RACISM/PREJUDICE AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY TRACK AND FIELD/XC

If the female athlete was a distance, her coach was probably Mike Smith.

Not one to ever boast about himself, athletes on the Georgetown team probably don't know that before Mike was a coach, he was a 5th grade teacher in Anacostia, Washington DC. While I was at Georgetown, I took a philosophy of education class in which I decided to do a paper on inner city public schools. I knew that Mike was a teacher in Anacostia and he allowed me to observe his class. The school that he worked in was roughly 99% black - i think there might have been a latino or native american in the school. When arriving, Mike said to me "hold on one second- just want to let you know that a lot of the students might think we're related" I looked at him curiously. He says "not a lot of white people come to this neighborhood and so the children usually assume we're related and it's hard for them to notice the difference in white people" knowing that I have a pretty solid tan because I'm half Puerto Rican, I figured this was kind of a joke. No less than 15 seconds after closing the door, three 5th grade, black children come running towards Mike saying "Mr Smith! Mr. Smith!" One of them blurts out "IS THAT YOUR BROTHER?!" I was shocked at how quickly this happened. Anyway, I sat in on the class and saw a very patient teacher try to teach these children - many of which likely had autism. They lived in a district that didn't have funding to separate them out for individual attention. I might have saw Mike a couple times before he moved to flagstaff. I saw him a few years later in DC and he had 2 of his 5th grade students (who were black) still taped to his car. I asked if he missed being a teacher and he told me he missed those kids.

This girl started a website "http://georgetowntrackandfieldexposed.blogspot.com/". It's my belief that she was looking for a reason to keep her scholarship and not have to put in any more work for it and now- trying to get famous with a blog. I mean- at least update the navigation so that you only display links with content...

TWO black kids taped to his car??! If that isn't a hate crime in D.C. it ought to be!

I respect this girl and everyone here should too. She went from a 4:49 PR in high school to 5:12 in college. That would have been a solid 10th place finish at the NCAA D3 championships. No one would willingly pay for that. She is doing what she has to do to keep her money. I'd call my mom a racist if it that is what it took.

If you had spent half as much time working on bettering yourself as a runner as you spent on this ridiculous complaint, other folks might have actually heard of you by now.

I thought she had some valid points. I've met a lot of college track coaches and frankly, they are some of the strangest, most egotistical people I've ever met. For being coaches of a sport that on a good day gets 100 people to a meet, they're sure full of themselves.

Some of the worst people skills I've ever witnessed have come from collegiate track and field coaches.

One of the bigger problems is the lack of scholarships for track/cross country. Football coaches can sit with sub-par or struggling athletes for 5 years because of such large rosters. There's not much room for error in college track and field.

That said, I've seen the craziest things from college coaches, like a kid who didn't have a good workout and the coach stopped the van and made the college athlete run 20 miles back to college. I've heard this type of story from 3 different coaches at 3 different colleges. I've heard coaches scream at athletes, de-pants them, throw weight implements, throw spikes at athletes, weigh women's athletes and tell them to get thinner despite being darn near anorexic, and just all kinds of weird stories.

College track coaches aren't normal people and most wouldn't succeed in another profession.

I've been in the college coaching business for 11 years and I can honestly say I have never seen any of the things that you just mentioned from any coach.

I have seen coaches yell, I have seen stop watches get thrown with disgust (not at athletes) and I have seen coaches be frustrated and angry with under performing athletes. I've also seen angry athletes yell at coaches.

I view all of those things as somewhat normal and par for the course in college (or pro) athletics. Tensions run high, emotions run high, adrenaline runs high and tempers run high. I'm not sure coaches screaming at athletes rises to the level of odd behavior, its quite common in all realms of athletics.

The other things you've mentioned I have never even heard of and have not seen anything even remotely close to those behaviors.

That is just my view from 11 years and counting in coaching.

Profession must be getting better as a lot of these incidents happened in 80's and 90's, though the last run 20 miles home on your own on the highway happened 5 years ago. The athlete had the "audacity" of having a bad workout.

Saw things thrown at athletes way back in the day ... craziness.

Wondering in the West wrote:

Profession must be getting better as a lot of these incidents happened in 80's and 90's, though the last run 20 miles home on your own on the highway happened 5 years ago. The athlete had the "audacity" of having a bad workout.

Saw things thrown at athletes way back in the day ... craziness.

Yeah. Sometimes our XC coach wouldn't buy any beer after a bad meet. Made for a thirsty trip home.

You all try to distract people with the racism, and try to skirt all the "real" issues. These kids very possibly have autism. I can't sleep on that. Not on my watch. That is not how I roll, that shit is serious!

Ex Hoya wrote:

I might have saw Mike a couple times before he moved to flagstaff. I saw him a few years later in DC and he had 2 of his 5th grade students (who were black) still taped to his car. I asked if he missed being a teacher and he told me he missed those kids.

Very nice post, but I literally started crying from laughing so hard after reading this part.

Looking at this runner's times as a coach I would be very unhappy with her performance and progression. With her poor performance, if she was a pain in the a$$ and causing waves I would look to cut her.

Running 2:11 800s as a Junior in HS, then 2:14s as a HS Senior, followed by 2:17-18s as a college Freshman and Soph - that's going the wrong direction. Looks like she got a scholly based on her Jr times and then got lazy, unmotivated or something.

Its a long way from a tiny private school in Florida to Georgetown and Washington DC. I'm sure the adjustment was tough, it is for every college athlete. Sad she aired her problems in such a public way, no coach would want her anywhere near their program now.

The two bringing about these claims, Nate Gordon and Stef Kurgatt, are basically digging their own graves. When the truth comes out and proves them wrong I'm sure they will be punished for libel/defamation and have the rest of their collegiate careers and lives ruined. will i feel sorry for them? no. for some sick and twisted reason these two have personal vendettas against their amazing coaches for their lack of stellar results. it really makes no sense, as nate has run 1:49 under Henner's tutelage (a 3 second PR from his high school days). Stef comes off as being lazy, entitled, and immature with her poorly written blog-post.

to any of you who may buy into the shit they sell: i'm sorry, for you have been duped by two selfish brats.

There is plenty more to come, especially from the men's team side. There is a video that was made. There are pictures. The team culture is vile and corrupted.

I went to my nephew's big time AAU basketball tournament (a number of the top prospects in the country were playing) and I saw parts of two games. In the second game, the coach was screaming at his players the entire game and demonstrated what he wanted them to do to the top Canadian prospect by physically shoving one of his players out of the huddle during a time out. There's not a lot of yelling in xc and track, but there is a lot of bad coaching, lazy and overprivileged athletes, and failure to treat injuries properly. The bad coaching comes from bad advice, goading athletes into training when they are injured, and especially NOT coaching any athlete not at the top of the team. They lose out on so much potential every day that way.

It's a shame this had to turn into a racial argument. I started reading and was quickly hooked. It sounded all too familiar... the injuries, the lack of support from the coaching staff, the threats, etc. I was in a very similar situation with my first college coach. I had good PRs (sub 9, sub 4:10 with lots of state titles) but was banged up from the get go. My coach just refused to listen to me when I said I wasn't right and needed to do something about it. His response was essentially what this girl had to deal with... something along the lines of "go home and get figure out how to get healthy, I don't have time to deal with you. You aren't helping the team and I don't have a need for someone who isn't scoring at meets". Well no s***, I could barely train. Eventually a new coach came in and I immediately told him the situation and that if we could just work together to keep me healthy, I would be successful. 4 months later, I made my first NCAA meet in track and PR'd at every distance. Shocker what staying healthy will do for you...

... but then she starts ranting about race. I'm a white male, so why was I dealing with the same stuff? Coaches call athletes p*ssies all the time, no matter the race. Who cares? It's a D1 sport, it's supposed to be hard. It has nothing to do with race. I personally don't mind coaches being tough, but I do agree that coaches are so quick to write off athletes as soon as they begin to struggle. In my case, it just took a coach who was willing to listen to me and work with me. In her case I am sure it is similar, and it's a shame the coaching staff won't listen about her injuries.

TLDR: I agree with a lot of what she says about coaches and the issues with unreasonable athlete expectations, but it has nothing to do with race. What a shame.

Snaxa awards...how are you kids so bright at an elite school and you still create all of these digital records, pass them around through countless digital channels and then think they will never come back to haunt you? You can shoot the messenger all you want. But your team culture is disgusting and that's about to be obvious to everyone.

team hoya wrote:

The two bringing about these claims, Nate Gordon and Stef Kurgatt, are basically digging their own graves. When the truth comes out and proves them wrong I'm sure they will be punished for libel/defamation and have the rest of their collegiate careers and lives ruined. will i feel sorry for them? no. for some sick and twisted reason these two have personal vendettas against their amazing coaches for their lack of stellar results. it really makes no sense, as nate has run 1:49 under Henner's tutelage (a 3 second PR from his high school days). Stef comes off as being lazy, entitled, and immature with her poorly written blog-post.

to any of you who may buy into the shit they sell: i'm sorry, for you have been duped by two selfish brats.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Nate, if this is you, you should know that anything else you think will help your "cause" will only hurt it. There are 50 women/men in the locker rooms in McD (and not to mention countless alums AND former coaching staff members) who know the truth runs directly counter to the vitriol you are spewing. This is not going to end well for you, buddy. You can still do the right thing, but I've lost faith in you as a man and teammate this last week that can never be restored. When the dust clears and we can return to the amazing things we do as student-athletes/teammates/men and women you will be left high and dry and exposed as the fool that you are. Those who blindly followed you will most likely turn against you, so be prepared for that. As for me, I'll continue to hope/pray/do whatever I can to ensure that everyone who cares to listen knows that the real GU Track/XC rosters are filled with men and women of unquestionable character who are not only stellar athletes, but top notch students and men/women for others.

[quote]more to come wrote:

Snaxa awards...

how are you kids so bright at an elite school and you still create all of these digital records, pass them around through countless digital channels and then think they will never come back to haunt you?

You can shoot the messenger all you want. But your team culture is disgusting and that's about to be obvious to everyone.

this is your problem right here. This is not Nate. Trust me. But it's out there. And unfortunately for you, you don't see how things like your scavenger hunt damage the team, the hoya tradition and yourself. The stuff on that list is disgusting. It shows a deep seeded pathology of sexism, elitism, and entitlement. There are many failures inherent in that list. It's not funny, snarky, or even something to be written off as juvenile. I hope it's something you can at least recognize as you grow older. You are in a bubble if you think this exists in the world of what is acceptable.

Hey Nate ... do try to be a little less obvious in your self-promotion. Sure, there is a lot of a vulgar content in the Snaxas - but it's a group of guys (of all races). They pass these things through "countless digital channels" based on concepts like "rust and camaraderie. Threatening an exposé is weak. If you have a problem with others and how they speak about women and each other, why not talk to them about it instead of playing justice. Meanwhile, your own twitter feed is filled with use of the "n-word".

Trying for fame as a victim is some of the softest shit I've ever seen. You might read this, but you're probably too busy tweeting at the local NBC affiliate for attention.