Tom “Tinman” Schwartz and Drew Hunter/Tinman Elite have parted ways

the beagle wrote:

https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/receipts/

👍🏼👍🏼

Wow if this is true I've lost a lot of respect for Tom. What is the point of coaching if you're not going to get involved with your athletes? Doesn't mean you have to be at every workout. But reach out, talk to them, make notes on what is going on and adjust. Then not even sending them workouts?

Were they PAYING him?

People move out to Boulder underestimating cost of living. After some sticker shock, they end up living outside Broomfield to save bucks not realizing commute will be impossible and their coach thinks he can handle smelling cow sh*t in Greeley and commuting an hour plus in. Longmont schlongmont bumper to bumper on Diagonal Highway takes up most of your day too. Usually this setup lasts close to 2 years and then the group breaks up and people move back to hometowns.

Also runners in Boulder area having school admins call Boulder Police if they are seen using the middle or high school tracks during the school day. It’s BS...If Boulder is supposed to be a training mecca and not a tech hub or soccer mom tech bro suburb, can’t they have some kind of community track separate from the school kids with sensible rules instead of school admins yelling at runners and calling 911 assuming we are pedophiles, the next school shooter, criminals etc just because we want to bang out some track intervals in the middle of a school day?

Phil Knight wrote:

I don't have time to read through this whole thread. Can someone be a pal and give a super quick summary of why this is now a 41 page thread?

Oh buddy

So, lots of allegations being thrown around, I'll do my best to summarize and tell you how valid each claim is.

* SEEMS LEGIT BUT NO TOTALLY CONCRETE EVIDENCE: There's claims that Tom was rarely around and seemingly giving the guys very little attention as a coach. This appears to be corroborated from a few posts and a letter from Tinman Track Club. An inside source also told me that Tom was rarely around.

* ZERO PROOF: Some are claiming that Tom is super red-pilled and was letting his politics overflow into his professional life. According to some posters he would annoy/pester/harass (hard to choose the right verb here when you don't know the truth of the situation) the TME guys with his far right views. Some even claim he made some racist remarks. It seems like we're yet to see a single shred of evidence for any of this EXCEPT...

* UNDENIABLY TRUE: Tom does follow a big ol' list of far right talking heads. Including, my favorite, THREE Melania Trump fan accounts. Also, OAN, which is the fakest of fake news.

* UNDENIABLY TRUE: Tom's wife jumped into the thread and delivered a, how do you say, unhinged series of rants. Claiming the Tinmen were rude, weren't training hard/taking care of themselves, aren't qualified to coach middle school kids, something about Drew Hunter's mind being poisoned, and something about how they shouldn't use swear words because there's kids watching.

* SEEMS LEGIT BUT NO TOTALLY CONCRETE EVIDENCE: It surfaced that Tom's wife made a burner IG account to harass some of the Tinmen a few weeks ago. People provided screenshots of this. Seems legit.

* IDK SOUNDS RIGHT: There's some financial and IP disputes, which I'm not following that well. Sounds like Tom wasn't being paid much? It sort of sounds like a failure on Tom's part to not get a contract written up or something. There's also talk about of the name "Tinman". Obviously that's been Tom's name for a while, but the group has sort of built a bit of a "brand" (lol you can't really call it that) around it. Who owns it? IDK, do I look like a patent lawyer to you?

Phil Knight wrote:

I don't have time to read through this whole thread. Can someone be a pal and give a super quick summary of why this is now a 41 page thread?

No idea if I can summarize this but here are some main points. (It is difficult to discern fact from speculation, especially from Tammy’s posts on)

Tinman Elite *fired* TS, the exact way is not really said, but there seems to be a consensus it was done unprofessionally. There were reports the group had Connor Winter do it over the phone.

Tammy (Tom’s wife) came on this thread and made multiple posts, even if you don’t have time to read the thread, I would read those.

It also seems to be proven that Tammy had a burner instagram account and used it to hate on the Tinman elite guys (WTF).

The true reason for the end of this relationship has largely been up to speculation. The group phrased it in a way that made it sound like TS stopped giving them individual attention, others think Cory Leslie came in and wanted to take over (speculation, but hinted at in Tammy’s post).

Lots of arguing over who is “to blame” and the details of the setup. These questions and arguments have gone in circles. Some think TS is to blame others think Drew is to blame and others seem to think both sides are to blame.

Also lots of arguing over political affiliation, which Rojo put an end to. There was speculation that the group did not agree with Tom’s views, and as most Letsrun threads that aspect of it got out of hand.

There’s a lot more but these are definitely some main ideas, the rest of the thread seems to be those defending one side or the other or blaming one side or the other. All in all an interesting thread.

I forgot something important, one of the whackiest turn of events.

UNDENIABLY TRUE: As all these allegations were flying around, Rojo jumped in to moderate and attempt to quell the... pandemonium? He got on a call with Tom. The end result is Rojo confirmed that Tom did in fact vote for Bill Clinton and that Tom has had his covid shot. I think Rojo was trying to pull the "Tom can't be a far right Q-tip, he voted for Clinton once and is vaxed!" card, kind of like the "I can't be racist, I have two black friends" card.

I think that's it.

+1 Great summary of the thread. I've been reading this every couple hours for the past few days. It's honestly made great reading material. Will undeniably go down as one of the greatest threads ever. Had to put in a post just to cement my name in LRC history.

In response to the claim that Tinman was maybe on the spectrum, I watched an interview he did last year with strydr or something like that. He's fine and very knowledgeable and detail-oriented so you can see how he is so successful with his athletes, but he does go on and eventually gets very dogmatic about the workout issue, some of which he is just dead wrong about. Specifically, you can cavil about the notion that you get all you need from shortening a workout and adding short sprints. You could point to more successful groups and whole countries (Kenya, Ethiopia) that do much more volume in intervals. Bowerman is a good example. They don't stop at 5x800 and then add 4x200. They have 10-12x800. Kenyans will often do 10-15x1k (usually marathoners, but not all). Then too they will do serious speed sessions. Tinman says that no one uses anything better than mile speed at the end of a 5000m or 10000m, but the best guys in the world go as fast as their 600m-800m pace in the last lap of races. It is common for us to see closes of 51-53 seconds at the end of a 5000m or even 10000m. Lagat, who never ran faster than 1:46 in the 800m despite many attempts closed a 12:59 5000m over Bekele in 51 (1:42 pace). Mo closed a 14 something 5000m in 49-50. So, it is the case that many distance runners go substantially faster than mile pace at the end of their races. It is also the case that many of the best do much faster speedwork. Ethiopians will do full spiked up short sprints at the end of their easy runs and workouts. Not too surprising that they often have the best kicks in the business. Salazar had his 5k/10k guys running 49-50s in workouts, which was not much above their theoretical pr's and certainly equivalent or better than their 600m times. There is also a major benefit to going at paces faster than you would in your race in practice because it makes any given pace slower than that easier, more efficient, more powerful, and improves your change of pace. So, sometimes the dogma Tinman expressed was simply false and held his athletes back, while overall he had fantastic results with runners on the upswing until they were at the pro level and needed more.

Cheptegei closed a 26:49 10k in 55.

Cheptegei has a 3:37 1500m.

The difference is those guys' best events were the 10K, vs. for Drew his best events are 1500/5K.

Also, there's no way Drew's open 400M time is 53...

I believe Tinman himself said that Drew had a 51 which was part of his reasoning that Hunter "wasn't talented" because a lot of people in the US have 51 speed

Per OMI, it sounds like they tried to meet in person to let Tinman go as well:

“Tom knew he’d broken his contract and was avoiding any in person meetings - it’s his own fault that he was fired over the phone. There’s nothing else TME could do when someone refuses to show up to any meeting.”

Lol this thread is a mess. It seems like Tinman has a pretty unprofessional approach to coaching. I've never liked Tinman very much as he seemed pretty arrogant, especially from his quote about Drew Hunter not being talented, but I felt a little more sympathetic when his wife said he was fired over a phone call. Now I'm less sympathetic again as he apparently spent more time being an online coach with his high school runners (probably because it's easier to get results that make his training look good) than with athletes who expected him to be there in person.

Also the Melania fan accounts are hilarious.

OMI wrote:

Tom knew he’d broken his contract and was avoiding any in person meetings - it’s his own fault that he was fired over the phone. There’s nothing else TME could do when someone refuses to show up to any meeting.

OMI, you’re implying that TS wouldn’t meet with TME in person (or are you saying TMTC)? If that’s the case, and his wife had already been outted for the IG burner account, and he was fighting the athletes for using profanity, and both he and they weren’t showing up for scheduled workouts/trips- this thing was so done.

If this is all the case- and I’m just putting the pieces together from the 41 page thread full of anonymous posts as best I can- it seems that Tammy’s decision to come here and paint them the victims was ill advised at best.

That TMTC letter is pretty damning for TS imo.

I chimed in a few days ago and as more information seems to be coming out from both sides, this whole situation just makes me sad for both parties involved.

It is probably safe to assume that more information from the sources will come to light with time and we will learn more about the veracity of claims that appears to be coming from both parties involved.

But I just keep coming back to one general thought: all of the men involved (ie the TME team and Tom himself) obviously had a decent relationship at one point in the not too distant past. For some - presumably, Drew and Tom - that relationship appeared at a distance to be a relatively close one.

And those relationships seem to be - to put it mildly - done.

Whether what actually has transpired will ever be known to all is a mystery at the moment, but if you told me 2 years ago that what has taken place thus far would occur, I - as a fan of the sport, someone who had an impression of Tim as well as the TME men as being decent folks just working together on a dream - would have had a hard time believing it.

Every aspect of this and “new” piece of information that comes to light just deepens that thought for me. While I am genuinely curious to see how this turns out as a fan of the sport, from an outsiders perspective I cannot help but cringe watching this unfold at this point.

Here’s to hoping both parties land on their feet, can find continued success, and find a way to address the issues that led to this in a way that - as much of a pipe dream as it may seem right now - can lead to some degree of restoration of the interpersonal relationship it once seemed they all had.

foresterforelife wrote:

Challenge: Find 1 human on planet earth who has ran 13:17 or faster but could not break 52 in an open 400.

Easy. Alberto Salazar. I'd be shocked if he was capable of breaking 55.

This is interesting...what I always admired about Al-Sal's approach to coaching was the (intense) attention he provided to each individual athlete, something that seems to be missing from TME.

Like if you missed your splits for a single interval, Al-Sal would be there to (personally) reduce you to tears and comment inappropriately about your weight. (At least that's how I pictured it). Maybe he made people miserable, but you can't say he wasn't invested.

I guess I wish Tommy’s politics had NEVER been brought into this discussion because, even though I am fully aware that it is unfair of me, I now look at him in sort of a negative light. This is why Tommy should leave his politics out of his coaching, and maybe he tried to but there are reports that he did not. It is not good that we get influenced in these polarized times in this way but I am just being honest. I can also tell you that when you are a very good runner, and you are intelligent, it is very easy to assume that your coach is somewhat superfluous, sometimes playing the role more of a person who (ideally)seems to care about your running more than necessarily making palpable tangible contributions to your results.

the beagle wrote:

Another thing that comes to mind in this debacle...

Cultivating a strong coach/athlete relationship is an inherently easier/stronger bond than most. Shared sacrifice brings people together in a profound way. How many times have we seen athletes pour praise on their coaches and would do anything for them?

How is it with all this advantage that Tom could end up being generally disliked by the team? I know there are certainly examples of fallouts - Salazar for instance has had several detractors but even someone as sleazy (and banned) as him still has diehard, loyal pupils that I am not seeing in this case.

One more reflective thought...

I think the issue that Tammy (and by extension, probably Tom) had with the "Hammer and Axe" training programs from some of the team adds insight into one of the underlying problems. She was adamant that this was theft of Tom's coaching. The thing is, coaching is about a LOT more than just a training calendar in a spreadsheet. Perhaps that lack of understanding permeated through this whole debacle.

When I read that, that was who immediately came to mind when she referenced "buddy". Leslie is quite a bit older, and is old enough to be considered a mentor.