I took the Safesport training. I'm not sure what Alberto Salazar violated

First, the whole idea that there is one body fat percentage that works for athletes to be successful is not born out in reality. While successful endurance athletes will fall into a range to say with precision that 11.5% is ideal is a real misunderstanding. You are far more likely to create a problem than to make an athlete better. Focus on the training. How often are Kenyans/Ethiopians getting their body fat measured? Focus on training and performance.

Second, I have a daughter and her high school coach was regularly making comments about the girls as they hit puberty. She confronted him on it. He stopped for a bit, but the other thing he did was pretty much give her the cold shoulder for the next 2 years of her high school running. Yep, the power dynamic was there too as he chose who ran at each meet.

The idea that only abusive or manipulative coaches get success is just not borne out. Here is an abstract of a paper on high level swim coaches. A key finding is that the coaches who fostered a strong sense of trust with their athletes were MORE successful. These are not "soft" coaches; they held the swimmers to high expectations, but they also provided a LOT of emotional support.

Ernest wrote:

Countless folks have health, mental health, body-image, and eating-disorder issues.

Others with these struggles do not blame-shift every defect and problem onto someone else.

Cain needs to own these.

Salazar's coaching didn't create these - any more than him not coaching fixed them.

I hold many liberal, leaning views but this fiasco seems another example of Snowflake Cancel Culture run amok.

Safe Sport, and most everyone else, kowtows in fear of vengeful woke mobs rounding up the next witch to stake to the pyre. This requires postures of maximal political correctness, even at the expense of fairness, due process or (what used to be) common sense.

Salazar may not have caused the issues, but he certainly could have triggered them.

SafeSport was created because thousands of coaches were abusing youth. It blew up with swimming and then gymnastics brought it to a new level. Toss in tae kwon do and just about any Olympic sport and you will find administrators covering up for coaches or ignoring allegations even when there are several of them.

SafeSport has a procedure it follows. Salazar can appeal and if the procedures were not followed the sanction can be removed. Just because you are not privy to the details of the investigation does not mean it was not high quality. I have been interviewed by SafeSport investigators to answer background/procedural questions about how things work in sports I work in. I have found these 2 investigators at least to be thorough and wanting to get the facts. (One was a former FBI agent and the other a long time high level sports administrator.)

AW Red and White wrote:

SS permanent ineligibility sanction against Salazar has nothing to do with the private investigation debacle.

How do you know? Who hired the private investigator?

Body weight with respect to height is the number one predictor of success in distance running among top athletes.

The investigators employed by SS are not conducting private investigations, they are investigating on behalf of SS and the subject of the investigation is informed that a case has been opened against them.

Any case that proceeds to the investigation level at SS has already gone through a thorough vetting process by SS. The investigation is overseen by SS and the report is submitted to SS. There's nothing renegade about SS. Salazar was investigated for misconduct because athletes came forward with claims against him.

From the study: “The results showed that the 21 world-leading coaches were significantly more agreeable, had greater perception of emotion, were better at managing their own emotion, and were less Machiavellian and narcissistic than the 15 world-class coaches”.

So don’t be a narcissist, don’t have anger management issues, and be able to get along with people (agreeable). What a ground-breaking study about how to be a coach lol.

On a serious note though, how is this helpful? Everyone who isn’t a psychopath knows this. But getting along with people and understanding the emotions of athletes who are all vastly different is a hard skill. Athletes themselves usually don’t understand their emotions or how to express them. And you may have an hour long conversation with an athlete trying to listen to them and then you come to a mutual resolution that they ‘agree’ too.. but Then it turns out they actually disagree and then go around talking about how bad you are. (This goes for any relationship, not just coaches/athletes).

When people have issues with their coach, teacher, or boss I always ask if they’ve talked with the person. 95% of the time people say “no”. Due to this, I’ve concluded that if someone doesn’t like me or doesn’t agree with me, they’re not going to tell me. So even though none of my athletes have ever expressed disdain for me, I know there have to be some who have ill-feelings. So I try to actively create opportunities for athletes to voice their opinions or to express when they don’t like something. But most remain silent -even when it’s anonymous. If you give a survey for example, most won’t even bother to fill it out, and very very few will put ‘comments’. If you schedule individual meetings, some either won’t show up, or they will basically sit in silence. I take the blame if an athlete feels devalued or doesn’t like me/trust me. But sometimes it’s a little frustrating because I’m not a mind-reader. The responsibility is always far more on the coach, but athletes should keep in mind that they play a role in the athlete-coach relationship too.

Never heard of SafeSport. Find out it's just another of USG's secretive kangaroo courts that is allowed to destroy peoples lives without the due process safeguards of presumption of innocence, accused's right to confront witness testimony, to understand the evidence against him, to present exculpatory evidence, and the requirement for proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Just another travesty of a mockery of a sham. The biggest crime here is Mary Cain's self-righteous lack of awareness of her own shortcomings.

ex-runner wrote:

AW Red and White wrote:

SS permanent ineligibility sanction against Salazar has nothing to do with the private investigation debacle.

How do you know? Who hired the private investigator?

That's not how SafeSport works. Also, not sure following AlSal around would provide any evidence SafeSport would use.

alanson wrote:

Never heard of SafeSport. Find out it's just another of USG's secretive kangaroo courts that is allowed to destroy peoples lives without the due process safeguards of presumption of innocence, accused's right to confront witness testimony, to understand the evidence against him, to present exculpatory evidence, and the requirement for proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Just another travesty of a mockery of a sham. The biggest crime here is Mary Cain's self-righteous lack of awareness of her own shortcomings.

It is not a criminal proceeding so the burden of proof is not as high.

Salazar can appeal. Salazar would have been given a chance to respond to each allegation. Not sure the allegations (assuming they are the same ones made public) are all that hard to understand.

And shockingly a lot of coaches cannot follow this obvious path.

Not all that groundbreaking, but it adds to the evidence. Science works on the idea of a preponderance or consensus of evidence. So no single study should be taken as the final word. It also helps to reinforce what good coaching looks like and it is not belittling your athletes or destroying a sense of trust.

You might be more informed than others (good for you) but better to evidence than make assumptions.

How is it helpful? Well coaches can get better at identifying emotions and then what to do. As you note, it is a skill. If in your example the athlete goes around you then there is not a trusting relationship with that athlete as your example would illustrate that.

Also, "agreeableness" has a specific meaning in this context.

This is tough, because being an elite athlete in a sport requires a person to be dang near perfect in every aspect of their training (eating, sleeping, working out, etc.). Just because some people don't like to hear that they need to lose weight doesn't mean it is the wrong advice. As much grief as Goucher gave Alberto, I don't imagine she would have done any better running for someone else. I think Cain and some of the young athletes that went pro early were not emotionally ready for professional running. I have a hard time accepting the idea that any professional grown adult could be "bullied" by a coach. He probably shouldn't be coaching kids, but I see no reason why he should be banned for life from coaching grown adults with minds of their own. His reputation is a known quantity. If an adult wants to subject themselves to his program, they should be free to do so.

Safe sport is for baby Kats, grow a pair of you want to be a competitor.

why does Alberto news always pop up during big track event . 2019 world champs and now 2021 olympics. trying to affect athletes who had a good relationship with the man. Not all cases where bad. Big Clayton supporter would hate to see this get to him.

In principal, I agree with the premise of this organization but the punishment here does not seem to fit the crime.

Even if he did step over the line, bullying and calling somebody "fat" is not exactly grounds for a lifetime ban.

And telling a world class athlete that they should lose some weight is not necessarily bad advice, something really stinks here.

Hopefully he appeals and this gets reversed, sounds like a classic Kangaroo court to me.

I’m unable to find information on his alleged “sexual misconduct”. Is it publicly known who he sexually abused and how?

This all reminds me of the greatest loser of all time: Trump and his loser family!

Banned from coaching?

How is that possible?

He's a self contractor. If someone wants him to coach them, how could it be stopped?

Heck he can do it online FFS.

Yeah he might not get a college job, or a government coaching job.

But I can't see how they can stop someone from utilizing his services. Its not as if he's locking them up somewhere and putting them thu their paces against their will.

5 sections wrote:

The womensrunning article says that the things Cain reported were confirmed by other member of the NOP. So if these athletes saw the abuse happening why didn't they step in? Why didn't they try to help Cain? Shouldn't they also faec some type of ban since they contributed to this by not action?

Because it was a different culture just a couple years ago pre-MeToo. A coach calling you fat whether it was the Karolys or Alberto wasn't considered Bullying. The rules changed.

arunaround wrote:

I’m unable to find information on his alleged “sexual misconduct”. Is it publicly known who he sexually abused and how?

I would assume Kara Goucher is the MeToo on this one.