HS Coach With Letsrun Ties Fired Over Runners Running With Their Shirts Off

People on letsrun can really be foolish sometimes. Davis is a pretty common last name and Tom is not related at all to the Davis family associated with New Balance.

he should have had them wear shirts, its safer that way/

dean moriarty wrote:

The tide turned against this coach with this weird "workout with breaks" marathon PR nonsense. I've never heard of someone doing that, and thus indicates to me that he is a douche. Perhaps even a massive douche. But, he still did the right thing by his kids. No one should be fired for letting their runners run shirtless.

When I first read the title of this thread and the few tidbits that implied he was fired for allowing his runners to run shirtless, my immediate reaction was that the AD was clearly in the wrong and Tom was 100% right.

However, upon further examination, reading about the weird "workout" and then remembering that this clown stalked Webb after his disappointing mile and blew his "meltdown" way out of proportion, it is impossible to feel even an ounce of sympathy for Mr. Davis.

i wish tom davis would just leave.

Tom Davis wrote:

To the many of you who are clearly upset about this, it is my hope that you can try to understand why this article was written. In my personal opinion, I would hope that this article, in some shape or form, can help Alan learn that he needs to be better behaved and more responsible in a public setting. Alan Webb, just like any other person in the world, should and will be held accountable for their words and actions. If a high school kid acted like this after a race, it would not be acceptable; and why? Because we try to teach high school kids to be responsible for their actions. Alan hasn't entirely learned this yet, but you are never too old to learn something new and, sometimes it takes bold action for an individual to realize this.

Alan Webb wrote:

To the many of you who are clearly upset about this, it is my hope that you can try to understand why this article was written. In my personal opinion, I would hope that this article, in some shape or form, can help Tom learn that he needs to be better behaved and more responsible in a public setting. Tom Davis, just like any other person in the world, should and will be held accountable for their words and actions. If a high school kid acted like this, it would not be acceptable; and why? Because we try to teach high school kids to be responsible for their actions. Tom hasn't entirely learned this yet, but you are never too old to learn something new and, sometimes it takes bold action for an individual to realize this.

There is more to the story from what I've been told by someone who was there.

Tommy Boy was doing the workout on the track with his boys with HIS shirt off. The AD came by and said "I want to talk to you" Tommy said, "you'll have to wait, I'm doing a workout". What is wrong with this picture?

HAHAHA. Nicely done

rojo wrote:

It's my personal opinion, and not that of letsrun.com's, that this is a case where Tom did nothing wrong and the AD is simply out of control.

Any change in your opinion yet?

I was also wondering about this passage in one of the articles: "Davis, who is the head track and field coach at Westford Academy and former collegiate runner at Cornell and the University of Richmond . . . ."

I thought that I read that Davis graduated from the University of Richmond. Did he ever run for Cornell? (I assume that rojo would know the answer to this.)

He ran at umass lowell which is basically the cornell of lowell area colleges.

Westford Academy?

Andrew Bynum just took his shirt off in the middle of a sold out arena, but he had already been ejected from the game.

Probably would have played better if he had his shirt off the whole time. Remember how hot it used to get at the old Boston Garden? I'm surprised anyone survived.

He wore out his welcome at ULowell also. He did not stay long at ULowell.

He wore out his welcome at ULowell also. He did not stay long at ULowell.

where the hell did you pull this out of, your ass? there is absolutely no relation between tom davis and the owners of new balance. why would you just make that assumption?

Probably because he's an idiot but when you run to the press with your sob story full of distorted facts you open yourself up to people saying all kinds of wacky things. The wackiest thing has to be the coaching 14 state champions by the age of 20. Truly an amazing statement which even if it turns out to be technically true is patently absurd.

Tom ran for Umass Lowell and Richmond. He never ran for Cornell.

He is not related to the Davis' of New Balance.

This coach obviously knew the policy and chose to ignore it. He is the employee and the school obviously has a policy against running with no shirts.

The AD is doing his job!!!! If he is getting complaints and he does nothing he gets sued. Soo he makes everyone where shirts . Seems to make sense to me.

I ran CC in MA and it really is not that hot where you are going to NEED to take a shirt off. SC is a different story.

bottom line is this coach failed to realize he is an employee and must follow the rules.

lastly, one or two season does not make a great coach. Not uncommon for kids this age to improve dramatically year to year. Might be a good coach but until he has been around for a bit longer lets not marvel at his accomplishments.

Not knowing either of the people involved, I'm guessing this is a personality conflict and the shirt business is a pretext/excuse for firing the coach. Seems a case of tension escalating to the point of boiling over.

What if the AD and the coach had found, much earlier in the process, some third party they could work with, talk over their concerns, and settle on some ground rules they could both live with? Now, the situation looks pretty much out of control and likely will play out in a court. But if they'd been able to talk things over earlier, maybe they'd have avoided any scene.

Running shirtless seems like a pretty insignificant issue in itself, given that guys swim shirtless. And it's common to see guys out running without shirts. (I'm shocked... SHOCKED!... not.) But is this really, in fact, the issue--or is it just a smokescreen for other problems between the two parties?