HS Coach With Letsrun Ties Fired Over Runners Running With Their Shirts Off

my bet - this relationship between coach and AD was going south before this incident.

You do realize that this coach got fired because of something that is not only legal but encouraged in almost every other high school in the country?

asdfagagsdgds wrote:

Wait a minute - a teacher/administrator can hit a student and still be employed working with kids?

That is just totally unbelievable.

In my day it was the norm.

I'm a coach and my kids rip their shirts off and say " let the work out begin!". What a bunch of dumbass prudes.

We run with our shirts off all the time. The people in that community are babies for complaining about guys running with there shirt off! Thats ridiculous. There shouldn't of even been an issue in the first place.

To me, this case has "wrongful termination" written all over it. Formal complaints against the AD, Assistant principal, and Principal should be fired, and parents should demand official action by the school board.

That's how it would happen here on the west coast.

The bigger issue, I think, is that there is an AD that has hit a child, berated another recently, and got in the face of the coach. Who is he going to strike next?

This guy needs to have his ass kicked out of there NOW. If it takes a girl on the team filing a sexual harassment case or a bunch of guys literally kicking the shit out of him off campus, so be it. But he needs to be gotten rid of before he harms someone else.

Went national...

http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/Massachusetts-high-school-track-coach-fired-over-shirtless-practices-050411

You can't be serious. Run topless. See how far you get. I hope you are a troll because any actual ("100percent")female would not find this comfortable unless this is your idea of minimalism and want your boobs to sag to their natural shape.

Informed wrote:

Tom covered the Cape course in 2:27:38. I know this because I was there biking many points of it to watch him. However his time was slower because he stopped for three bathroom breaks and at every water stop he came to a full stop as he was using the race as a workout. "Covered the course", not "finished in."

And he claimed it as a sub-2:28 marathon "PR"? You don't even get that many time-outs in an NBA basketball game!

The legal profession's reputation for prevarication is bad enough. If this is the real explanation for his statement about his marathon PR (which would frankly be astonishing to me), I hope he finds another occupation.

just what the world needs, another future lawyer

Avocado's Number wrote:

Informed wrote:

Tom covered the Cape course in 2:27:38. I know this because I was there biking many points of it to watch him. However his time was slower because he stopped for three bathroom breaks and at every water stop he came to a full stop as he was using the race as a workout. "Covered the course", not "finished in."

And he claimed it as a sub-2:28 marathon "PR"? You don't even get that many time-outs in an NBA basketball game!

The legal profession's reputation for prevarication is bad enough. If this is the real explanation for his statement about his marathon PR (which would frankly be astonishing to me), I hope he finds another occupation.

Today I'll be submitting my bid to be recognized as the American record-holder for 10,000m. I've covered 25 laps of the track at a faster pace than Solinsky did last year. True, I started this record attempt in 1979 and have taken a few breaks at times, like in the late 80s when I came to a full stop to finish a masters program, but this still counts, right?

Liar! wrote:

Tom Davis lies about his PRs!

From his blog (http://westwoodtrack.blogspot.com/2011/01/2010-numbers.html)

"PR's: Marathon - I ran the Cape Cod Marathon as a workout and covered the course in just under 2:28 for second place."

race summary:

here's the relevant part that gives a look into the mind of one Tom Davis:

"Despite his plan to “just run,” the Massachusetts native, who ran cross-country at the University of Richmond, which is where his injury issues began, took second overall with a time of 2:31:05. “This was by far the longest I’ve run ever, by far,” Davis said. “Since I’ve been injured (which occurred at Richmond) I haven’t really done anything...I was looking to come in here and look at it as a hard run, and run a six-minute (per mile) pace, but I was running 5:30s throughout and I had a 5:08 in there, and I felt fantastic, I was just running,” he said.

Davis might have won the title if not for a poor meal choice before the race. He said that he actually covered the course in about 2:27, which would have been at least a minute faster than Nyamongo, but he had to stop during the race to make a pit stop.

“Absolutely. I have not doubt that I can run 2:20 after today. I was just running, I wasn’t racing, and I had bathroom problems, which is embarrassing to say, but it’s true. I was stupid. I haven’t eaten oatmeal before running before and I did today, it was stupid,” he said."

This is the best post I have read on the topic. Guys, it is not about your coach, no matter how egotistical he is and how often he tells you he has "secrets" that will make you better. Sure, coaching makes a diffeence, but now it's up to you to keep plugging away. It sounds like our throws coach is your new coach- don't make his life any harder. You had a 2nd year coach get dismissed for flat-out doign the wron thing. He undermined an authority figure- you can't do that. Learn from that lesson. HS kids are brash and sometimes think they are invincible. I'd be pissed at your coach for advising you to do the wrong thing moreso than anyone else.

Your team is clearly divided on this issue. Don't bother fighting to get Tom's job back, it will not happen. Instead, rally around the new head coach and prove that its your legs, not Tom's inflated head, that got you here. Win your 4x800 state meet again. What's the alternative- to feel sorry for yourself and quit? What about you seniors- you won't regret giving up with a month to go simply because a guy you've known for ONE YEAR is gone? The Westwood program is not about Tom Davis. Neither was Newton North, neither was Newton South. They all got along just fine without him.

This was a long time coming. It would have happened for some other reason anyways. In just 2 years, Tom Davis made alot of enemies and very few friends. The Westwood track community and its coaching staff is privately celebrating right now, I know of at least two coaches who are.

nerp wrote:

100percentfemale wrote:

Also, it is a bit of a double-standard to tell a young woman that her body is inappropriate to be seen in public, but the male body is just fine?

Ma'am, no offense, but boys don't have tits. High School aged girls do. See the difference?

come on, let everyone be shirtless. what bull, people are running, if you don't think the sport bras are appropriate don't look and just let the girl run.

I think the school could very well be brought up in a successful and publicly damaging law suit for providing an unsafe environment for the student-athletes.

They subject them to the tirades of a physically abusive and short tempered AD, who also rides motorized vehicles through their practices (can anyone say OSHA violation). And the school forbids them from taking common preventative measures to deal with heat in strenuous warm weather workouts.

Not to even mention the legal issues they may have for an unjust firing.

Looks like the Principle, Asst Princ. and AD may have cost the school system thousands of dollars in legal settlements. The school system will learn it's just financially easier to get rid of pompous asses like the AD then to deal with the aftermath of their actions in todays litigious society.

At the very least some parents should complain to the school board about the situation of having a guy (the AD), with a history of physical abuse and short explosive temper, riding a motorized vehicle around their practices. That just isn't safe in anyone's book. At the very least it should have them remove the vehicle from this guy making him less dangerous. If need be involve a local news program. They love this type stuff.

Further more, to me Tom is almost irrelevant to this story. The real story is the actions of the AD and the school. Whether Tom is a prick or saint doesn't really matter.

Another coach wrote:

Further more, to me Tom is almost irrelevant to this story. The real story is the actions of the AD and the school. Whether Tom is a prick or saint doesn't really matter.

Tom being a prick is relevant to the story as it shows that this was probably not the only issue the Administration had with him. Like the first post said, this was the final straw.

WHS Alum wrote:

Another coach wrote:

Further more, to me Tom is almost irrelevant to this story. The real story is the actions of the AD and the school. Whether Tom is a prick or saint doesn't really matter.

Tom being a prick is relevant to the story as it shows that this was probably not the only issue the Administration had with him. Like the first post said, this was the final straw.

Was it documented. Was he given a written warning. If not then his firing may well be unjust. Especially when the athletes say he was getting between them and an abusive maniac having a temper tantrum. Regardless of what you think of him, at the time he was fired he was protecting his athletes and trying to defuse a manicac.

Of course, "the final straw" is breaking the dumbest rule of all time. A rule that only clueless dolts would institute and only psychopaths would enforce.