Coach Cook shares his thoughts on what happened with Flannagan and Donohue

She ran a 4:00.35 in '99.

PIL wrote:

I started thinking about the Bowerman/Pre conflict about the mile early in Pre's career at the UofO.

Essentially Bowerman told him he is not a miler, it's time for him to move up and run the two mile (and beyond). Pre goes off in a huff, comes back and says OK, you're the coach.

Certainly this could be considered "negative", crushing one's dreams, type of coaching but it was realistic.

Was Cook doing something similar? Did he then tell her, like Bowerman did with Pre, there was a distance she had more of a chance of succeeding at?

When did Bowerman ever say that to Pre? Pre was never told he had to move up, Pre was already focusing on the 3 mile from day one. He was also the Oregon school record-holder in the mile (3:54) and only 3 seconds off of the world record.

Nice work of fiction, though. Try harder next time. You might even fool someone.

Man of many handles wrote:

It's obvious that there was no respect for his athletes otherwise they'd stay with him. Even if it was just a mutual disagreement over philosophy that caused the breakups, Cook responded in an arrogant and classless manner. When his athletes left him he had 2 choices: 1. take the high road, 2. take the low road. Cook chose the low road.

Just ask people who have worked with Cook in the past, they all paint the same ugly picture. Is it a coincidence? Do you notice that none of his so-called "supporters" ever post using their own names? Is that a coincidence, too? You know the answer, Mr Cook.

It looks like Rowbury is staying with him.

My screen name - toro - stands for Todd Rosenberg (my own name).

I was a walk on coached by Cook that made it to the Olympic Trials.

Yes, he has strained a few relationships. I even was a bit distant from him for a short time in my post-collegiate career but he was my coach in the end and helped me reach my goals.

He is consistant and faithful in his coaching. Keep it athlete-coach and you will do well. Don't make it personal.

A lot has been said of the goal of breaking 4 comments. I am sure that that is just a sound byte out of a greater context that is getting far too much scrutiny.

Running is a different beast. In most sports an athelete cannot fire their coach. We have seen it with Hart/Wariner and now with Cook/Flanigan with money being part of the picture.

The good news is that everyone can still have a happy ending from this. Flanigan and Donahue can go set new PR's. Rowbury and Cook can still team up to take a shot at a medal at this year's World's.

Cook could have stayed content with his college coaching career with numerous All-Americans, some NCAA Champions one team NCAA Championship and one World Champion. Or at least stop after taking these three girls to the Olympics and helping the US achieve an Olympic medal in a distance event. But he loves the challenge and he is still at it.

Me - I'm an accounant and a Letsrun poster. I just couldn't see making a life in the business of running. Good luck to all.

From the Bowerman Biography by Kenny Moore, have also heard some of this from a video interview of Bowerman included on, "Fire on the Track" about Pre.

From the Moore biography:

"At their first goal setting session, Prefontaine announced that it was great that Bill was the finest coach of milers because that was the race he wanted ultimately to rule. Bowerman asked how fast he hoped to run. Pre said: 3:48.

...But that winter, Bowerman, Bill recalled years afterward, all he wanted to do was train for the mile, run the mile. It got to where on our spring trip to Fresno, when I put him in the two mile, he didn't want to run it. I'm not a two miler, he said, I'm a miler. I suggested that he might want to give some thought to which university he'd be running for if he didn't try this particular two-mile because it wouldn't be ours.

At that, Pre had turned and run out of the room. In fifteen minutes he was back. He said Okay. Fine. Got it, and won the two mile in 8:40. After that one quick test of the waters, Pre never seriously defied Bowerman again".

So, back to the original question, did Cook give her an alternative to the 1500m that he thought she could succeed in?

Thanks Todd, good to hear from someone that has a good balanced perspective and a relevent history!

Your candid feedback is appreciated.

"Okay in the what Degree" 1st? How about Nth?

Tell me one thing I said that was not at least a solid opinion, and like many I stopped smoking shit in my 20's, apparently not you.

Give me something?

You are saying on record, that without drug use, someone cannot improve 4-5 sec in 4 years?

I say, it could happen, look at the tracking.

Regina Jacobs is not an example, of anything but better living through chemistry as far as any of us know.

No one even talks about her anymore, shame on her.

You do realize that Kenny Moore's book is loaded with fiction don't you?

Your citation for Moores work of fiction aside, FYI, Prefontaine had already ran 8:41 in HS. His best mile was 4:06. In his freshman year Pre ran 3:57 in the mile. Your story is week when compared to the facts.

Keep trying.

Donohue is already way past this.(about 300 or 400 miles past) The point whether you posters here on Letsrun or Cook believe she can improve and break four is immaterial. It's what she believes that counts. I've known her for a long time and if she says she can do it, she can do it. She should be the poster child for Nike "Just do it". Cook was her coach and still is her friend. I feel he underestimates her. That's his call, that's my opinion. It doesn't make him a bad guy. It doesn't mean she won't improve. I'm sure she will find a new coach and announce it soon. Lets wish John Cook good health and Donohue much luck with her career.

.1 in a 1500 isn't really faster. It is a measuring error. She did pop a 3.59 indoors.

OK in the 1st degree wrote:

She ran a 4:00.35 in '99.

Mundus Vult Decipi wrote:

Avocados Number wrote:

I appreciate your point, but do you really believe that it's "unrealistic" or mere "fantasy" for a 25-year-old 1500-meter runner, having dropped over nine seconds from her PR at the age of 24, to believe that she may be able to drop another five or six seconds within the next three or four years? Does that really seem like an "impossible goal" to you?

Am I missing something here? I thought her goals were to break 4:00 and medal in the 1500 in 2012. Whether Erin can break 4:00 is arguable, whether she will medal in 2012 is not debatable. She will never medal in a major championship. I don't have a horse in this race (and certainly admired Donahue's college career) but she will lucky to make the US team in 2012 let alone medal in the Olympics.

From Nearman's article:

"Said Donohue: 'I expressed to Coach Cook my goals for the next four years [running under 4:00 in the 1,500 and being in contention for a medal for the 2012 Olympics] and my willingness to work harder to reach them. He told me that I'm not talented enough to run that fast and that he doesn't want to work toward goals [that] he believes are unattainable. He told me officially on Monday, Jan. 19, that he would not coach me anymore. And I agreed that he probably shouldn't be my coach if he thinks I can't get much better.'

"Cook, who has made friends and foes with his directness, countered: 'The fact [is] that Erin does not make it with Shannon. It is not Shannon's fault. [Shannon] is a really nice person. Erin needs to know she is only as good as she is. There will be not 4:00. That is a dream.'"

Her goals, then, are running under 4:00 and "being in contention for a medal." And Cook's response is that 4:00 is just a "dream" that will never happen. Maybe it won't happen, but I don't see how Cook can possibly know that. A few years ago, she was a fairly good and very talented middle-distance runner and javelin thrower. Now, she's a full-time runner who has already run 4:05 while still carrying close to 145 pounds on her javelin-throwing frame. I don't know what her chances are of running 4:00 sometime in the next four years, but I'd rate them higher than I would have rated, for example, Meb's chances of winning a silver medal at the 2004 Olympic Games.

I'm certainly not one of those starry-eyed individuals who claim that anything is possible if you only believe, but so much success in this sport is apparent only when you're looking in the rear-view mirror. I remember watching an awkward-looking runner from Providence College get outkicked by his teammate in a college cross-country meet one fall, and thinking that he was a tough little guy who tried hard but simply lacked talent. A few months later, that awkward-looking runner with no kick, John Treacy, won his first world cross-country championship. I remember watching a good-natured, stubby-legged little runner from Bowdoin College getting clobbered in a 10K road race by a speedier runner with real track credentials, and thinking that the little runner from Bowdoin was simply being left behind in the rapidly-improving sport of women's distance running. A few years later, the stubby-legged little runner from Bowdoin, Joan Benoit, won the Olympic marathon. I can think of so many similar examples. I'm confident that many of us on this website can remember coaches and others who told us that we would never be good enough to win a varsity letter, or qualify for the Olympic trials, or some other goal. They didn't know anything more than we did. They were just playing the odds.

cut across shorty wrote:

Donohue is already way past this.(about 300 or 400 miles past) The point whether you posters here on Letsrun or Cook believe she can improve and break four is immaterial. It's what she believes that counts. I've known her for a long time and if she says she can do it, she can do it. She should be the poster child for Nike "Just do it". Cook was her coach and still is her friend. I feel he underestimates her. That's his call, that's my opinion. It doesn't make him a bad guy. It doesn't mean she won't improve. I'm sure she will find a new coach and announce it soon. Lets wish John Cook good health and Donohue much luck with her career.

Well said.

Not Really A Flanagan Fan wrote:

Kipyego hasn't earned that "f'ing" on the pro level yet. Goucher could tool on Kim Smith, no surprise that she can run away from Kipyego. Flanagan would've trounced both Goucher and Kipyego over either distance. Goucher's not going to threaten the indoor 5000 AR, believe it.

Do you honestly believe that Barringer would have had a chance to beat Kipyego this season? She is a serious threat to make the Kenyan world teams at any time, and that is saying a lot. She is definitely at the level of the top US women.

Oh... and I seem to remember Kara running away from Shalane at both the US Olympic trials and the Olympics. I am sorry, but Kara is just flat out better at any distance 3k or lower. When Kara moves up over 5k, she is daring world class fields to set a modest pace and test her sprint.

Kara is the fiercest competitor in US distance running, male or female. I was sad when she decided to run marathons, but I finally understand that she simply had to go head-to-head with Paula Radcliffe while they are both in their prime. And she did it in the coolest way possible... by running a tough but loved course at New York. She just always finds her way into the huge races and throws down. Shalane runs boring time trials.

My point is just that Kara is cooler than Shalane. I don't fault Shalane for leaving her coach, since he sort of sounds paranoid and weird imo. She is actually pretty cool herself.

insight wrote:

My point is just that Kara is cooler than Shalane. I don't fault Shalane for leaving her coach, since he sort of sounds paranoid and weird imo. She is actually pretty cool herself.

Cook = paranoid and weird.

Salazar = paranoid and weird.

insight wrote:

I am sorry, but Kara is just flat out better at any distance 3k or lower.

The facts would disagree with you on that one.

When Kara moves up over 5k, she is daring world class fields to set a modest pace and test her sprint.

I think these "world class fields" would accept that challenge in a heartbeat.

I was sad when she decided to run marathons, but I finally understand that she simply had to go head-to-head with Paula Radcliffe while they are both in their prime.

No, she simply realized that she couldn't compete with Shalane in the 10k, so she had to move up in distance ASAP. And perhaps it was a wise decision, but her motivations to move up at this point, after the 2008 track season, seem clear.

"Self-Discipline ... While we have limitations placed on our endowed talents, there is no such limitation on this quality.

It can be developed to such a point where it becomes a determining factor...

Lars Kaupang, a Norwegian student, came to Oregon as a 4:17 miler. My evaluation of Lars ... is that he had a great capacity for self-discipline and a normal share of endowed talent ... I couldn't try to judge what his ultimate total capacity would be!"

- Bill Dellinger, from 'Winning Running'

Look people its really simple. It boils down to one thing. Cook is a Duke fan. Thats why Shannon stayed and Shalane and Erin left. With Duke playing UNC Wed. this was bound to happen.

Hahaha, good call.

Look forward to Wednesday night.

Before everyone reads too much into the whole situation, it's worth remembering that newspapers, even very good ones (Washington Times is a pretty decent one), can give an impression that is vastly different from reality by placing a few quotes in different order, dropping some qualifying statements, etc.

I've seen several interviews where the written format gave a very different slant than would have been inferred from listening to the whole process. Not having been there for this one, who knows, but I think it's a bit premature to conclude either side is right/wrong based on what is out there right now. Perhaps some of our more well-connected posters know otherwise, but at this point, most of us don't. One thing I've seen over and over and over is that the first, or even second version of events that comes out is rarely the truth- everyone adds their bias, either intentionally or not, so who really knows. Lets wish everyone future success, hope they all act like adults, and see what happens.

Chokri Dhaouadi wrote:

To call that a \"downhill course\" isn\'t even honest, it\'s more like a cliff dive with a strong horizontal component. Great, so her legs \"turned over that fast\" to keep up with the pull of gravity, that\'s not at all the same as turning them over that fast while using muscles to push the body over a legit course. Agree with \"to be honest,\" if you\'ve fed into convincing her that she\'ll come within two minutes of that 32:44 on an honest course then you\'ve done her a disservice.

please do not post under Chokri\'s name if you are not Chokri. And since I know you arent....then use your real name. or you could just post under the name \"knowitall\" since you think you know everything.