We merged two threads on this topic into 1. The other was called: "Anyone a fan of Wake Forest Coach John Hayes after the Rocky Hansen workout at ACCs?"
Update from Rojo at 10:22 pm on 5/20:
I texted and spoke with coach Hayes again today. When I spoke to him yesterday, I didn't get the full story. I failed to realize that in addition to getting Rokcy more work he says he also wanted Rocky to run fast with the hope that others would go with him and he'd tell his other 5k guys to chill out and come from behind and score some big points. Fewer guys went with Rocky than he anticipated perhaps because Rocky went out super fast as a UNC runner (who also didn't finish) took it out in 30 for the first 200.
Reminds me of my high school league champs where the rivals sent a 400m guy to run a hot first lap in the 800m to tire out our best two 800m guys, who were set for the 4x4 at the end of the meet. It seemed to work because they edged us out in the 4x4, only to be dq'd and we won. Here Wake didn't even do squat. But then Parker Wolfe won't mind setting the conference record at 13:13 on a warm day. He didn't care about the gamesmanship.
I don't blame Hayes for doing this at all, but I think it shows how college track is not set up with competition in mind. In effect, there is a practice happening within a race. It made the race interesting at first, but in hindsight, it also signals to the viewer that the meet isn't equally important to everyone, which kind of cheapens it.
Go check each conference meets 5k results and see how many DNFs there were. I'm not sure why this is being blown up. Yes, I know that he did not plan on finishing. Happens ALL the time.
1. I call b.s. on John Hayes statement. If Parker didn't go with Rocky - and Rocky was well ahead at the 3200m mark - I believe Rocky would've continued on with the next 1,800m to win the ACC title. I surmise this b/c - it just makes no sense otherwise. Rocky could've done a 3,200m workout on a trail (or his Boost treadmill). There's no need to do it in a 5K championship race.
I lost respect for both John Hayes and Rocky Hansen on this.
This was pure weakling crap.
Don't want to run a race? Don't go in a race.
Want to run a workout? Run a workout.
And running nerds complain that track is getting cut or ignored.
As much as we might think that people should "run their own race" or whatever, races are very interactive. In a setting like this, what one runner does, especially the runner leading the race, absolutely impacts how others are going to run.
When you do something like this, you are in essence saying, "My workout is more important than your race."
Hayes and Hansen may have been under no obligation to inform the other competitors, and there don't seem to be rules prohibiting them from doing so, but it still comes across as very disrespectful of those that are actually there to race.
everyone has their own values.... to me my workout is more important than your race... and I'm sure to Rocky and Hayes, Rocky's workout was more important than Wolfe's race...
I thought it was really funny that Hayes didn't do it for any of those reasons, and he was just like "Ah, Rocky's gotta get a workout in anyway and it'd be funny to see Wolfe chase him" and so he did it. Would love to see more of this kinda thing
TL;DR: It was a dick move. I'm concerned it could start an unsportsmanlike trend in other conference championship races. You won't convince me that Rocky wasn't actually trying to pull out the W. with that strategy. I hope Parker beats Rocky at NCAAs.
1. I call b.s. on John Hayes statement. If Parker didn't go with Rocky - and Rocky was well ahead at the 3200m mark - I believe Rocky would've continued on with the next 1,800m to win the ACC title. I surmise this b/c - it just makes no sense otherwise. Rocky could've done a 3,200m workout on a trail (or his Boost treadmill). There's no need to do it in a 5K championship race.
2. Let's call it what is it: it was a dick move. In my opinion, unsportsmanlike behavior. I'm concerned it could start a new trend, as this was on a national stage. Watch Oregon show up (I'm just using them as an example) at the Big 10s next year : "Guys! Guyyyysssss! We're just using this 5K to pace ourselves/as a training run. NO NEED TO STICK WITH US." Then when nobody sticks with them, they take off for the victory.
3. Maybe everyone needs a runner *from their own team* to pace them in the 5K. Those are the only people you can trust! Not sure if another team is going to do it.
the whole situation makes me more of a Parker Wolfe fan; he showed good judgement to go with Rocky - what else was the alternative? Rocky (+ his coach) say NOW that it was "just a workout" but who knows what would've happened if Parker didn't attach to the hot pace rocky was setting. Overall, I appreciate Parker b/c he was to put up with the hazing from other athletes/coaches who are inferior. If I were the UNC coaches, I would be pissed because Wake Forest says now that they weren't trying to win the ACC 5K - I don't look at people's words, I look at their actions though. They were trying to win the 5K, it makes no sense otherwise. (again, just do it on a Boost treadmill).
Even the announcers were confused, they were like, "WTH!?"
aight... so then they definitely should not have told them what their plan was ... because if this were to have transpired all you keyboard warriors would have been even more upset... literally can't win in this situation if you're WF.
I get that people like to complain about anything and everything these days. But there is no question Hayes is a great coach. The year they were 24th at nationals in XC Wake had a roster of almost all freshmen. Last fall they were almost all sophomores except for Luke Tewalt who is their only senior. They were 4th in the last k and remember that Rocky was coming off heat stroke and didn’t score. Look for Wake to challenge for a podium spot the next two years. And they have a stellar recruiting class coming in (4 guys at 8:50 or better).
I don't blame Hayes for doing this at all, but I think it shows how college track is not set up with competition in mind. In effect, there is a practice happening within a race. It made the race interesting at first, but in hindsight, it also signals to the viewer that the meet isn't equally important to everyone, which kind of cheapens it.
I think this sums it up the best.
This is always the case in every level of track. If you're not one of the 2 or 3 teams in the competition to win, it's just another meet that gives you a chance to compete, and possibly get a PR.
Reminds me of my high school league champs where the rivals sent a 400m guy to run a hot first lap in the 800m to tire out our best two 800m guys, who were set for the 4x4 at the end of the meet. It seemed to work because they edged us out in the 4x4, only to be dq'd and we won. Here Wake didn't even do squat. But then Parker Wolfe won't mind setting the conference record at 13:13 on a warm day. He didn't care about the gamesmanship.
Interesting move. though that team needed to have a certain amount of depth to be able to make that move work. Or that 400 runner needed to be strong enough to effectively run the gauntlet.
They either didn't need that kid in the 4x4, Or he's so strong that he was able to score points in the 400, come back and run a hot first lap in an 800, and then still come back for a strong 4x4?
I think I would actually like this move more if there was more at stake, weirdly. Like, if Wake Forest pulled this in an attempt to win ACC's I'd think it was wild and interesting. But, because they weren't in the team hunt and Hansen was just doing a workout, if feels unnecessary.
As much as we might think that people should "run their own race" or whatever, races are very interactive. In a setting like this, what one runner does, especially the runner leading the race, absolutely impacts how others are going to run.
When you do something like this, you are in essence saying, "My workout is more important than your race."
Hayes and Hansen may have been under no obligation to inform the other competitors, and there don't seem to be rules prohibiting them from doing so, but it still comes across as very disrespectful of those that are actually there to race.
everyone has their own values.... to me my workout is more important than your race... and I'm sure to Rocky and Hayes, Rocky's workout was more important than Wolfe's race...
You're right, everyone has their own values. You have yours, Hayes/Hansen have theirs, I have mine. Their actions showed theirs, and others get to react to them. That's how the world works. Within the rules (or law, in broader society), there are plenty of things that are legal but many people find in poor taste. People have the right/freedom to do the things that are within the laws/rules, and others get form their own opinion about them and what they did based on their actions. It seems like a number of people find their behavior to be within the rules, yet disrespectful to their competitors.
Since my first post, Rojo posted his follow-up with Hayes in which Hayes says he was hoping some of his guys might place better by having runners from other teams get dragged out to a (too) fast pace and blow up.
While within the rules, to me, this doesn't make them look any better. It is one thing to have a teammate in the race to set the pace to help your runners run their best race. It feels different if you put a runner in the race with the idea that they might make runners from other teams run worse races by having them respond to an artificial race condition - a pace set by a runner that has no intention of finishing, but only that runner and their teammates know that.
Again, they did nothing against the rules. However, the rest of us get to evaluate their values and actions, and I think it was a crappy thing to do and reflects values that I don't share.
Most posters are looking at this from the viewpoint of the athletes/coaches/programs. Fine. But what about the fans? I tuned into the end of the ACC meet, mostly to watch this race, thinking it had the potential to be a great race featuring Wolfe, Strand, Martin, Hansen, Tewalt, some Stanford guys, etc, with big team implications. Obviously, there are always a lot of DNSs in a conference 5000, but I was excited to see Hansen go out hard, and thought I was in for a treat. Instead, it was a big, stale fart, and yet another example of how our sport continues to shoot itself in the foot. I'm not sure what could be done to prevent this. There already seems to be too much honest-effort policing. But it's just hard to be a fan of this sport sometimes.
Kind of a stupid post regarding pacing. It is team tactics at a conference meet and it happens all of the time. The idea is that it is a competitive race and there is nothing unethical about what was done. This thread is interesting because it shows how little people really know about conferences championships in college. I’ve seen some form of this done at multiple college meets in the last 10-15 years. It’s sad that this has to happen to get people talking about our sport but at least they are. Most on this thread are likely the same people saying Centro didn’t win a real title since the pace was so slow. It was a race and races have lots of tactics. I’m not sure this one had the desired effect except to get people talking about it.
This is always the case in every level of track. If you're not one of the 2 or 3 teams in the competition to win, it's just another meet that gives you a chance to compete, and possibly get a PR.
everyone has their own values.... to me my workout is more important than your race... and I'm sure to Rocky and Hayes, Rocky's workout was more important than Wolfe's race...
You're right, everyone has their own values. You have yours, Hayes/Hansen have theirs, I have mine. Their actions showed theirs, and others get to react to them. That's how the world works. Within the rules (or law, in broader society), there are plenty of things that are legal but many people find in poor taste. People have the right/freedom to do the things that are within the laws/rules, and others get form their own opinion about them and what they did based on their actions. It seems like a number of people find their behavior to be within the rules, yet disrespectful to their competitors.
Since my first post, Rojo posted his follow-up with Hayes in which Hayes says he was hoping some of his guys might place better by having runners from other teams get dragged out to a (too) fast pace and blow up.
While within the rules, to me, this doesn't make them look any better. It is one thing to have a teammate in the race to set the pace to help your runners run their best race. It feels different if you put a runner in the race with the idea that they might make runners from other teams run worse races by having them respond to an artificial race condition - a pace set by a runner that has no intention of finishing, but only that runner and their teammates know that.
Again, they did nothing against the rules. However, the rest of us get to evaluate their values and actions, and I think it was a crappy thing to do and reflects values that I don't share.
This post is 100% spot on.
It's not a question of right or wrong, no rules were broken. It's not a question about how good or bad a coach John Hayes is, he's a good coach. The strategy isn't new, and has been used many times, it's a question of honest effort and the spirit of competition. Simply put, Rocky should've finished the race, and none of this backlash would've happened. Hayes knows this is a cheesy way to scrape up points, and points he ultimately didn't need since WF was out of title contention. Again, no big deal, but not 100% above board and a veteran coach like Hayes should be setting a precedence, not skirting the spirit of competition and honest effort.
Do we know he got injured in the race? Anyhow, I don’t think the idea was about Wolfe but rather less good runners who might then get kicked down by the Wake guys. Only worked on Thomas Boyden evidently. This is just an unfortunate situation, and in retrospect once Hansen dropped maybe it should’ve been more forcefully relayed to Wolfe to switch to hitting 68s and not 63s/62s.
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