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.
Abuse is a hard word for it but overtraining doesn’t do kids any favors. You are admitting here the kid was totally over trained and that impeded on his personal development. That’s not a good thing.
People can speculate and spin all they want. Our kids run 50-55 miles in a week, at the high end. This is in Bill’s current program. That is the boys. The girls, most of them less. And for much of the year, it’s less than that even including right now. Very responsible, and most would say undertrained.
Complaints of overtraining, or alleged abuse due to injury from this low mileage system, or whatever the issues might be, are utter nonsense. He takes very good care of our kids - and that is just fact. A few parents don’t like that they aren’t in complete control of their kid’s program. So they align, and conspire, and try to use the system to bring down a legendary coach, and blame him for life’s perceived problems. There are a lot of pretty upset parents and kids who want Bill Aris’s coaching - way more than the few problematic parents. I wonder who will be to blame when their problems continue, or worsen, if they somehow get what they want? When the boogie man is gone, who will become the new boogie man?
People can speculate and spin all they want. Our kids run 50-55 miles in a week, at the high end. This is in Bill’s current program. That is the boys. The girls, most of them less. And for much of the year, it’s less than that even including right now. Very responsible, and most would say undertrained.
Complaints of overtraining, or alleged abuse due to injury from this low mileage system, or whatever the issues might be, are utter nonsense. He takes very good care of our kids - and that is just fact. A few parents don’t like that they aren’t in complete control of their kid’s program. So they align, and conspire, and try to use the system to bring down a legendary coach, and blame him for life’s perceived problems. There are a lot of pretty upset parents and kids who want Bill Aris’s coaching - way more than the few problematic parents. I wonder who will be to blame when their problems continue, or worsen, if they somehow get what they want? When the boogie man is gone, who will become the new boogie man?
Here are some facts for you. Take a look at the results from yesterday’s leagues meet. Where were all of the top girls? Oh, I know they ended their season due to injuries. Also, the times were not great. This is not something you can keep arguing and spinning.
Ummm yeah the story is true. people from the area during that era heard it from the parents and other girls on the team(as they felt bad), we know the girls name it happened to. it was some speech about skipping practice or eating something, not sure the exact details, but the egg was thrown against wall or on ground and some awesome Motivational speech happens. as he was leaving he he told her she needed to clean it up. I remember enough of the story because I was baffled he wasn’t suspended then, because if any teacher did this they would be fired. im not sure if the parents complained or just finished out the year and walked away. I do know the former state champ girl walked away after continuous injuries and he was very abusive towards her. And she didn’t complain because she just wanted to be away from all of it. and this was the mid 2000s 20 years later your still claiming these stories don’t happen, even after girls did an article in runners world basically saying they were miserable and abused.
Deceptive stories are often peppered with overly specific, factual-sounding details that have nothing to do with the core event. People telling the truth rely purely on memory. Liars actively invent details. Your story sounds completely fabricated, or transformed and sensationalized to fit your agenda.
You sound like you know that every example brought up so far is untrue. You’re the one who has repeatedly asked for examples, yet when people give them with details, you immediately say they are made up. You also seem to have been around the team for quite some time based on your comments about McKenzie Carter and Christie Rutledge. Unsurprisingly you said their problems all came from their families, and were in no way related to the program. Looks like that message has been deleted…
None of this is surprising in the slightest to anyone who has spent any amount of time competing in or attending XC/Track meets in Section 3/Upstate NY in general. The guy is a psycho, and it was very easy to see the emotional abuse and manipulation that surrounded the program - particularly on the girls' side.
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.
My guess is that complaints like this had been rolling in for decades, but were easy to ignore when FM was consistently finishing top 5 in the nation at NXN. These complaints are harder to ignore with FM's current mediocracy
There's an underlying truth here, perhaps, but it's also possible that with today's culture and constant & amplified feedback that a few select parents with unreasonable and unrealistic vicarious aspirations just made it too awful to continue.
Who says that a high school program's mission needs to be to produce collegiate stars? Joe Newton's philosophy was exactly the opposite and he's largely regarded as the greatest high school coach ever.
Incorrect again. Said removed post was not mine at all. Another poster wrote that. Regarding examples, I simply welcomed the facts, as in witnesses, dates, times, locations. Stories arent always factual and people are sometimes dishonest with their intentions.
What's wrong with peaking in high school and getting a scholarship? A lot is wrong with that when you consider the fact that most of those scholarships only lasted a year or two before the kid was off the team because they either couldn't stay healthy due to years of extreme training as a teenager, or mental burn out because of the extreme atmosphere for a high school program.
The point of High School athletics is not to win championships or get kids scholarships - those are added benefits for teams and individuals who are blessed with the required combination of both talent and dedication to excellence. The purpose of High School athletics is to develop skills and discipline that will lead to success in life down the road, and promote a healthy and competitive lifestyle. This is particularly true in a sport like running, which is very easy to do, both recreationally and competitively, long into life. This is one of the biggest advantages that running has in comparison to other sports.
Coaches like Aris that fail to see this ultimately are a detriment to these kids in the long run
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.
As someone who ran at a very high level in NY for many years and got close with many FM runners throughout my career, this is incredibly spot on, and the same can be said for HS boys who ran for Aris. It's honestly shocking that it's taken this long for a change to be made. There were athletes who were manipulated into running through stress reactions and stress fractures until their bones fully broke, and there's nothing impressive about putting 7th-12th graders through D1 collegiate training and high mileage just to get good HS results. It was always about Bill, and getting results at any cost. The athletes can tell you as much... how many of them even finished their college careers? Extremely few. The greatest HS program in history by a wide margin (in terms of sustained national success), and nothing to show for it in the NCAA or post-collegiately. That is not the mark of good coaching, that's the mark of exploitation.
I just read that there is very low mileage in his program now from parents in it. So if the DI training argument and high mileage was once the case, it clearly is no longer the case and hasn't been for a long time. It seems clear that his system has changed with the times over the years. Do you believe 50-55 miles per week to be DI collegiate training and high mileage? I certainly don't. If you do, then your definition of exploitation is a bit off.
A runner improves over time in training. Bill Aris has brought hundreds of runners to their best in running during their high school years which gave them a chance to run in college in the first place. How lucky they are. Just because some didn't see massive improvement beyond high school isnt a failure. College isn't all about prioritizing running at the top. If it is, then your priorities are way off. There are also runners who did and do improve beyond high school. The goal in life isn't the Olympics for every runner. If high school running is too intense for the kids and parents, then they can choose not to run! There are other sports and endeavors in life. It's their choice.
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.
You do realize that Aris didn't care at all about track bc his team had to spend the entire rest of the year recovering from XC and preparing for the next one, right? So just because he let Alex Hatz, arguably the best HS miler in the country by his senior year, run some "fun" 4x8 legs instead of hammering him in endless 3200s as a 10th grader, it doesn't mean that Bill is some saint lol. Your next post goes on to say Owen Kimple (your FM runner) ran 100 miles a week for 10 straight weeks in HS under Aris... that '04 FM XC team was completely ridiculous, probably the greatest of all-time unless you give it to Newbury Park, and yet they did nothing in college outside of a somewhat decent career for Tommy Gruenewald, who was still competing at BYU a decade later lol. You're a clown rojo, discrediting dozens of decorated FM runners who can attest to Aris' abuse over one dumb personal experience you have. As someone who spent a lot of time around Bill, these criticisms in this thread of him are actually pretty light.
Very different groups here - former athletes who succeeded under high-mileage training decades ago and those who believe the demands became too much for high school runners. Coaching evolves, and if changes were made to better protect athletes, that shows growth and good faith. But parents also need to take responsibility. If your child is injured or struggling, it’s your job to step in and speak up for them. Not every athlete is built for the same mileage or even the same sport. And this coach trains the kids differently based on their personal needs and abilities, not the same. Blaming one person for every injury ignores the role parents and athletes play themselves. There’s a bigger culture problem too -scholarships, ego, pressure, and parents pushing kids through injuries. Accountability goes both ways.
People can speculate and spin all they want. Our kids run 50-55 miles in a week, at the high end. This is in Bill’s current program. That is the boys. The girls, most of them less. And for much of the year, it’s less than that even including right now. Very responsible, and most would say undertrained.
Complaints of overtraining, or alleged abuse due to injury from this low mileage system, or whatever the issues might be, are utter nonsense. He takes very good care of our kids - and that is just fact. A few parents don’t like that they aren’t in complete control of their kid’s program. So they align, and conspire, and try to use the system to bring down a legendary coach, and blame him for life’s perceived problems. There are a lot of pretty upset parents and kids who want Bill Aris’s coaching - way more than the few problematic parents. I wonder who will be to blame when their problems continue, or worsen, if they somehow get what they want? When the boogie man is gone, who will become the new boogie man?
Completely agree. I know Bill and many current and former FM runners. Not one has anything bad to say about him. Probably because these are the ones that chose to work hard, reap their rewards and didn't have parents that butt in and complain. Sick of the slander and ridiculous claims on this thread. I'm sure he is taking a break for a good reason, and he will be back. You don't know what may be going on in his life unrelated to track.