irrelevant wrote:
NCAA T&F Coach wrote:
I am a DI coach and I know the Lehigh coach. Actually a good guy, cares deeply about the sport, and probably is a little socially awkward. His wife has been an assistant coach and is a great person..
fyi- We aren't talking about his wife.
Any woman that sees these things happening and doesn't take action is part of the problem. If his wife was a great person, she wouldn't let him touch athletes.
Creepy as hell to be making comments about an athlete being “hot” to a recruit and commenting about people wanting to sleep with another athlete. He’s obviously checking his female athletes out. How can any female athlete on his team feel comfortable being around him in a skin-tight track uniform. Doubly gross knowing that his wife is also a coach on staff. Just absolutely indefensible to keep him on staff. Would not be surprised to see him resign now that the news is out.
Typical Lehigh kinda stuff going on here. Coach should be fired, clearly unacceptable behavior. I am curious as to why he doesn't smack the butts of the guys on the team since many of them are homosexual.
When I got into coaching my mentor taught me two rules that I live by to this day:
1. Don't touch the money.
2. Don't touch the kids.
That is all,
Pis Bill wrote:
How is it we have an award named after Bill Bowerman, the super creeper who peed on his athlete in the shower?
Wait, what?
Anything to substantiate the super creeper and shower pee claims?
Stating the obvious wrote:
Pis Bill wrote:
How is it we have an award named after Bill Bowerman, the super creeper who peed on his athlete in the shower?
Wait, what?
Anything to substantiate the super creeper and shower pee claims?
Yes, it's totally true. I have been coached by Bowerman former ducks and have coached with others ones and they all have said something about it.
One guy was a distance guy and he said that Bowerman did it to him. One was a Track field guy and he knew all about it and avoided bowerman in the showers.
Yeah, I met him a few times and he was just an old grandpa guy who made still made some shoes in his garage, damn I wish I had bought those paper shoes he was still making in his garage and selling at nike Eugene, they would be worth some serious money, this was around 1990-92.
Stating the obvious wrote:
Pis Bill wrote:
How is it we have an award named after Bill Bowerman, the super creeper who peed on his athlete in the shower?
Wait, what?
Anything to substantiate the super creeper and shower pee claims?
This is pretty common knowledge. Read Kenny Moore's "Bowerman and the Men of Oregon.
He would take saunas with team. Get a key very very hot and then press into the leg of athletes, effectively branding them. Total sicko.
ThisIsWhyIQuitCoaching wrote:
"The Brown and White was tipped to the allegations by a former athlete, who has since transferred, and investigated numerous allegations against the coach, reviewing reports and emails shared by sources and reaching out to dozens of individuals close to the team in order to obtain confirmation of certain claims. "
I was a high school coach for 20+ years. I'll never coach again. I was never subject to what this guy is going through but the tides changed in this regard to all of these things between 1995-2016.
Sounds like former athlete played a role in the investigation....sour grapes perhaps.
College coaches have to make calls on what you run and how you train and sometimes when collegiate athletes do not improve they point the finger at the coach. It is as simple as that. Maybe there was a discipline situation where the kid got in trouble.
The hitting with batons (sticks?) and inappropriate touching.....I don't know.....maybe a misinterpretation?
I saw some of this happen at the college level - with opposing coaches - but rarely at the high school level and I personally would never be involved with that behavior. When you are teacher, you tend to bring your habits from the classroom to the track and would never touch a kid. However, I see "numerous" and "multiple" used then we find out it is 5/120 athletes. Sounds like one of those transferred and the other quit the team. To be honest, I'm thinking there was more going on with those kids.
So now we are down to 3 kids, an assistant who possibly wants the head coaching job, and a parent.
The number should be zero but the adults here, I'd love to hear more about their takes....but I'm doubtful.
If he had crossed the line, they would have fired him. He must be a good coach and at the university level these days, if you go after someone's sexuality, you are GONE....so I'm thinking they didn't come up with much in the investigation.
Plenty of coaches would grab the Lehigh job in a second so the fact he did NOT get fired says to me the accusations were questionable at best, fabricated at worst.
I'm not saying the coach is innocent. I don't know him. However, I'm not sure why ANYONE would want to coach with these factors coming at them daily. If you have run in college (I ran D1) you have firsthand knowledge of these situations in one way or another. And there are plenty of bad coaches out there.
Thank you for no longer coaching. You are almost as bad as the Lehigh coach, for trying blame the victims. You obviously do not understand the words "numerous" and "multiple". Besides, once is too many.
He should be gone
sounds like he has done a great job with track in terms of performances but does not know what he is saying and needs to start thinking seriously about what he says before he says it.
ThisIsWhyIQuitCoaching wrote:
"The Brown and White was tipped to the allegations by a former athlete, who has since transferred, and investigated numerous allegations against the coach, reviewing reports and emails shared by sources and reaching out to dozens of individuals close to the team in order to obtain confirmation of certain claims. "
I was a high school coach for 20+ years. I'll never coach again. I was never subject to what this guy is going through but the tides changed in this regard to all of these things between 1995-2016.
Sounds like former athlete played a role in the investigation....sour grapes perhaps.
College coaches have to make calls on what you run and how you train and sometimes when collegiate athletes do not improve they point the finger at the coach. It is as simple as that. Maybe there was a discipline situation where the kid got in trouble.
The hitting with batons (sticks?) and inappropriate touching.....I don't know.....maybe a misinterpretation?
I saw some of this happen at the college level - with opposing coaches - but rarely at the high school level and I personally would never be involved with that behavior. When you are teacher, you tend to bring your habits from the classroom to the track and would never touch a kid. However, I see "numerous" and "multiple" used then we find out it is 5/120 athletes. Sounds like one of those transferred and the other quit the team. To be honest, I'm thinking there was more going on with those kids.
So now we are down to 3 kids, an assistant who possibly wants the head coaching job, and a parent.
The number should be zero but the adults here, I'd love to hear more about their takes....but I'm doubtful.
If he had crossed the line, they would have fired him. He must be a good coach and at the university level these days, if you go after someone's sexuality, you are GONE....so I'm thinking they didn't come up with much in the investigation.
Plenty of coaches would grab the Lehigh job in a second so the fact he did NOT get fired says to me the accusations were questionable at best, fabricated at worst.
I'm not saying the coach is innocent. I don't know him. However, I'm not sure why ANYONE would want to coach with these factors coming at them daily. If you have run in college (I ran D1) you have firsthand knowledge of these situations in one way or another. And there are plenty of bad coaches out there.
This seems to be spot on. Overreactions, most likely.
~ Love tap on the ass with a foot; ~ my son thinks a hot girl is hot; ~most of the other athletes find this out of the blue
as for the physical contact, it's obviously completely inappropriate. it's hard to say what it means because they didn't say how hard he kicked them--not just a tap, I assume. the guy knows no boundaries but then there are tons of worse college track coaches who are having inappropriate relationships with their athletes. I recall Bev Kearney and the ASU throws coach, among the many, many ones out there (particularly bad are the coercive ones, obviously). The rules have changed over the past two decades as to sexual relations where in the past they were accepted among staff and students but that when the staff member was responsible in some way for the student, that had to be told to a superior, whereas now they are pretty much verboten. In this case, there was no such relation. As for non-sexual touching of a knee, that's not a firable offense, and gender equity says you can't permit women to do something (and they do the hugging and this sort of touching all the time) and forbid it to men. Wisdom says touch not and say nothing suggestive, so he's got to learn that and probably won't get that chance at Lehigh despite his stellar coaching record otherwise now that it is public.
Zero Patriot League team titles in 25 years for both the men and women's team and the XC team is coached by different people. A few league champions in the multi and jump events and no surprise that those are the people trying to defend him in the articles comments section. If you have control of a team for that long there should have been some greater success besides a few individuals here and there. Of course you'll like him if you win a league title with him as your coach, but if you have to formally address the team because of the anonymous end of year reviews, then its more than a small group of people who have issues.
zxcxzcv wrote:
sounds like he has done a great job with track in terms of performances but does not know what he is saying and needs to start thinking seriously about what he says before he says it.
It is worth mentioning that Lehigh added scholarships 5 years ago when Patriot League started to allow all teams to have scholarships. Scholarships are why he's coached so many school record holders, it's not because he is great coach.
Their men, with scholarships, placed 7th in the Patriot League outdoors losing to teams without scholarships such as Holy Cross, Bucknell, and Lafayette.
They also didn't do well on the women's side, and most of the points they scored were from his wife who is the women's distance coach. Men's distance coach accounted for most of their men's points too.
Guy should be gone, it should be done swiftly, we should move on. These are serious issues coming forward. Plenty of people can/want to coach at a place like this that wouldn't do stuff like this. Bring in someone new. Bring the athletes into the hiring process.
NERunner053 wrote:
Guy should be gone, it should be done swiftly, we should move on. These are serious issues coming forward. Plenty of people can/want to coach at a place like this that wouldn't do stuff like this. Bring in someone new. Bring the athletes into the hiring process.
This is a perfect example of the level of entitlement. Why in TF would an AD care who you think would be the coach? What insight could you possibly add? Not to mention you are only there for a few years.
Sounds like a program will of spoiled rich kids that can’t get their way. Total cess pool.
NCAA T&F Coach wrote:
I am a DI coach and I know the Lehigh coach. Actually a good guy, cares deeply about the sport, and probably is a little socially awkward. His wife has been an assistant coach and is a great person. Sometimes coaches (as all people) do things that in hindsight shouldn't be done. If he is truly remorseful and wants to improve his life, then who are any of us to question that. I find it interesting when people come on letsrun and scream for someone to be fired. I would love to know how many times in their professional life they have screwed up and not gotten fired. We all make mistakes and if we can learn from them and improve isn't that the goal of our lives. What I would like is for athletes that do feel like something makes them uncomfortable to grow up and speak to the person, and let them know how they feel. Then, if the coach ignores that information then can them. There isn't a coach alive that hasn't made some athlete at some time feel uncomfortable with a joke, comment, decision. But if the coach doesn't know it, then that is part of the problem.
I can't believe anyone would defend the behavior outlined in the article. These aren't just mistakes. It is abuse.
It was common knowledge that he’s kind of weird and makes dumb comments, and also favors the girls over most of the guys. I think some girls liked it/thought it was funny and most were neutral on it. I have heard girls saying it was weird in person though.
Is that grounds for firing? Idk.
But like someone else said, he wasn’t even a good coach. He’s been there for like 20 years and hasn’t done sht. The Lehigh sports admin just keeps these guys in for no reason and it’s the same stuff year in and year out. You’d think they’d get a hungry young guy in looking to make a name for himself.
Wowwwee wrote:
NERunner053 wrote:
Guy should be gone, it should be done swiftly, we should move on. These are serious issues coming forward. Plenty of people can/want to coach at a place like this that wouldn't do stuff like this. Bring in someone new. Bring the athletes into the hiring process.
This is a perfect example of the level of entitlement. Why in TF would an AD care who you think would be the coach? What insight could you possibly add? Not to mention you are only there for a few years.
Sounds like a program will of spoiled rich kids that can’t get their way. Total cess pool.
Why in TF would you not want to involve a select few members of the team to sit in on the interview process. If you are picking someone to coach, mentor, relate to and recruit 18-22 year olds, probably good to see what the 18-22 year olds think of your candidate. Age does not necessarily breed wisdom, but for a certain generation of Americans it certainly breeds arrogance.
Read the article and comments and It doesn't seem good to make final judgements based on that.
I am glad that at least one of the people at the center of chain of command for harassment claims at the school in question is female and also very pleased that not all of them are.