Always an excuse as to why it’s not the programs fault. Always!!!! will aris own any of the previous athletes who have had to stop running because of injuries - like will he ever be like “we did do too much with that athlete too early”
You nailed it. Always the athlete’s fault, and never takes any accountability. There was a long response a few pages back targeting three different former FM runners, explaining why all of their issues had nothing to do with Aris or his program. Now placing blame on dance for one of his current runners? This behavior is completely narcissistic and the pattern is becoming obvious. Times up.
I can't wait for the Bill Aris 'the victim' narrative to come out. Pretty sure he has never been anything other than the attacker/offender for going on 30 years... when you see the victim pivot happen, go look up the psychological manipulation trick called DARVO (denial, attack, reverse victim/offender). It often applies to people who just get caught out...
but yeah, we don't know, it could just be this big conspiracy smear campaign against poor bill the genius guru swami mythical coach sent by heaven to emulate jesus...
you know, or karma is coming for him.
anyway, I love the speculation, keep it coming!
I had a 4:07 miler on my team at Cornell from FM. I had one real conversation with Bill when I was recruiting the FM guy and was incredibly impressed by him.
I asked him if the kid I was recruiting was his #1 in xc. He said something along the lines of "We had a different #1 each week but i'd say my #1 long distance guy right now is this young guy we have - a sophomore ." I was like, "Well what is he running at states?" He's like "Oh he's not really enjoying track so we asked him, "Do you really want to run the 3200 each week. or since your young do you just want to keep it fun and run the 4 x 800 to help the team."
I thought that was amazing coaching. The super soph ended up running at Wisco.
And ever since then, when I hear people imply he's some maniac, I haven't believed it.
The physical trauma he created is obvious based on the lack of collegiate success from FM runners. For a school that produced national champion teams and dozens of individual state champs in one of the more competitive states in the country, they have had practically zero truly successful runners at the collegiate level. The ones I know of that did have some success all had to take time off before returning to the sport due to the mental and physical fatigue that had been imparted on them as teenagers.
Why is a lack of college success viewed as abuse?
Yes the HS kids trained INCREDIBLY hard. Like pros. They were all in.
It's not a surprise they didn't improve a ton in college necessarily. But what's wrong with peaking out in HS, winning a natty and getting a college scholarship?
My FM kid told me about 5 years ago, "I realize now I wasn't that talented. I just trained a ton."
I was like, "No. You were talented and trained a ton." He had a beautiful stride.
The issue was he put in 1000 miles over 10 weeks in HS. I didn't think upping that intensity was doable right away in college. My plan was to let him chill a bit the first two years at like 80 and then go all in at over 100 as junior or senior. He did PR for me and ran a big relay leg for us on a school record team.
I think a lot of the FM kids have been so focused in HS when they get to college they relax and go wild a bit.
This post was edited 4 minutes after it was posted.
I can't wait for the Bill Aris 'the victim' narrative to come out. Pretty sure he has never been anything other than the attacker/offender for going on 30 years... when you see the victim pivot happen, go look up the psychological manipulation trick called DARVO (denial, attack, reverse victim/offender). It often applies to people who just get caught out...
but yeah, we don't know, it could just be this big conspiracy smear campaign against poor bill the genius guru swami mythical coach sent by heaven to emulate jesus...
you know, or karma is coming for him.
anyway, I love the speculation, keep it coming!
And ever since then, when I hear people imply he's some maniac, I haven't believed it.
I've always found your comments insufferable but this is just another level. You are pulling some anecdote out of thin air from decades ago to discredit years of accusations of abuse and foul play? I would say it's unbelievable, but it's really not, because it's coming from you. You are NOT in this community and you have no idea what you are talking about. Why don't you leave this discussion to people who know the real story and have lived experiences that now require recovery.
Aris crossed the line for far too long, especially with girls, and you are a narcissist who thinks you are all-knowing because you went to Cornell and had one experience with a former athlete.
You truly are the worst and I hope you delete your insensitive comments.
I read through all of the first page story, and opinions on the topic of FM's Aris. It seems to me that all of the things that were talked about have happened to me in either a big way, or a somewhat small way. I have given free advice here from my experience as a coach, but all I heard from it was more complaints of how things were going with someone's team, or what lousy advice the OP (me) was giving. The truth is if you have ten or more years of experience as a head coach, that is where you begin to learn something. Find some older, experienced mentors and quit crying.
Bill Ari’s good dude as an athlete who had pretty serious injuries during my time at FMXC. He never once made me do anything for two seasons I ran maybe an average of 10 miles a week and the rest cross training. Big reason I’m the man I am today. Maybe his style ain’t for everyone that’s just how it goes sometimes. I don’t run anymore but I use the lessons he taught me on a daily basis. (I’m pretty stoked on where I’m at in life because of it) It’s a perspective thing. Kinda crazy how many people care about highschool running. Rock on y’all
The landscape has changed with coaching changes at Saratoga Springs & FM. Bottom line, two of the greatest high school programs in the history over the years.
I don't know details about why he's stepping away but I read Amazing Racers, a book about the Aris and FM Program and I was not impressed.
Despite it being a Marc Bloom puff book, it was easy to read between the lines. The Aris' use manipulative tactics on their female runners in an effort to control what they eat, what they wear, and how they behave, guilt tripping them into "doing it for the team". It's easy to idealize the selflessness of running for "something bigger than yourself" but high school is about self discovery as much as anything, and these girls were sort of stripped of their individualism.
Many of these girls had eating disorders. It wasn't explicitly said in the book of course but when college girls are suffering from career ending bone breaks because they slipped on ice, that means their bones aren't strong or healthy. It's not a flex to give a fourteen year old such a guilt trip over a snickers bar that she refuses to eat it when her mom gets her one after a hard practice. Mackenzie Carter, a former FM runner who praised the Aris' in the book, spoke later about how she has panic attacks when she runs, and had panic attacks when she was doing workouts in high school.
FM put up results but at what cost? Did any FM runners run well in college? Are any of them pro? I think high school is about development, fun, and yeah hard work and commitment matter but not at the cost of your health and happiness.
I went to a college that had three former fm runners. They all shared the following attributes: 1) they were all tapped out on the sport often making minimal improvements in college, 2) they all ran crazy high milage at a young age 3) they all basically stated that their HS coach was a psycho who prioritized winning and success over the health of his athletes.
His skillset as a coach was convincing parents to sacrifice everything a normal teenage house would do for the sake of the team success. Saturdays all summer at green lakes, practice 6 days a week for hours all summer. No vacations because that lets the team down. Family eats super healthy so that kids eat super healthy. So now the family is all in, so the kid has to do their job. Even if they aren't really enjoying it. Everyone has sacrificed so much for their talent. And, if they quit or run slow or don't try hard they will get a huge speech about letting the whole team down, in front of the team.
So that is Bill's major coaching skill set. Because, once everyone is all in, you can convince kids to run 100 mile weeks over and over. Some may actually enjoy it but it's the machine that was built. Now he was ahead of his time with the Nike nationals, now that others are giving huge mileage to kids and training doubles and stuff he can't dominate. And, specifically since covid less families are willing to sacrifice everything for a team that is not winning.
I think there is something wrong with peaking out in hs, winning a national championship , getting a scholarship and then being miserable in college, doing the sport you supposedly love and losing the ability to truly enjoy it because you can't improve. Or specifically on the girls side, being injured all of college because of how much you did in hs. Yeah that's a problem - taking a talented athletes college career away because you made them run a ton of mileage in order to win nationals instead of doing a progressive development is a problem.
I don't know details about why he's stepping away but I read Amazing Racers, a book about the Aris and FM Program and I was not impressed.
Despite it being a Marc Bloom puff book, it was easy to read between the lines. The Aris' use manipulative tactics on their female runners in an effort to control what they eat, what they wear, and how they behave, guilt tripping them into "doing it for the team". It's easy to idealize the selflessness of running for "something bigger than yourself" but high school is about self discovery as much as anything, and these girls were sort of stripped of their individualism.
Many of these girls had eating disorders. It wasn't explicitly said in the book of course but when college girls are suffering from career ending bone breaks because they slipped on ice, that means their bones aren't strong or healthy. It's not a flex to give a fourteen year old such a guilt trip over a snickers bar that she refuses to eat it when her mom gets her one after a hard practice. Mackenzie Carter, a former FM runner who praised the Aris' in the book, spoke later about how she has panic attacks when she runs, and had panic attacks when she was doing workouts in high school.
FM put up results but at what cost? Did any FM runners run well in college? Are any of them pro? I think high school is about development, fun, and yeah hard work and commitment matter but not at the cost of your health and happiness.
I went to a college that had three former fm runners. They all shared the following attributes: 1) they were all tapped out on the sport often making minimal improvements in college, 2) they all ran crazy high milage at a young age 3) they all basically stated that their HS coach was a psycho who prioritized winning and success over the health of his athletes.
if this is true good riddance
Same here. My college team had 4 FM girls and a guy over a stretch. The guy never improved but was a solid depth piece in XC. The girls all had major regressions. They all couldn’t stand Aris though, and as they got older those feelings became much more hardened.
I know there was one story about how a girl had to write an apology letter to the team and read it to them all for having a soda or something and betraying their trust (this was a while ago, pre-2010), the two oldest girls said they couldn’t eat grapes because they had too much sugar.
A HS friend was also teammates with a major flame out FM girl in college, and there was some story where Aris threw a bunch of eggs at her and each one breaking was him accusing her of being mentally soft in a different way before telling her to clean it all up.
I’ve never liked the guy and always thought he was a massive egomaniac. Those NXN titles were for his reputation, not the kids. That RW article from a few years ago with a bunch of his former top runners going after him said it all.