Yes. I'm totally baffled that anyone wouldn't immediately sense the cultish/dickish dynamic going on. Anyone who speaks to other people like that is a sick bastard. Period.
reaffirming himself wrote:
There are either a lot of abusive men on here, or else a certain someone is posting.
Here's a thread on the incident
http://www.scoresreport.com/2008/08/19/us-pole-vaulting-coach-rick-suhr-is-kind-of-a-dick/
AN INTERVIEW WITH JENN STUCZYNSKI
by Luke Cyphers
Getty Images
Just trying to set the record straight.
Jenn Stuczynski wants to set the record straight.
The American silver medalist in the pole vault is not a trash talker, as the Russians seem to believe. She's not a bullied victim of an abusive coach, as a legion of Internet fans seem to believe. She's more than happy with her performance.
But Stuczynski is upset that the joy of her medal, won just four years after she first started training for the event, has been swallowed by controversy.
In an emotional interview Friday, the 26-year-old from Fredonia, N.Y., told how words and images taken out of context in the coverage of her duel with gold medalist Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia made the days after Monday's event miserable.
"I was so depressed," Stuczynski said. "It was awful. It's so hard," she continued, fighting back tears without much success. "You work so hard, and people take it away."
The first controversy erupted over a quote Stuczynski gave during a press conference after she won the U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene in July. Asked how she thought the team would do in the Games, Stuczynski said, "I hope we do some damage, and, you know, kick some Russian butt."
It was a rah-rah quote that was mostly forgotten after she said it. "It was me and my teammates, in an emotional moment," Stuczynski said, noting that Russia has five of the top vaulters in the world, and finished 1-3-4 in Beijing. "It was a pep rally, one of those things that was, 'Come on let's go. We're not going to go over there, roll over and die. We want to fight.' "
Stuczynski never meant it as a putdown. "It wasn't intended to be malicious," she said. "It would be pretty stupid of me to come out and say before my first Olympics that, you know what, I'm gonna beat the world record holder."
But the Russian media seized on the quote as a personal insult to Isinbayeva, one of the most popular female athletes in the world who has dominated the event. Much of the rest of the press ran with the story line after Isinbayeva won convincingly, setting a new world record with a jump of 16 feet, 6 3/4 inches.
"I guess in translation it's gotten messed up, and it becomes personal and I'm attacking her and I'm a trash talker," Stuczynski said. "And that's the part that's hurts because that's not it at all."
Isinbayeva helped the narrative at her post-victory press conference. She said Stuczynski's remark motivated her, adding, "She must respect me and know her position. Now she knows it."
Stuczynski couldn't answer her in the press conference, because she had to go through doping control.
That media tempest was a mere squall before what was to come. On the NBC telecast, on tape delay some 12 hours later, the network miked Stuczynski's coach, Rick Suhr, who discovered her on a basketball court four years ago and convinced her to try the pole vault. In the time since, training her and several other athletes in a makeshift facility in Churchville, N.Y., he's coached her to an American record and silver medals in world championships and now the Olympics.
After Stuczynski missed her final attempt at 4.90 meters, the camera followed her to Suhr's spot in the stands. NBC captured the following remarks from a surly sounding Suhr, who was talking to her while text-messaging:
"(It's) the same old same old. You're losing take-off at the big heights. What are you gonna do. You gotta learn to keep take-off. You got9you got caught at that meat grinder. I did not—and I told 10 people—I did not want to be caught in a meat grinder between 65 and 80. You had to, though.
You weren't on, you know, your warm-up didn't go well, you were 55, you got caught up in that meat grinder. What are you gonna do. What are you gonna do. You didn't have the legs. Her legs are fresh. Hey, it's a silver medal.
Not bad for someone who's been pole vaulting for four years."
As Stuczynski turned around, she had a hollow, downcast look, as if she'd been upbraided.
Back in America, people watched. People cringed. And then people sent angry, sometimes ugly e-mails to Suhr's web site. Or they chimed in on Internet message boards, urging Stuczynski to fire "that jerk of a coach." A lot of people. But Stuczynski says people got it all wrong. Terribly wrong.
What they didn't see, she said, was what prompted Suhr's monologue. "I went over and I asked, What did I do wrong?" Stuczynski said. "And he said what he said, and it's the truth. And I didn't have a mike, and they didn't hear it and they didn't play it."
Moreover, she says, Suhr was texting his 13-year-old son in the States to inform him of the silver medal.
So what about the cold "meat-grinder" remarks? "When I started the meet, I was off, so I had to come in earlier, so I could get in a rhythm," she says.
Those early jumps came in a part of the meet where the most competitors are jumping from 4.70 to 4.85. "It's the part of the meet that takes the longest, and we call it the meat grinder because it wears you out because you have to jump so many times. Because I was off, I had to jump those heights to ensure a silver medal."
But what about her reaction? Stuczynski explained that she'd had problems on takeoff at her previous meet in London. She suspected she'd repeated the same mistakes, and when Suhr confirmed it, she says, "I was discouraged with myself. It bothered me that I didn't jump to my potential. It wasn't anything he said. But people took that, and all of a sudden he's a bad coach, and I need to find another coach."
And the downcast glare? "There were all these things on the ground that I didn't want to trip over," she says, including the railway for NBC's moving trackside camera.
Stuczynski says Suhr did only what she expects him to do. "What he said to me is nothing that made me sad," she says. "I'm a 26-year-old professional athlete. I ask him to be fair coach. I don't ask him to be a cheerleader. I want you to tell me when I jump good, and I want you to tell me when I jump bad` I think a lot of people don't understand that this is my job. This is what I do for a living, and I have to be good at it, and I have to get better at it. And we celebrated it. But at that moment, I wanted to know why I didn't make that bar."
When the Internet storm erupted, Stuczynski felt powerless, and a little hopeless. She says Suhr has received countless angry emails from people who think they're protecting her. Meanwhile, her family and her coach's family have heard comments about whether the coach went too far, and wondering why Stuczynski is putting up with a guy who couldn't even say congratulations.
But she, her coach and her parents went out to dinner after the competition and celebrated. "And people don't hear the things he says leading up to the meet, or the texts he sent me all week saying, We can do this, you know? That's what's so frustrating."
Stuczynski, who gave the interview at the Beijing airport as she readied to travel to her next meet in Zurich, admitted the days after the medal were some dark ones.
"After this all came out I just wanted to go home," she says. "But you can't let outside stuff affect you. They say you have to have tough skin, it comes with the business, so I guess you have to take the punches."
She's always enjoyed the media, she says, but this will take some time to sort out. "It reminds me of reality TV," she says. "The clip wasn't cut, but you only see parts of it9you don't understand the whole thing. And it's like how can you fix it? How can you make people see the truth?"
F*** you
Hill City wrote:
Letsrun posters who think Jenn's coach was appropriate = Spain's basketball players who thought making slant eyes for the camera was appropriate
It's about respect for people, or lack thereof.
Stuczynski says Suhr did only what she expects him to do. "What he said to me is nothing that made me sad," she says. "I'm a 26-year-old professional athlete. I ask him to be fair coach. I don't ask him to be a cheerleader. I want you to tell me when I jump good, and I want you to tell me when I jump bad` I think a lot of people don't understand that this is my job. This is what I do for a living, and I have to be good at it, and I have to get better at it. And we celebrated it. But at that moment, I wanted to know why I didn't make that bar."
Jenn Speaks to Buffalo News reporter Jerry Sullivan. If she is okay with the exchange......
BEIJING -- I caught up with Jenn Stuczynski by telephone Saturday afternoon, and as expected she gave an impassioned defense of her embattled coach, Rick Suhr.
Stuczynski, who was in Munich en route to a competition in Zurich, said the public misinterpreted the exchange that took place shortly after she missed her final pole vault attempt last Monday night and settled for a silver medal. She said she asked Suhr what had gone wrong and he told her. She said it actually made her feel better.
Stuczynski said the harsh public response to Suhr has made the last few days a ""nightmare'' for her. ""I don't ask for him to be a cheerleader,'' she said. ""I don't want him to bring pom poms and tell me I'm great when I'm not.''
[quote]Seb the Tory wrote:
Yes. I'm totally baffled that anyone wouldn't immediately sense the cultish/dickish dynamic going on. Anyone who speaks to other people like that is a sick bastard. Period.
Please post 15 more times, we can't get enough!
Hopefully all the hot heads who bashed her coach can just go back under the rocks they came out from. Jen set the record straight and everyone that bashed her coach took what they saw at face value. This should be a lesson to everyone out there - what you see on TV or read in the papers isn't always the full story.
Now go pick on Kara Goucher or trash USA track and field.
That guy's approach might actually be the one that HELPS Stuczynski the MOST!
The schmuck doesn't have the balls to stand up and apologize for his actions.
It's sad that this battered woman is running around trying to prove to the world, that what's happening to her is not really happening.
Battered woman? What are you nuts?
If you had read anything at all about Stuczynski before the Olympics, you would have seen she demands instant critiquing from her coaches as soon as she's finished competing. Even her father said she demanded this of him all throughout high school.
As far as him yelling at her, how would you expect him to talk? Have you even been in a stadium with 70,000 screaming people cheering on numerous track and field events? Suhr had a microphone inches from his mouth and Stuczynski was 10-15 feet away from him. Unless he spoke loud, how was she suppose to hear him?
Also, read what Stuczynski's father had to say about the incident. He and her mother were right there when it took place.
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/421355.html
But Mark Stuczynski, who returned to Fredonia with his wife from China on Thursday, said he and his daughter have no complaints about Suhr.
“Jenn and her coach came to our motel at about 2 in the morning, and they were just ecstatic. They wanted to share the victory with us,” Stuczynski said.
The next night at the track and field house, he said, Jenn told him she was upset to learn people had thought Suhr was too hard on her.
“She told me she was the one who asked Rick what went wrong, and why she was missing bars in the warmups. She said, ‘I don’t want a coach who is a cheerleader, I want a coach who is going to critique me, and get me to where I need to be.’
weak minded shmuck wrote:
The schmuck doesn't have the balls to stand up and apologize for his actions.
It's sad that this battered woman is running around trying to prove to the world, that what's happening to her is not really happening.
Good read Dr. Phil.Should he call you directly to appologize?
The first time I saw the clip, I was shocked. Of course the guy was an a--hole. JS deserved much better.
Second time, though, I heard it completely differently, because I listened to what he was actually saying. He was consoling her by essentially continuing a technical conversation. I know nothing about pole vaulting, but it wasn't hard to figure out that he was saying she'd been forced, unfortunately and due to a poor warmup, to make a number of jumps at a middle-high level--been forced to navigate the "meat grinder"--while Ms. Gold Medal had managed to "remain fresh" by avoiding those excess jumps. He wasn't criticizing her at all. He was simply analyzing what had happened, with a shrug of the shoulders. He didn't yell; he didn't castigate. Nor did he overtly stroke her and murmur "Wonderful! And so close to a gold medal!"
As a loving husband, however, I can recognize that keen and incisive analysis, no matter how dispassionately delivered, isn't always appreciated when feelings--especially negative feelings--are still being processed.
So while I don't really have a problem with what Rick said, I don't see how it was especially thoughtful or helpful at this particular moment in JS's career arc. There's plenty of time for post-mortems later on. There's also a time to savor a victory AS a victory, and a silver medal in the Olympics is a victory.
After reading what JS herself said--that she'd specifically asked him "What did I do wrong?," and that she and he and her family had gone out for a celebratory dinner later--I'll revise my comments and say that what he said WAS helpful. She asked for analysis; he gave her what she asked for. The whole thing's been blown out of proportion.
weak minded shmuck wrote:
The schmuck doesn't have the balls to stand up and apologize for his actions.
It's sad that this battered woman is running around trying to prove to the world, that what's happening to her is not really happening.
The ONLY person he owes anything to is the athlete - and she seems to be okay with it. As she said, she hired him to be a coach, not a cheerleader. Americans seems to want cheerleaders instead of coaches, and can't figure out why they are getting worse in sports that actually have some competition. Heck even Phelps's coach indicated that there were times when he was glad that "the world" wasn't part of his coaching relationship with his athlete. If anyone needs to apologise it is the media for intruding on the coach's interaction with the athlete.
This is why America has become a f**ked up place with Reality TV and WWF (all fake) - information is all done in sound bites, and this passes for the truth.
It's also why there are SO many poor coaches in the US, and why the US is slowly going to be passed over by many other countries, not necessarily now but in time. Also, what may be appropriate for a 14 year old kid, isn't the same as what is necessary for a Professional Adult - just go to a Pro football training camp!! Americans are becoming soft and lazy, coddled in fact - thanks to media, etc. Yet people can't understand why American athletes are becoming less competitive in things like distance running - which requires a VERY tough mindset.
Why is she having to defend herself anyway? Perhaps the media intrusion (again like reality TV) shouldn't have been there in the first place! It reminds of the crap about athletes having to respond to questions in the mixed zone, as if it is part of a contract or something? Maybe it's best to just let the athlete compete and leave the rest of the stuff alone - I have yet to hear more than a couple of worthwhile "interviews" after races anyway - it's really just a waste of time, is embarrassing to the athlete, and takes away from showing better coverage (as does the "up-close-and personal crap") of events including heats and field events.
yeah,ok wrote:
Good read Dr. Phil.Should he call you directly to appologize?
We'd like to have you both on the show on Tuesday, September 23rd.
Call me!
Sounds like a noodnick to me. I think this is mostly a CYA article. He didn't even allow himself to get quoted. Abuse, abuse, abuse. Abusees often defend their abusers to avoid more abuses. Her family sounds crazy too.
noodnickism wrote:
Sounds like a noodnick to me. I think this is mostly a CYA article. He didn't even allow himself to get quoted. Abuse, abuse, abuse. Abusees often defend their abusers to avoid more abuses. Her family sounds crazy too.
Your personal insight into the Stuczynskis would be greatly appreciated, far more than empty generalities.
I know the family very well and they are very protective of all three of their adult children. They have raised three very fine children: oldest daughter is in law enforcement, son is also studying to go into law enforcement, and Jenn.
The Buffalo Evening News published an interview today they had with Jenn.
http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/story/422032.html
“The last three days have been a nightmare,” Stuczynski said Saturday afternoon from her hotel room in Munich, Germany, where she was en route to a competition in Zurich, Switzerland. “They’re hammering my coach. When you attack my coach, you attack me, too.
“It’s a relationship, a coach and an athlete. That’s the part that bothered me. We have worked so hard to come this far and they’re pinpointing one person. It’s two people. It’s unfortunate that the cameras didn’t see the celebration afterward, or the encouragement he gives me.”
“I went over and asked what happened,” she said. “He told me. That was the end of it. I was kind of upset with myself. I had four tries to make a bar and did the same thing four times. I’d done it at my last meet, too. I had promised myself going in not to lose a takeoff and slow down at the box and I did. For me it was frustrating.
“What he said was true. In a way, it made me feel better. It wasn’t malicious. It was what I did wrong. It was actually a positive thing. He told me I’d won silver.”
“I don’t ask for him to be a cheerleader,” Stuczynski said. “I don’t want him to carry pompoms and tell me I’m great when I’m not. That’s not the athlete I want to be. I don’t want the constant stroking of my ego. I want someone to be honest and fair. That wasn’t an attack, it wasn’t even criticism. It was the facts. That’s the way I took it.
“I haven’t seen the video. But people were still running other races. Rick had to scream over 91,000 fans, over the photographers, over the other athletes. The microphone makes it sound tenfold. It reminds me of reality TV, where they only show the sensational stuff and cut things out afterward. The announcers didn’t help. It started a snowball effect.”
That's the difference between a true professional athlete and their coach verses those who'll probably never coach past their kids ball team. This isn't high school where if a coach says the wrong thing mommy and daddy will be taking him/her to task. This is professional sports where athletes are striving to be the very best they can.