USATF Coaches Education Meltdown

The Overseer wrote:

coach of a coach wrote:

Have you ever attended the year end meetings? It is unbelievable how political this organization is. You make it sound like once we got away from AAU that everything has been fine.

No, if you read for comprehension, what is says is that we all hoped that when the sport left the grasp of AAU, we had HOPED it wouldn't be so political. It is obviously that such is not the case.

USATF is all politics....a bunch of no gooders who aren't good enough to coach land in positions where they can shit on everyone below them, go on vacations as part of 'team staff' and strut around with a title. Apparently now coaches education has been consumed by these vultures too.

Can sommeone forward thus thread to Doug Logan please.

I have friends on each of the event group staff and as far as I can tell the only event group who hasn't lost most or all of their instructors is the throws.

sprints: griggs and young out

jumps: lane and boo out

endurance: schmidt, christensen and engle out

sport science: ransone and young out

multis: light and sefcik out

administrators: boo, corn, young and camp are out

SOOOOO if youre trying to get a level 2 certification in the throws you're in luck! Anyone else....you're S.O.L.

Franks and Mike Smith helped Schmidt last year.... I would assume they're not involved any more?

I haven't heard anything for sure about either but franks is schmidt's boy so I can't imagine he'd do it without his boss.

Endurance this year was going to be Scott Christensen, Al Schmidt and Troy Engle. They have done about 12 of the last 15 together, but due to job changes and a family illness they had not done the past two. I talked yo Scott at the USTFCCA convention, he was all pumped up about it.

5K guy wrote:

Endurance this year was going to be Scott Christensen, Al Schmidt and Troy Engle. They have done about 12 of the last 15 together, but due to job changes and a family illness they had not done the past two. I talked yo Scott at the USTFCCA convention, he was all pumped up about it.

Christensen is definitely out. I heard Engle turned down the chance to take over everything.

RIP USATF Coaching Education. Hello USTFCCCA Coaching Education.

Any new news on this?

A friend of a friend of a friend (really. not making that up) told me that the big dogs who left are already making something bigger and better than what THEY made for USATF. It won't have anything to do with USATF which is sad but good. I'm assuming it will be associated with USOC or USTFCCCA. That's right USATF, if you screw over the very people who not only wrote but instructed the program you're going to find yourself on the short end of the stick.

I just returned from a level one school at Villanova and Mike Young was there so at least he's definitely still teaching. I'm not sure if this means he'll be doing the level twos as well though. Perhaps he worked something out. No mention was made of resigning and he actually said something about loving coaches education.

I will say that if he isn't teaching any more it would be a major loss. He taught the 3 science classes and the jumping events and was better than any teacher I had in all my years studying kinesiology at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

The other 3 instructors were great too although I wished more time couldve been spent on the distance events.

Mike has stated that he will finish out his obligations with the level 1 schools he was scheduled to present at, then he will be done. Unless something major changes prior to the level 2, it seems unlikely that the previously mentioned instructors will not take part.

Any updates on level 2 this summer. The deadline is approaching for the application and they haven't listed any instructors names yet. I don't want to put out almost a grand if the whole thing is just going to be some type of hack job with shoddy replacement instructors. Surely someones in the know about this?

Hey as one of the hack jobs hired to fill in for the level 2 this summer get your application in and trust you are going to get your full money's worth. None of my athletes made it to the city championship middle school meet because they were all injured or quit or just really had no talent but that allowed me time to prepare my full presentation on how to tell you how all about my theories on ultra high mileage at a young age (over 200 mpw) for proper development of the middle school runner. I will share my technical secrets on how runners can run so well on their heels and I will also provide a few secret details on how we carbo load on pasta and beer (hey with adult supervision a few brewskis while in the adolescent development stage is a good thing.

Besides if you and many others don't sign up then I don't get my free vacation this year.

I've heard several of the teacher replacements and it's not good. Most of the top down are turning down opportunities to teach that they would have normally jumped at but know what happened with the backstabbing and broken promises to crew that resigned.

And apparently attendance is way down. WAY DOWN. If you're signed up I'd see if I could get my money back before it's too late. And if you're attending expect to be underwhelmed by quality and overwhelmed by disorganization.

at the same time...a degree is a degree...you can still have usatf level 2 certification on your resume.

So, not all bad.

lol wrote:

at the same time...a degree is a degree...you can still have usatf level 2 certification on your resume.

So, not all bad.

I suppose if you're the kind who thinks a general studies degree from Southwest Mississippi State is the same as a physics degree from an Ivy then more power to you. The reality is likely that you're probably going to shell out about a fat grand for a poor experience with second rate instructors.

But if the program doesn't completely tank in a couple years then you may be right about the resume thing...people might not know that it was attained in a bad year.

I would think it would be more equivalent to attending the same school during its heyday or during a downturn...even the ivy's or whoever has runs where the education is not as high quality as it is at other times.

That being said, I see your point.

Any word on who this years instructors will be for Level 1? Level 2?

harlyd wrote:

Any word on who this years instructors will be for Level 1? Level 2?

L2:

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