Lidyard disciple" but can't elaborate further
- Encouraging eating disorders
- Mind games / manipulative behavior to get athletes to do what he wanted
- Flying off the handle at seemingly normal questions. Generally prone to fits of rage.
- Forwarding confidential emails from an athlete (without their permission) to the entire team for the purpose of shaming said athlete
- Being weird when interacting with black people
- Carried himself with spiritual guru vibe
- Lacking people skills and awareness of said lack of people skills.
- Telling people on the team to spy and snitch on their teammates for things like eating a candy bar
My DI coach was pretty good in a lot of ways, but also bad in other ways. His bad qualities definitely included some on your list including:
-Inflexible- mine too was still having us do same workouts as years ago. When not working for certain athletes who didn't respond well to his type of training, he'd get defensive and blame it on the athlete if brought up that maybe we should try a different approach.
-Mind Games- mine too did that and was master of it. Would threaten scholarships if you weren't running well even if for legit reasons (ex. depression after being raped, both events he knew about, still weren't valid reasons to stop him from getting mad and playing mind games when said person was running slower than before)
-Breaking confidentiality- mine didn't forward confidential emails, but would bring up embarrassing stuff girls had shared with him in confidence in front of entire team, such as mentioning so and so was in my office crying this morning...
Other bad qualities mine had not from your list:
-Very few athletes who were good in HS managed to get much better under his training. Only undertrained HS athletes managed to get lucky and thrive under his coaching.
-Let biased assistant coach make decisions about who travels- assistant coach was super catty and very obviously picked favorites and treated them better than the people she dislikes. This led to very unfair system for deciding who gets to travel to big meets and who stays home and runs DIII locally. You could be objectively faster in all your recent races, but assistant might pick a slower athlete ahead of you.
there are a lot of bad coaches but the biggest issue is bad athletes. I'm sick of these threads where failing college athletes come in to whine, but at the same time they are:
-drunk and stoned 50% of the time they aren't at practice
-eating unhealthy foods
-not sleeping
-complaining about the training no matter what, thinking they know everything at 18-22
-blaming the coach for their own poor performances when in reality they quit in the middle of the race
-thinking they are way faster and more valuable than they really are
Straw man runners have now made an appearance in this thread.
Straw man runners have now made an appearance in this thread.
The thread is all strawmen. Coaches and athletes.
Yeah, the coaches described in this thread would have difficulty finding employment in any industry besides college XC. It seems ADs have no interest in interviews and vetting of candidates.
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Al Cantello is a disgrace to the United States Naval Academy
Literally everything Al Cantello did as a coach. That's a great example
100% I witnessed and experienced physical, mental, and emotional abuse from Al Cantello. He got away with it for as long as he did bc he exploited being at a military academy (meaning no one was going to talk) and was protected by the administration, to include acting AD Chet Gladchuck. Not only was Al Cantello never held accountable, he retired in glory after 55 years and was inducted into the collegiate coaching hall of fame. Al Cantello is a disgrace to the United States Naval Academy
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