Tom “Tinman” Schwartz and Drew Hunter/Tinman Elite have parted ways

First thing first, let it be known that I also at Cornell, but do not tout it every other day like rojo. Plus made more money than him, published some papers, made some good connections. My market value was greater. This is a true fact and it should be known as such.

re: the stipends and all, that's what I figured. An average entry teacher's salary in CO (google it) is $30K to $35K, if the other tinmen were paying $2K combined, and he had some dozens of online clients across the country that's not too bad of a coaching income, and more than most college coaches are going to make. I did say way up thread that they should also have been chipping in 10% of prize earnings. Housing in CO is expensive, but not the worst--high resale value, if they sell it and move they'll make a nice profit.

As far as letting him go, that was their prerogative. Things weren't working and they decided as a group to move on. They know the reasons, and although we at large only have snippets of info, it was their choice.

The branding of TME is going to be interesting. If they keep it they ought to provide him a cut. Seem like a re-branding would be a better idea, but maybe after this year or so while they clear their merchandise.

Hope that all sides land on their feet and can move on from this.

I think it's funny that we're talking about his name like it's some special brand -- he literally stole it from another branded event:

http://www.crosscountryexpress.com/2020/07/catching-up-with-coach-thomas-tinman.html

1) For those of us that don't know, how did you get your Tinman moniker?

"I was born in Menomonie, WI, which (for many years) had the Tinman Triathlon…a shorter version of the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon."

Yes. A Tinman is a half Ironman Triathlon. That is where he got the name from.

Nobody can own the name. It is in the public domain. That's why he didn't register it.

Bottom line is Tom was doing TME a favor by allowing them to market merch and training plans associated with him (if you think there was no association you’re lying to yourself) as a way to help sustain themselves in addition to the favor he was doing for them by training them, first for free, then at a reduced rate. Sounds like he was pretty selflessly trying to help TME succeed......which would make sense if for no other reason than that the training group went by HIS well known moniker. You can say that all was fair or not but in the end both parties went along with it except now TME has kicked Tom to the curb. To continue using the brand built around Tom himself makes exactly zero sense and hopefully is litigious.

TME was paying Tom $2000 a month to coach them.. how could you not have side work?

Its always about Trump with posters like you. The obsession lives on no matter what topic.

Okay y'all. From reading through most of these pages it seems only one side of this pretty sad real life story has been told.

To start i'll be clear that my comments below are all from first hand experiences of Tom and TME in the past 18 months or so.

What is clear is this is a mess. None of either party would ever have wanted to have it come to this but here we are. Hopefully the light shed here will result in a private finalization between the two parties.

Since Tom was fired a month ago I gather he has closed all channels of communication to the TME guys. I suspect the TME guys have been quiet for a reason.

I fully expect they would rather resolve this in private. As a fellow High School Coach and Father, I urge Tom if reading this to talk to the TME guys and come to an agreed resolution rather than giving prime time viewership and more fuel to the fire here on Letsrun.

This would allow Tom to focus back on what he is best at... coaching!

Also this would allow the TME guys to race without this weight evidently (Drake results) on their shoulders.

If the TME guys told all the reasons they fired Tom, it could get very ugly for Tom. From what i've experienced, below is only the tip of an iceberg. It is best this is resolved privately ASAP.

I'll present some facts and first hand observations; 

Tom should have had a more robust contract. Clearly.

All parties, TME guys, Tom and Adidas have fallen short here. 

TME guys should 100% change the name of the training group.

If they still have merchandise to sell now, then they need a very generous royalty compensation to Tom for further use of his name.

TME should already have cut Tom into some sort of royalty or payment for use of his nickname on all the merchandise so far.

Neither TME or Tom could have envisioned the amount of $$$ created by the merch. Probably why no royalty / payment contract was ever set up?

TME guys have maybe not made the smartest investments (a Tesla for crying out loud?!) which has likely rubbed Tom the wrong way.Tom clearly feels like he should've been paid more.

Tom, like me, is of an older, middle America generation.

He has some pretty extreme political views that he'll project on you without giving you any chance to engage in a conversation or debate.

His choice of right wing news channels and radio station propaganda debates often make their way into SMS message groups (other athletes often screenshot and send around!) and daily conversations.

Many of his runners would rather he give his expert TRAINING advice and experiences rather than his personal social and political views.I doubt he even realises he's doing this as it's his strong personality.

Tom is vocal about COVID being a hoax and has audibly berated people at the track who choose to wear a mask.

As noted in previous posts by other Letsrun users who have been around Tom... he is very arrogant and very sure of himself. It is very difficult to make suggestions or change his mind. Especially when it comes to training.

I've been engaging with him here on Letsrun for around 12 years. I value his insight but realize there are many roads to Rome.

Tom rarely listens when an athlete is tired. This has led to many injuries that could've been avoided.

The TME guys likely made some small mistakes in their free hours per day not training.

However by hiring and paying for strength coaches, psychologists and mindful coaches, it shows they do try to be as professional as possible to maximise their time and potential. 

I wish at their age I was as mature enough to do that.

I don't see Adidas doing those smaller things for them like no doubt Nike, Brooks etc do for their rivals.

Living in Boulder has it's distractions such as going on hikes, sampling beers in breweries and so forth. This however is hardly a daily routine that affects training in any catastrophic way to them.

My High School athletes have come up injured in Adidas Boost shoes in the past. So much so that I persuade their parents NOT to buy Adidas Boost shoes. 

Looking at the injuries of Drew, Sam and the other guys I can clearly see the same type of lower leg injuries and pains my top High School athletes have had.

I'll hold back on any further comments on Tom as I think deep down he does have a lot of wonderful qualities.

Heck, there is a reason we're all here reading this now. The success of Tom's coaching plus the talented results of those runners!

I hope the light shed here gives more of a full picture and Tom engages with the TME guys to bring a close to this.

We are all just runners, coaches, parents and competitors chasing the dream.

He sounds like a real peach.

Sounds like Schwartz couldn't keep things professional with his athletes. Not everyone wants to tiptoe around the conspiratorial/political BS for access to a cookie-cutter training program that someone more personable could easily implement.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

The Dirty Duck wrote:

I wondered if right wing politics might play a role when I saw that he got his PhD at Concordia. The scars of Trump's reign will be with us all for a long time, I suppose.

Its always about Trump with posters like you. The obsession lives on no matter what topic.

No, it's always about Trump with people like Tom Schwartz who couldn't keep things professional between him and his athletes. I'm sure my college coach had different personal views than me but he never sprayed them on the track.

rojo wrote:

We've udpated the initial article.

In terms of payment. Let me clarify a few things as Weldon clearly didn't read everything. The TME guys were paying Tom $2k per month - a discount on the standard $200 per month he charges. Drew's adidas contract had a separate coaching stipdend in it that Tammy said was around the range of a beginning teacher's salary,.

She has also said he never made $60k from the team so I would guess he was making in the 50s from the team if we combine the two income sources once the TME guys starting paying him (she said he didn't charge them at first) as a stipend in the 30s seems about right based on what I know about the normal coaching stipend % and the rumors of how large Drew's contract is.

Good callouts here. I saw this on a prior thread and it matches the general range of comp I have heard:

10 years; first 5 with no reductions. Approximately $400k/ year plus 100k to be spent on coaching, travel, etc. I believe it also included tuition should he continue his education, which I believe he did.

Not sure how that 100K would be broken down between coaching, travel, and other things. I can't imagine he'd need much more than 10K-20K/year for travel, right? Maybe a bit more for the longer stays in Europe over the summer?

From reading the complaints on both sides it seems like there were some differences such that it made sense for Tinman and TME to separate, and all would have been fine if everyone just approached it professionally. It's everything that has happened since then that is the issue - how they communicated it to him, airing dirty laundry on Letsrun, etc.

5280runner wrote:

Hi Tammy. I was a participant in your husbands PHD study. In the two interactions I had with him it was clear he was extremely proud of his athletes but came off extremely arrogant. Nobody knows what they are talking about except for him in the 2-3 examples he shared about his TME athletes.

The good

I was really excited to connect as I really enjoy his work but I wish I hadn’t after these brief encounters (also didn’t help he sent right wing propaganda texts multiple times a week for a month after meeting). You can be a great coach and a jerk, things in life aren’t binary.

I wish the best for him. With his pedigree he will land on his feet. Perhaps just focusing and developing elite HS athletes is the next chapter.

Yikes - air others' dirty laundry and yours will be aired as well.

Maybe or maybe this doesn't apply here, but I was around a lot of really good high school distance coaches both as a dad and a volunteer youth track/xc coach, and most of them were oddly confident -- bordering on or creeping into complete arrogance -- in their overall intelligence and wisdom concerning non-running topics, even though none of them had more than a 5th grader's understanding of real-world business dealings. I could totally see one of them negotiating their own contract and just completely missing on basic deal points.

they should go by Tinmom wrote:

This is a true fact and it should be known as such.

As opposed to....a false fact? Do you know a lot facts that aren’t true?

Yeah, this is a 2 way street. Based on the videos and where you can expect 20 year olds living in Boulder to fall on a range of issues, you can see why the relationships might not have worked out.

I get that Tinman is mad about pay/the name but it was the guys on the team that built the brand and directed traffic his way.

They could keep/change their name and will still have a following & sell adidas merch.

Maybe Tinman felt like he should have been paid more but I'm sure his client list rose as the group took off & I'm sure he'll find other opportunities now. Merch wasn't being sold because of CV reps.

It seems like him & his wife are being really active in throwing around what they don't like about this situation. The guys on the team put out a professional statement and said the right things. Sometimes things don't work out. Now we have a disgruntled employee and guys trying to get standards for USAs. It's showing.

+1

Being professional doesn't mean airing all of your dirty laundry on a sh*tty anonymous message board.

tintake wrote:

The club has reached a point where it is much, much more notable than the coach. From my understanding, Drew started the club, not Schwartz, and it sounds like Schwartz took no steps to get ownership of the team. I honestly don’t even think that Schwartz necessarily deserves to be compensated for the merch sales. Did he design it? No. Did he market it? No. Did he ask for money? No.

Fair enough but if they're using his name in the club name they should give him a percentage of the revenues from the club. If his name isn't important than give it back. Can you legally use someones name without compensating them?

The Dirty Duck wrote:

any truth here wrote:

-No need to feel sorry for Tom, he is charging 200 bucks PER MONTH for copy and pasted training. He's doing great financially.]

I know someone who pays for coaching from Tom, and it is not at all impersonal. Quite the contrary. He texts him most days to see how he's doing.

You talk about $200/month like it's a king's ransom. There are people on this thread who charge $200/hour for routine services. Not everyone works at the local running store.

Have people really forgotten that Hammer and Axe charges $200/month for "one-on-one" REMOTE coaching from patently unqualified coaches? Reed "Crash and Burn" Fischer and SydGid seem like really nice guys yet what is their experience for coaching outside of their own running? Applying someone else's coaching to your own running doesn't provide a sound basis for coaching other individuals. $200/month for ANY coaching with Tinman's level of credentials and expertise is a true bargain, especially when it's in-person and in the context of their own ripoff scheme.

TME is clearly a pretty woke brand (and i support that) so honestly if tom was that extreme on the politics that seems like a fine reason to drop him with everyone else going on, but they are still handling it poorly.