James Li announcing retirement from Arizona

H C wrote:

Doug is a good dude. Smart. Experienced. Former college runner. Successful local high school coach and Asst. Professor of Physiology at Arizona. He should help create a good training atmosphere and experience.

I agree. Doug is a great guy. Smart, very knowledgeable and a great motivator. To also be blunt, he has worked with college aged kids for 25 years without one complaint against him. This program needs someone with not only training smarts but a high standard of ethics as well.

Dr. Doug Keen was part of the incredible Arkansas juggernaut in the 1980’s. He was right in the middle of that dynasty. He will bring the men’s program from their usual last to second last place at conference to a much higher finish. He will be able to focus on the Arizona TEAM instead of only the elite athletes there.

Great hire.

I know I for one will highly recommended AZ now to good athletes in my area. Something I would not have said before.

No negativity on new (old) coaching staff but to put the blame on hannah for the negativity of the culture that has been there for a long long time is disgraceful. It is cowardly of Fred Harvey and the administration. For a fact, lies were told about her by a bully who should never have been on the team in the first place. Hannah has been a part of the coaching staff for just over 2 years. This wasn't a "Hannah" problem. It goes much much deeper than that. Li and Harvey are the leaders of the program. The administrators let this culture fester for years. Where is the leadership?!?

Best of luck to the new XC staff, I think given those who are in charge, they will need it.

So Harvey has already told coaching colleagues that they will be conducting a national search later in 2021. But reputable coaches are obviously hesitant about it since they all doubt Harvey will be there that much longer. So the current distance staff is just interim until that dumpster fire is put out and the current team is, well, gone.

If you actually think Doug Keen working as a college professor is even close to what happens in college athletics then you are crazy. Not close at all.

I heard a rumor that Keen is the HS coach of one of the athletes who went to the papers to complain. Is that true?

A few days late, but here's the Tucson newspaper's writeup on Lagat & Keen's hiring, written by Caitlin Schmidt, who broke the story over the summer about the abuse allegedly happening within the Arizona program. https://tucson.com/sports/arizonawildcats/running-legend-bernard-lagat-two-others-to-serve-as-wildcats/article_0f3ecc65-afc9-5f27-8e5a-fb71290ab3f8.html?hidenav=1&hidefooter=1&utm_source=nativeapp&utm_medium=mobile&utm_campaign=link

Hanna isn't on the roster, so she's gone.

https://arizonawildcats.com/sports/cross-country/coaches

She’ll be at a better Power 5 school by next fall. This is how things work. Mark my words.

James Li will be coaching in Shanghai in 2021, as I suspected.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIviVNfnfvg/?igshid=1407zcw1mi0h5

He struck me as a less-accomplished and quieter version of John Chaplin. Almost a complete inability to develop domestic talent, kind of the anti-Wetmore.