LV officially screwed Oregon over

I obviously don't know. If that didn't work, I would have used the perception card.

You know LV, you're a very marketable guy in Track and most probably in Tri also. You have a fresh face, nice smile. Little girls find you good looking, mothers would want you as a son... You don't look nerdy so regular people could follow you too. You've done some great stuff that came from the heart, like the Tri that you did this summer. This is all great marketing stuff, especially since it's genuine. Advert execs are all over that stuff. I wouldn't want you to blow it by portraying yourself as self absorbed by quoting the team. I'm not saying that you are, because I know you and I know that you're not. But from afar, the perception of many could be that you are. Quiting and letting down the team at this point could have negative impact on your marketability in the long run, people just don't forget things like that. I know that this is complicated stuff for a 19 yo, but speak to your dad about it. I don't want you to make a big mistake. At this point, you may be feeling too much pressure to perform. People have unrealistic expectations. Forget about that. This XC season was a buildup phase, you just came back from Tri WC. You were not suppose to perform at top level. Don't let blogs affect you.... Blah blah blah, convince, convince, convince...

Again, I don't know if this conversation occurred or not. But what I know, is that Vin failed to convince him.

When a sales guy loses a sale, he lost. He can blame the customer all he wants, but the failure is in his report card.

Of course it's always easier for the sales guy, when the customer wants the product at all cost. But then a monkey can sell in this case.

Vin failed.

Vin failed the team.

I was having the same thoughts. Most of us, I believe, have absolutely no problem with an athlete changing his mind about his career or his school, especially a freshman. The whole controversy centers around the extremely odd and seemingly inexplicable timing and its effect on his team. It just doesn't seem to make sense. I agree that there must have been something going on that we don't know, and will probably never know, unless one of the Oregon guys leaks it. LV was never a warm and fuzzy guy when I met him at meets, but he certainly didn't seem like an emotional hot head who would just make a dumb, snap decision.

Just speculating, but I was wondering if, as a few have claimed, he was really failing all his classes, that that would have prevented him from getting into this college in Colorado? A couple of people pointed out that his departure closely coincided with the drop date for U of O classes. Perhaps he had to drop if that was the case, or they would take him in Colo Springs?

Another thing I was thinking was that maybe he could just not mentally, psychologically stomach the idea of having to endure a couple more mediocre performances (mediocre in his mind, not in the eyes of most of us, who thought they were ok for a freshman just coming off tri training). This was the kid who, Marc Bloom wrote in The Harrier, sat slumped with his head in his hands after the Nike Outdoor 2 mile race where the Rosas beat him, and said "I was supposed to win." 2 time FL champ, NXN champ, world jr tri champ. Might have been just too much for him to endure.

I obviously don't know any more than anyone else, but it's really unfortunate that it had to come down to this. Many still defend him, which is ok, but he has certainly, and irrevocably, lost the support and respect of many others.

So much has been and will be said about Lukas Verzbicas and his departure from Oregon. I would like to add one more thought. Lukas never bonded with the team. Watching him during the time he was still a Duck was painful. He sort of "hung" with others, much like a little brother. In Arizona, he showed his thoughts by not even doing the traditional cool down run. The only team member that even attempted to be with him was Boru Guyota, the rest just sort of forgot he was there. The writing was on the wall. Lukas was not a member of the Ducks.

Call me silly, but I actually think if someone does not want to run cross country in college they should not be compelled, manipulated, or guilted into it.

Shouldn't it be his decision whether he wants to quit the team or not? DI cross country takes too much time and effort for someone that does not want to do it to do it because others want him to. I have a feeling he will regret this decision when he gets older and wiser. But that's life. Maybe he will not. But it his decision and there are tons of factors and issues that none of us could ever know.

Life will go on at Oregon. They did destroy Stanford in football last night.

dr

draconian cross dictators blow wrote:

Call me silly, but I actually think if someone does not want to run cross country in college they should not be compelled, manipulated, or guilted into it.

Shouldn't it be his decision whether he wants to quit the team or not? DI cross country takes too much time and effort for someone that does not want to do it to do it because others want him to. I have a feeling he will regret this decision when he gets older and wiser. But that's life. Maybe he will not. But it his decision and there are tons of factors and issues that none of us could ever know.

Life will go on at Oregon. They did destroy Stanford in football last night.

dr

Yeah it is his choice and he made it. Everyone has free will. That doesnt stop it from being a dick move.

He should have stayed through the end of the season. My parent instilled that in me that from youth: you finish the season that you started.

You all are probably reading too much into it. The kid was probably homesick and left mid semester like many, many do.

That said he should have finished his semester, his season and then transferred. But kids get homesick you know...

Something to watch here is whether Parker Stinson gets one of the at-large individual spots at Terre Haute. With his 17th place finish, it looks like they will need to pick 4-5 extra individual runners from the region for him to make it in. Puskedra got one of the automatic spots.

Stinson had been having a pretty good season with a top 20 finish at Wisco and 7th at PAC 12. He is probably the individual most adversely affected by Lukas's decision- in the West Region race video it looked he may have panicked and gone out too hard knowing that the team wasn't going to punch his ticket.

lukas verzbicas's career as a duck was shorter than kim kardashians wedding

Separate the issues: not finishing out the season is a dick move.

But, a team like Oregon should be able to have any combo of their top 5 qualify. Championship XC teams are rarely five deep. Too much can happen.

to quit before regionals and before showing that he was tough to handle some adversity shows his character right now. He should grow up. Every minor struggle, like a lower finish at the previous U.S. or World Triathlon, makes him switch sports. He should have been able to turn it around considerably by nationals, and to have a great track season. However, as I said elsewhere, he should thrive at altitude in Colorado Springs, with his dad coaching him again, and Chad Hall doesn't seem to have done too badly after transferring from Oregon years ago: at UC Riverside with no teammates within around two minutes of him, he managed to get 8th in the Regional, just two spots behind Oregon's best runner, the multi-time top ten nationals finisher Luke Puskedra. So, LV will be fine but he has too much Alan Webb about him. Great talent, but can't stick it out.

For those of you supporting him because he's somehow living the American dream, making the best decision for himself to be a big triathlete, consider this - if he joined your infantry unit in the military, would you be real thrilled to go into combat with him? If you were a businessman, would you be real thrilled to hire him and put him in charge of part of your company? Maybe you would. I would not.

coach dbag wrote:

Oregon would've qualified if they had there #3 guy, but instead they're not going to natinals. This just proves the selfishness of LV's decision

Their #3 guy, not there #3 guy. Also, what is "officially" screwed over?

I'm not the one reading too much into this. His athletic college career is really none of my business just like it is none of your business nor any other of you self righteous folks that really can have no idea what exactly the situation was which led to his quitting.

For the record, I would not have quit in the middle of the season either. I finished every damn race I ever started even when I was getting lapped in the 10,000 on the track because they raced me when I was woefully out of shape. But I'm not him and neither are you and it is his decision and I frankly think you all sound like a bunch of old gossipy aunts. And it is just a cross country team. It's not all that important if Oregon does well or not if you think about it.

To compare this to quitting an infantry unit is a ridiculous and disgraceful analogy. It is a cross country team. I think most you are mad because you never had his talent and running is simply more important to you than it is him.

dr

Word out of Colo Springs is that Lukas had been freaked out by the amount of attention the web site XC Nation was giving to him. The people there had a very wierd attraction to him

I don't know why I'm getting sucked into posting, but it's hard not to have an opinion about such a controversial move. I agree with the assessment below. While I don't condone the timing of LV's departure, I'm left speculating about how much the team embraced him, or I should say how well he meshed with the team. I can't remember if it was the Pac-12 or Wisconsin video, but LV just seemed to stand around awkwardly by himself after the race ended. No other team member came up to him in the finish area. What if he had been able to attend the summer camp, and what if Vin had red-shirted him this fall...allowing some bonding to occur and reduce the pressure. I bet LV would still be there.Also, check out this recent article:http://www.slowtwitch.com/Interview/The_first_love_of_Lukas_Verzbicas_2435.htmlIt sounds like he made the decision to leave once he was home for a visit in CO. He didn't want to go back once he had left the OR scene. Sounds more like a case of homesickness of an 18 year-old to me.

From the sideline wrote:

So much has been and will be said about Lukas Verzbicas and his departure from Oregon. I would like to add one more thought. Lukas never bonded with the team. Watching him during the time he was still a Duck was painful. He sort of "hung" with others, much like a little brother. In Arizona, he showed his thoughts by not even doing the traditional cool down run. The only team member that even attempted to be with him was Boru Guyota, the rest just sort of forgot he was there. The writing was on the wall. Lukas was not a member of the Ducks.

What has touched a nerve for many people, I think, is that it is a very deeply ingrained American value to support teammates and companions. Coaches teach kids that the important lessons of sport are teamwork and effort and reliability, and that these lessons will mold your character in later life. I don't think that is unique to running. Most of us were taught early that we had to come to practices, that we had to do our best in practice and meets. We had to sacrifice personal desires for the good of the team. This was certainly drilled into me by coaches and parents. Our marine corps motto is semper fi. It's a very deeply rooted value.

Here is now a kid who deliberately put himself on the national stage and was looked up to by thousands of high school kids. He tweeted his every move. He had 5000 people following him on Facebook. He enters and dominates all the national high school meets. And he gets to attend Oregon, which in most high school runners minds is the Chosen Land. He is not just some random kid.

And then he basically just sh**ts on all these values. He is very clear now in interviews that he did it with much deliberate thought and for his own self interest.

If you believe the only value of sport is to promote yourself and make big bucks, then you are ok with this. For me, it is not "just college cross country." It's a value system. This athlete has basically sent the message to those who look up to him that all that stuff about loyalty and teamwork and reliability is crap, and all that matters is looking out for number one.

I'm actually wondering if it's a cultural thing. Perhaps Lithuanians have a different value system that does not teach these core American values and instead just emphasizes doing whatever it takes to get to the top.

letsrun has gotten so bad wrote:

The brojos need to stop ripping on Verzbikas. Get a real job, a real life, and stop trying to be self-centered, can't-leave-college idiots. Oregon sucked this year regardless. No need to bring down the junior world champion triathlete for wanting to do triathlons.

If anything, you let down your team by focusing on this website and getting your egotistical opinions out there. I'm pretty sure Cornell sits in the bottom of the Ivy league....and even lost to Buffalo today. And yes, Verzbikas is better at triathlons than you are at running a website...so maybe you shouldn't quit on your team so much.

Zing! There's some truth to all of that. Personally I feel like it was selfish of Verzbicas to leave the team two days before nationals. It's a distraction and also hurts the team come raceday, regardless of their chances at the regional meet. It's probably pretty shitty for him as a college freshman to get ripped up over and over again on this website even if, to a certain extent, the criticism is warranted. Let's stop giving Verzbicas such a hard time, what he did is done and as unadmirable as it was give it a rest. At this point Letsrun is beating a dead horse. Instead we can focus on the positives: there are other very talented freshman out there this year. Craig Lutz for one has been extremely exciting.

Also stop with the 'marriage with Oregon shorter than kim kardashian's wedding' crap. It was clever the first time but now is dull and overused on this site.

whathesaid wrote:

lukas verzbicas's career as a duck was shorter than kim kardashians wedding

That must have been a really ridiculously long and expensive wedding. However, yes, it was amusingly shorter than her marriage.

But both situations are kind of sad, so it's a little disturbing that we (myself included) are spending all this time focusing on other people's lives.

Values,

Man you are so spot on here! This guy is a one way freight train full of me, me, me! The interview with Slowtwitch really reveals his true colors-

"Oregon of course tried to stop me from making this decision, but I didn’t want to be jumping back into the same river. The decision is final and now it’s just time for me to fully focus on triathlon training and racing."

"Oregon tried to stop me" WTF is he actually saying here? That he's so amazingly cool that nobody's ever going to call the shots except number one?

Let me tell you the river that's he's in now - it's call the "Shit-River" and nobody with any good sense should sponsor him or work with such a temperamental flake who only has his own selfish agenda planned. He's got some nerve if he thinks going to put the flag over his shoulders again and expect anyone to clap! I feel like if I saw him leading a race during a Tri - at this point, I'd either throw an egg, actually spit or scream "F you" at him!

He really optimizes everything that one shouldn't be as an athlete! I hope this asinine decision stays with him a really, really long time and it weights heavily into any agreement that he makes with any institution, bank, girlfriend, college, sponsor, etc...... Gatorade should take back their award! And........ I wonder how Jim Ryun feels about this and all he did to promote and encourage Lukas to break four for the mile in HS? The more I write the angrier I'm getting about this - somebody should kick his ass!