Alberto coaching Rupp for Oregon?

Yes, a coaches ego over the best interest of the athlete. Let's see what toll this circus takes on Rupp and if Chock ever races again.

For those of you who think that Tyson is a puppet in all of this - you could call him a RUPPET...

Anwer111 wrote:

I want to anser this questio. You see Oregon used to have a very dynamic and charismatic man running the program. He is one of the best recruiters in the nation and his dedication to his dedicated athletes is unmatched. The reason that many of these runners chose to leave their high school coaches was to learn under the expert tutiledge of this man. A man the resurrected a dying program and brought it back to a leadership position in the world of college track and feild.

That is why so many of those athletes left their coach. And now they can thank some large show company (it shal remain nameless) for removing this overriding reason that they used for coming to Oregon.

Thanks. I do appreciate the comments but none of this really makes since to me. I'm nearly in college and like my high school coach alot. So, I'm gonna try to see if my college coach will let me continue doing my HS coaches workouts. Obviously, I not within a light year of Galen but I want to continue being coached by my HS coach.

I used to have a lot of respect for what I thought Salazar was doing for distance running. Until he gave Galen an opportunity to train and race under the NOP I never thought about a post high school athlete having any option to continue their running seriously at the next level except through the NCAA. I know he got a lot of criticism for offering an alternative to the NCCA, but I thought his idea was out of genuine concern and passion for the future of distance running. Also, I thought giving our athletes more than one option about their running career was a good thing too, especially since the NCAA isn't for everyone. However, I now see that he was never about options or furthering distance running for our youth in America, but about control, power, and ego to fulfill his personal agenda. His motives do not appear to be for the future of distance running in America and giving our youth options other than the NCAA, but are all about himself. It appears to be about fulfilling his and Knight's dream of making the University of Oregon a distance power house, "a return to its glory days." It is sad he mislead so many with his talk and actions. I truly believed he was after what was best for the future of distance running.

I also don't understand how a few can morally or ethically support what has been going on at Oregon. I am not saying Martin didn't need to be replaced, but how it was handled hurt the athletes. I am in total support of Galen Rupp attending the University of Oregon. What I don't understand is how anyone can justify Galen bringing in his high school coach to train him while he is running for Oregon. Tyson obviously agreed to this arrangement, but then of course he would since he was hand picked by Salazar and Knight. He really doesn't have a choice as this arrangement was spoken about before the firing of Smith. He clearly had no choice in this according to the various newspaper articles, and I am sure he has no problem with it. But that doesn't make it right, in fact it makes it more wrong than right because no coach in their right mind would let another coach take over the training of one of his athletes without some shady circumstances involved.

I respect and understand that Galen may feel it necessary to keep Salazar as his coach because he has done very well under Salazar. He has proven that he knows what he is doing. If that is the case he needs to do what the others in his position have done.

Webb was not able to let go of his high school coach when he went to Michigan, so he left Michigan and went back to his high school coach. He took criticism for that, but at least he asked for no special favors or coaching arrangements in order to stay at Michigan. Ritz gave up his college eligibility to switch coaches. He didn't ask Wetmore if he could have two coaches and continue running for Colorado so he could attain a couple more national championships. Also, Ritz had accomplished as much if not more than Rupp has under his high school coach, but he didn't ask the University or Wetmore if his high school coach could continue to train him several days a week while running for Colorado.

I am sure Martin's athletes would love to continue being coached by him, but that option was taken away from them, yet Oregon is doing what they have never done before for one athlete. Or is it for the purse of Nike?

It all looks dirty for Oregon. Tyson looks like a puppet for Salazar and Knight, and Galen is their pawn.

Your post was the best post that I have read on this board in quite some time. I was well thought out and something that should be sent to everyone within the running community. Why any post collegiate would ever consider running for Alberto and his lack of ethics is beyond me. I never believed all of the drug rumors that have followed Alberto since his Athletics West days until now. The man has proven that he is willing to bend the ethics to fit his own definition of what is right. That is the exact same motivating factor for most athletes that use performance enhancing drugs.

Thank you. I needed to read a post that has logic and understanding. It at least gives me hope that there are coaches that understand.

I agree. Good post. Well said!

High School Coach wrote:

It all looks dirty for Oregon. Tyson looks like a puppet for Salazar and Knight, and Galen is their pawn.

It's sad when big money is used to buy children that are too niave to see. I believe you can add Caitlin Chock to the list of pawns.

High School Coach's post hit the nail on the head. What a mess at Oregon!

Whether you are a fan of the collegiate system or not, the whole situation is very shaky and sad.

Almost as entertaining as you routinely guzzling Salazar's and Knight's jism all over this board. Fucktard.

Nice junior high lingo Captain anonymous. Way to decifer my name from my email too-how clever!!

I prefer to look at the positives of situation and think outside the box. If you read my posts, you will NOT find me backing Alberto Salazar and Phil Knight per se. Although if push came to shove, I will say that they had the right as alums to voice their opinions about the situation.

There are a group of people who like to portray Martin Smith as a casualty of that evil giant Nike when in reality, he made his own bed by not being all that congenial to some very key people and acting like a little despot. People also think that it was only big bad Phil and Al picking on poor Coach Smith when scores of people wanted him out. The man promised to produce across the board and wasn't getting it done in the distances.

Why don't you nut up and come out from behind your keyboard little boy? Nah, you don't have the balls and never will.

>>>>>Why was Galen coached by Salazar when he was in high school, instead of by his high school coach? I think it\'s really pompous for Salazar to try to coach people who run for institutions that already have a coach.

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Why shouldn\'t he be. Running is an individual sport where you do what\'s best for you. If you don\'t make teams or achieve your goals you\'re answerable to the choices you make. To achieve your potential you go to the best available that suits your needs. Problem with the US the is the potential continuity of coaching. Personal coach, then HS coach, then college coach, then one after college. No stability. Most institutional coaches are very average anyway and are usually only interested in overtraining and overracing you over 3 seperate yearly seasons, and milking points out of you every meet. Most won\'t care what happens after you leave college, so why should you put your future on the line appeasing them and being tied to them for 3-4 years, more so if the coach is crap. Do what\'s best for you. If you get a good coach, of course you\'d like to continue with them. Rupp is a talent and doing well where he is so why potentially screw your career and go elsewhere. As I said, your performance s are answerable to the decisions you make and what you put into it. Coming from another country, I can see why the whole system can barely produce any half-decent international distance runners.

Great Post High School Coach,

For those of you who have run at a successful D1 program, or can actually see this situation without bias, you will realize that Oregon is a circus right now. For those of you who continue to defend it, I don't think that you will ever get it.

I did run for Wisconsin when Smith was there during the 90's, and made many friends across the country at many different places on many different teams. I can say that the majority of the guys who ran at the successful programs would agree with my view. If anyone who has been involved in these posts has run at the elite D1 level and does not agree with me, please feel free to post and correct my assumption. What do I consider a successful distance running program\TEAM? I would say a Top 7 team at the NCAA cross country meet annually. I use the word TEAM because coaching one person to run fast is a heck of a lot easier than coaching a TEAM. What team Rupp is doing\did is pretty unfair. If he cared about others he would shake Alberto's hand, say thanks and join the University of Oregon TEAM. Moos handled this thing wrong and put his job in front of what was RIGHT for the kids on the team and the University of Oregon. More than likely this will cost the team a trophy at this years outdoor meet which is a real shame.

If you want to fire Martin, that's fine. Protect him from the crap until after the season and then fire him. Do it the right way. Go out and hire a coach and tell Alberto and Knight to find something else to do rather than meddle in Oregon Track. Let the new coach decide if he wants to LET Rupp run for Oregon. I would bet deep down that the Oregon Alums are kicking themselves right now. Oregon DOES NOT have a good name amongst distance running right now and it isn't because of Martin.

It will be interesting to see how Rupp does this track season if he does run. I think that he will find that the competition out there is alot BETTER than he thinks. I guess we'll find out real soon.

Yes, it will be interesting to see what happens when the good 'ole supportive group of people in Eugene and the OTC want to see Rupp run a dual meet like Pre did back in the day. My guess is Alberto, who says atheltes shouldn't over race, will USE Rupp AGAIN and convince him that NOW it's better to race MORE. Just speculation here, but time will tell.

Yes,I am in total agreement with your post/opinion.Thank you.

The situation has totally gotten out of hand at Oregon with no help from Moos.If I was a current H.S. senior I would not even consider going to Oregon until they hire a coach who has the backing and support of the athletic department.I dare to say their are a number of college's in this great big wonderful land of our's who have as rich or even richer tradition then Oregon in the distance events.Holly #!#@ what did I just say?I am a dead man.Phil is probably sending a hit squad from Nike to take me out for good,ha,ha,.

UHHHH....NO! a team CANNOT have as many volunteer coaches as they want. In track and field the NCAA limits the number of volunteer coaches to one per program per sport...

so combined program like Oregon's can have two volunteers (one for men and one for women) in the fall for cc. Then they can have two more (either the same two or a different two) for indoor track. And then two for outdoor track. BUT they CANNOT have 6 volunteers in one season. During outdoor track, since their cc season is not ongoing (you must declare your official cc season in the fall and are limited to the number of days you can have official cc practice) the cc volunteer coaches CANNOT be working with the team. Now, you might be able to make the very shady argument that during the outdoor season you still have some that are practicing for "indoor" only. VERY SHADY AND NOT LIKELY TO STAND UP TO NCAA SCRUTINY. So, at BEST you could have 4 volunteers during the outdoor track season. But under the scrutiny that Oregon will be under...you could probably only get away with 2.

What happens when Salazar decides to under-race Rupp at the conference and save the 5000s and 10000s for "more important" meets? I read in the newspapers that this is his plan for this season--1500 at PAC-10; 5K or 5/10 double at NCAAs.

(Why Salazar decided to announce this to the press before the kid has even run a college race is beyond me, but that's another issue. I mean, Rupp's obviously a great talent, but still, it's not like 13:37 in Europe makes somebody an automatic NCAA favorite. It is likely he will have difficulty being the top 5K man at Oregon this year; as "Info" suggests, being an NCAA scorer is not a given.)

But if we assume that Rupp is running great in a month and looking like he could finish top 5 at NCAAs, then this racing schedule makes good sense; and Dellinger and Smith both have done similar schedules with top 5K runners in the past. But I'm guessing it will strike everyone as very different when it's not the head coach making the tough decision to run a top distance runner in an off-event at the conference meet(and taking the blame if it backfires). And what if it's not even an assistant coach making the decision but a personal coach who isn't even an official volunteer? And what if that personal coach is blamed by some athletes (rightly or wrongly) for getting the previous coach sacked? It would be hard to take, I think, especially if others are doubling or tripling, or a national-class pole vaulter is slogging through the decatholon to scrap for every possible point.

This kind of conflict would be an especially tricky issue this year, because Oregon has an administrator as head coach.

Also very possible is the "grass is always greener" problem of having two distinct distance training schedules. Again, if we assume Rupp runs great, how many other athletes will be thinking, I should be doing what that guy's doing...

Great post. Thank you for all your insights. It looks like it will be a long time before Oregon gets a good recruiting class, if ever. I can't imagine Nike actually caring about such nonsense. I continue to wonder where the deep pocket is connected?

Sad for all the athletes involved. In a few yrs they will be the alumni and hopefully some wrongs will be righted.

There are those that applaud AlSal and Galen for calling their own game and not being pushed around by the status quo (which has had soooo much International success over the last -ever since Virgin- 25 years). Kick some ass you guys!! Ingnore the wannabees and neverweres.