Some BTC runners aren’t happy with Eugene move: Truth?

Are you a professional athlete? Professional athletes of all sports have to relocate. They get dropped by their shoe company. They get traded to another team. They become free agents and move to whatever new team signs them. Do college/professional coaches poll their athletes about whether or not to accept a new job? Do the athletes poll their coaches? No, they do what's best for them. Everyone on BTC has already uprooted themselves to move to Portland to train with Schumacher. Before that, they moved to university to train there. Doubtful any of them complained about having to do those moves.

Everyone on BTC will have to decide what's best for them, just as Schumacher has.

The move to Eugene is not why the athletes are not happy. The athletes know their job far better than you and they “suck it up” every day grinding it out chasing their dreams.

The athletes are not happy because:

- they were not consulted about the move.

- how the Shelby Houlihan situation was miss handled and how that reflects poorly on them.

- access to the facilities at UofO are not working out the way they were told.

- coaching staff has been MIA due to commitments of running a university team.

- BTC support staff have left.

- athletes have left.

Based on the above information, that has been out there for a while, there is probably many more miss management issues that go deeper than the above.

BTC is comprised of intelligent athletes. They most likely have had several meetings with Schumacher and Nike Sports Marketing expressing their concerns. If more athletes leave, in addition to those athletes that have already left, one can rightfully surmise how much attention was paid to the athletes concerns.

The addition of Solinsky could be great if it frees up coaching staff to focus on BTC. The coaching staff; however, are being paid more by UofO and at least in Schumachers and Flanagans situation have the bankable luxury of double dipping.

Everything moves better on a two-way street versus one-way or the highway.

Pete Carroll coaching another team simultaneously wouldn't happen not because the players vetoed it but because his contract forbade it. The players have no say whatsoever.

CBAs are about working conditions and compensation. There's nothing in any CBA about player trades -- that's the team's prerogative. The players have no choice in the matter. Regardless of the analogy if a BTC athlete wants to be in a training group personally coached by Schumacher they are gonna have to relocate. Terrence Mahon's athletes followed him from Mammoth Lakes to the UK to Boston when he took different jobs. If an athlete wants to be coached by Bosshard, guess what? They are going to have to move to Colorado. If an athlete wants to be coached by Bob Kersee, guess what? They are going to have to move to Southern California. If a track athlete wants to be coached by a particular coach they have to move to wherever their coach is.

Wait until you guys learn that athletes get traded/sold to teams in craphiles like Liverpool and Detroit and have to relocate.

*Crapholes

This is the story.

Yeah if this is a problem and you need a mom to run your day to day the east answer is join the Tinman Elite program

From a pure training location Eugene has better running options than Portland. In addition, they will have access to the UO facilities.

You call that 'miss management issues', but I suspect this is all part of an elegant plan to rebrand BTC because Houlihan got caught doping. See NOP's rebranding.

Portland or beaverton to Eugene is only ~110 miles, just drive there for the workouts, I am sure these runners dont train 7 days per week together, recovery days and long runs you dont need a group. Only the tempo workouts and track workouts you drive down to Eugene for.....not a big deal. Also a few months of the year they are in Park City or some other Altitude train site.

They’re probably just worried that living in the same town where all the actual track races are, they might just have to run one or two in the course of the season…

I heard that Alistair Cragg was the glue that held this group together. When he and Amy left and started their own Puma team that it was just a matter of time until things unraveled. We are seeing this now. I wonder if any of these disgruntled athletes will jump ship and head to Alistair’s Puma team?

Where do you recommend?! I get to Eugene occasionally and am always curious about local spots.

This is a young persons sport so Schumacher will come out on top in the end. The top collegiate runners will still want to join them. As long as he can facilitate the training with the same focus as before the results will continue to happen. Jager and lomong are almost done, the majority of the rest are about at their peak and maybe have 1-2 more Olympic cycles in them.

Solinsky is there to help with this UO/BTC thing and they will resonate with him. jager will love to see an old teammate helping and it will provide a spark in the group.

Comparing the CBAs of other pro sports doesn't work in this case. Almost all pro runners are independent contractors. In this case, they can't be "traded" before their contract ends.

These athletes chose BTC for the specific environment that existed when they signed their contract. They all took pay cuts to join BTC but those cuts were offset by getting "free team benefits". I'm not going to list the things that are paid for by being a member of BTC vs. someone like Clayton Murphy. However, some of those benefits that were part of the Beaverton BTC group are different than those received as being part of a Eugene BTC group.

Some of the team will benefit from the move (steeplers) and others will leave and find a new group when their contracts expire.

Bingo.

To be fair, athletes in other sports are probably making much more money than the BTC athletes so a move like that isn't as big of a deal.

Are there any BTC athletes with school-age children?