I want to try and be respectful/understanding, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt after reading Jonathan Gault’s super long “6 coaches in 6 years” feature on him, but this split proves that the guy is completely uncoachable and has a massive ego and probably some kind of a personality disorder. He’s never been told “no” in his entire life. His dad is so wealthy that he built Josh an entire track complex during COVID so he could still train. The guy (not to mention his dad) are acting like spoiled kids. “You didn’t make Joshy wowld champion!! You’re fiwed!!”
He was probably on the precipice of over- cooked if not overcooked by the time that workout came about. He had a great series of races over a few weeks that would define a career for most. I agree with Rojo for once, uncoachable.
Josh should leave pops! Move to Australia to work with Justin, enjoy the southern summer and the euro summer. Swim in that beautiful water on the easy days. Relax, the people don’t even wear shoes! Think of the freedom this kid could enjoy. Have some training partners
Leave PA, leave the country and keep running fast!
I have little doubt it’s more of his father’s meddling. In fact, no doubt at all.
On the flip side, all these doping accusations, and yet no one mentions the bizarre story of a runner who disappears for three years, starts running in March, reels off a 1:44 in his first race, then a couple of 1:43s, them a PR 1:42.16 at Nats. Completely natural. Sure. The people who accuse Hoey while believing the Brazier BS story are pathetic. They really are.
That full article is behind of SC paywall until tomorrow. If you haven't read our earlier feature on how Hoey rose to global stardom under Rinaldi, you can read that now.
That full article is behind of SC paywall until tomorrow. If you haven't read our earlier feature on how Hoey rose to global stardom under Rinaldi, you can read that now.
Honestly - pretty crazy, it was an almost perfect season, expect getting 4th at the USAs, which was honestly 1 part his fault because he tried to front run and 1 part because a 16 year old ran a 1:42. Like come on?
Josh should leave pops! Move to Australia to work with Justin, enjoy the southern summer and the euro summer. Swim in that beautiful water on the easy days. Relax, the people don’t even wear shoes! Think of the freedom this kid could enjoy. Have some training partners
Leave PA, leave the country and keep running fast!
I have little doubt it’s more of his father’s meddling. In fact, no doubt at all.
On the flip side, all these doping accusations, and yet no one mentions the bizarre story of a runner who disappears for three years, starts running in March, reels off a 1:44 in his first race, then a couple of 1:43s, them a PR 1:42.16 at Nats. Completely natural. Sure. The people who accuse Hoey while believing the Brazier BS story are pathetic. They really are.
Yeah, I’ve wondered about that as well. We’ve all seen the problems runners have with just missing a couple of months (like Pattison and Ingebrigsten) and yet some guy just blows in and is better than ever on five months training (supposedly) after a three year layoff. Nothing suspicious here. Hey! Let’s go virtue signal by attacking some white guy who has money!
Hoey is making a big mistake. I agree that there’s little doubt that his know-it-all meddling father is the culprit here.
I completely understand viewing this as a Josh problem but having been around while his older brother competed and hearing some stories about the dad, I really think it's a dad thing. If anything, the brothers seemed quiet and timid, not arrogant or egotistical. Josh is an adult and responsible for himself and I'm sure a lot of the crap his coaches get is channeled through Josh but it always felt like the dad had his sons under his thumb. Think about your dad building a track for you to train on. In one way it's nice but it also puts a ton of pressure on Josh to stay and keep training at home and with his brothers.
Could have worked? It did work. He had one of the greatest turnarounds of any elite US runner I've ever followed. Hell he wasnt' even an elite US runner. Now he's #4 in the world.
Jonathan's got all of the details including what led to the split but it just comes down to this - Hoey is uncoachable. I have written an editorial stating that which will come out tomorrow.
His talent is big. His drive is amazing. He reminds me of Alan Webb. But recovey is one of the key things in the sport. Your body doesn't get stronger while you lift weights or faster while you are workinng out - it gets stronger as you recover.
Basically the thing that broke the came'ls back is Hoey didn't want to take any downtime after 2025. Crazy.
As you say, he was coached to #4 in the world. So I don't think it's fair to call him "uncoachable." I would suggest taking the impartial tone of a journalist and letting people decide for themselves if they feel the need to blame one party or another.
Well... was he "coached" to #4 in the world or did he compensate for the uncoachability by getting on a doping program (unbeknownst to Rinaldi)?
If there's one thing to commend Rinaldi for here it's his integrity. I imagine many coaches would go along with Hoey's inadvisable plans for 2026 in order to milk the cash cow that is Fran Hoey for all he is worth, and I wouldn't blame them!
This explains a lot about Hoey, honestly. Should've known by the way he was cycling through coaches like they were underwear, he clearly struggles to trust someone else with his own training. How on earth could he think it's a good idea to leave Rinaldi after how the last two years have gone?
As you say, he was coached to #4 in the world. So I don't think it's fair to call him "uncoachable." I would suggest taking the impartial tone of a journalist and letting people decide for themselves if they feel the need to blame one party or another.
I'm writing it as a column. It's clearly not a news piece. I'm even waiting a day to publish even though I've had it written for a week to make sure everyone knows this is just my opinion.
Dude hired a coach. Had two unreal years, but thinks he needs to change things.
The coach's main thing appears to be getthng him to relax, run things as proscribed and not go so hard and he won't listen to that. And it sounds like it was the same with other coaches. So he's uncoachable..
Hoey is an absolute dip$hit to do this. I can almost guarantee you that his dad is overarching and thinks he knows what he's doing. Good luck going back to 1:47 again.
Reminds me of that British woman who won the US Open out of nowhere a few years ago, Emma Radascu, and then she promptly ditched her coach and hasn't won anything since.
i don't know if this makes me a bad track fan, but I find this to be highly disappointing as a HUGE SCOOP or HUGE piece of news.
Go back to last week's podcast at the 56:00 mark, I hyped it as a piece of news so shocking that I wanted to go live with it immediately. I never hyped it as something that was going to change the sport forever.
I think it's a bigger deal for me as a former coach.
That being said, on the SC podcast, we did say I should bury the hatchet and offer to coach Josh. They can't be very far from Baltimore and I loved coaching 800 guys. The workouts are so much fun.
And I NEVER got made at guys for wanting it too much. Sage Canaday was always asking me about training. For the first 2+ years, he'd be challenging it all the time. It drove my boss nuts. Not me. I kept saying, "He just wants to be good." By senior year, he'd bought in and would like do EXACTLy what I wanted.
Josh has a FIRE that is special. He just needs to realize he needs a coach to hold himself back. Sometimes passion is what gets us in trouble. I joked Weldon was better than me as he was lazier than me in HS. I'd train to much and get stress fractures.
WEldon made a similar mistake senior year though. Hurt his back like 10 days out from the conference xc meet and then decided to go incredibly hard on stationary bike workouts when he'd never biked in his life. Totally different set of muscles. Ran horribly. They hay was in the barn. Should have just tapered.
I was content with my Dad (and Mom) sitting in the stands when I raced. They supported me in a way to keep me centered and grounded whether I did well or stunk it up, sports or non sports.
Josh's dad, the way he is involved is .... somethings off...
And at the end of the day I totally understand it, even though there is some nice prestige/benefits associated with coaching one of only 5 men in history under 1.43.0 and 3.30 (and one of two men under 1.42.50 and 3.30 - the other is one Sebastian Coe), as well as having a multi-millionaire father bankrolling it all.
But I can "only guess" that at some point you begin to get frustrated at workouts not just being executed incorrectly (case in point the 3x400 workout that fried him before he even got to Eugene for trials) or being constantly propositioned with stuff like "well that's a good workout but what if we did this, or this, or that too".
I think Fran Hoeys involvement in his sons career is somewhat known, but the extent of it not universally understood. Let's just say it's a very "hands on" approach. Like think Jimmy Johnson trying to coach the Cowboys with Jerry "just taking the linebackers to do some drills" sort of thing. And then when it all went wrong at USA's, there isn't much reflection it's a lot of "well if we only had him doing what we said he should have" sort of thing. Cap it off with the weird "I owe my dad" dynamic which means Josh himself can't create any sort of boundary, the puzzle of why it's what, 7 coaches burned (?) starts to come together.
Justin is a very good coach. He will make other good athletes very good again too. What happens with Hoey is anyones guess. The one benefit he has are the schedules that worked and an extremely high level to build off. Let's see if indoor season is full-go 100% max effort again, that will tell us a lot of what to expect in the next seasons.