Ace_of_Base wrote:
When you are 24 years old and you make big boy money you have to make big boy decisions. Drew’s money made this team, his relationship with Tom for the last 8 years had him as the coach. You have to fire him, in person. Just absolutely pathetic that this didn’t occur.
That's between TME and TS, but maybe the relationship was pretty far gone by then.
The model for this situation was nuanced if not upside down. As others have indicated, usually there is a coach who either builds a following or is hired by a sponsor/company or works with a sponsor, saying they have athletes XYZ and the sponsor/company says okay here is a stipend and facilities, etc. So think Hansons, Hoka, NOP, BTC.
In case of TME time they had a very young athlete-18 or 19 at the time--with a lot of potential, and off to college. I think he was on his own for a year or two, and TME emerged in late 2017 as slapped together team for USATF Club Cross Country, which they won. Over the next year they tried to get additional sponsorship from Adidas--this is a fact--(and likely others). But they did not secure a large sponsorship, so the TME trademark and marketing emerged from that void. That's when they could have/maybe should have worked out a deal with TS--so who knows what happened 2-3 years ago--but he's not part of the LLC. It's Drew's.
Nevertheless, for a few years they had a program and coaching agreement. For reasons discussed many times over on this thread, things were not working out, so they moved on. Yes, an in-person (or socially distanced in these times, like a Zoom call) parting would have been better, plus a quick announcement, and removing the association from the social media accounts would have looked more professional, and at least here in this bubble (letsrun) somewhat less controversial. However, you can also understand the desire to separate ways quietly, and focus on having the runners qualify or prepare for OTs without scrutiny (from online trolls no doubt) and controversy.