Mary Cain sues Al Sal and Nike for $20 million over alleged abuse

they can drag it out until the end of time, her lawyers will offer to take a much smaller settlement along with agreement to never talk about it ever again. lawyers will get all the money. she'll never speak of it again.

I think the gravamen of the complain against AlSal is that he caused Cain to develop an eating disorder and ruined her mental health which resulted in her not being able to pursue a career as a professional athlete. While everyone is understandably suspicious about Cain's motivations because the lawsuit sets the outer limits of damages at $20 mil, I think it is appropriate to take a hard look at this issue in track and field. Mental health issues and athlete abuse have been a big problem in pro sports like tennis, soccer and gymnastics recently. It has been a combination of a lack of oversight allowed people like Larry Nassar and Paul Riley to act with impunity and the intense competitive atmosphere that convinces athletes that they have to put up with abuse or else they will lose their spot to someone who is willing to "do whatever it takes".

I don't think Cain is out for cash. In a civil suit, she will be deposed and defense lawyers will not be kind to her. Prior to the suit, she was advocating for changes in sports to protect athletes. Her parents have money and she probably has a trust fund in addition to a nice nest egg from the money she made during her short pro career and ongoing deals with Tracksmith. She could just write a book or start some foundation to advocate for women in sports and be done with the NOP experience.

qtips wrote:

How the times have changed. In the 90's, I witnessed a decorated college coach pickup and hurl a trash can near his athletes because they weren't listening to him. He also openly screamed at and berated some of his athletes during the meet. His team won conference the next week.

Definitely can't do stuff like that anymore.

But really why was that ever acceptable? Adults behaving as children, unable to control their emotions. What you described sounds utterly embarrassing.

You seem unaware that mental heal sucks in people general. No one can change any else’s mental health.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

I don't understand why there is such universal support for Salazar in this forum when it comes to Cain.

SDSU, you're alarmingly competent and literate, why are you on these boards?

Anyway, story time. Some of my distant family is good friends with the Salazars, as in, my "aunt" (not really my aunt) frequently talks to Al and his wife. Mary had just joined NOP. I'm talking to my aunt who says, more or less, "Man, Molly can't stand Mary. She's a little brat. Her parents sent her a tray of fruit with a bunch of toothpicks. She would eat the fruit and flick the toothpicks away. She left toothpicks all over the carpet, isn't that crazy!" I remember kind of chuckling, because toothpicks left all over the house is a little comedic. Like, is the Salazar dog going to get into a barrel of glue and then go full slapstick and turn itself into a toothpick-bearing-porcupine after rolling around on the carpet?

Anyway I nervously laughed. But thought, this is a bunch of grown-a** adults smack-talking a literal teenager for doing teenager stuff. I'm a bit older than Mary, but not by much. I've never been famous, but I hope none of my coaches wives have gone around telling stories about me. Or worse, coaches wives friends.

I guess the moral of this is that Salazar and co., and their supporters, are hellbent on this character assassination. Don't like someone? Someone telling an inconvenient truth? Talk trash about them. Drag them through the mud.

I think the truth to this lies in between what Salazar, and Nike, and Mary are saying, but heavily skews towards Mary. She was young, it was likely traumatic, she likely misremembers, and I'll bet money that she's exaggerated some claims. But I'd be hard pressed to imagine she's fabricating everything. The same goes for the entirety of the NOP whistleblowers.

Including a massive amount of damages in a lawsuit is SOP. For example, Trump is suing his neice and the NYT for $100M. My wife was sued for $1M in damages from a low speed collision and the settlement ended up being $4K. Cain and her team do not expect a judgment for $20M.

Cain undoubtly expects to receive a large settlement and it has nothing to do with a trust fund, possible savings or future earnings potential. Not of those things will be discussed in court.

just a normal person wrote:

qtips wrote:

How the times have changed. In the 90's, I witnessed a decorated college coach pickup and hurl a trash can near his athletes because they weren't listening to him. He also openly screamed at and berated some of his athletes during the meet. His team won conference the next week.

Definitely can't do stuff like that anymore.

But really why was that ever acceptable? Adults behaving as children, unable to control their emotions. What you described sounds utterly embarrassing.

Or maybe the athletes were acting like children and needed some tough reality thrown their way. Sports are tough and a lot like life. If you goof around at work and don’t get your stuff done you can’t expect to not face consequences.

Fact of the matter is most people in my generation (I’m23) have never faced any adversity in their lives and expect everything to come easy while maintaining a victim status. I got berated at work once when I was younger for a mistake I made that effected someone else and I felt like crying. I never made that mistake again

Not saying that this approach is appropriate in every situation but dismissing it entirely as embarrassing clearly underestimates its effectiveness.

high school xc coach wrote:

she's every bit as toxic as AlSal. just in different ways.

very self absorbed.

i won't root against her, but i no longer wish her success. moving on.

Agreed. Now the woke destroy our sport. I think Salazar is one of the worst people in the sport and needs to be gone. But I just do not find the allegations launched against him by Cain credible. She comes off as the ultimate spoiled child. Bombed out of her career due to immaturity and now is launching a new victimhood campaign.

First, we had to watch our US athletes whine on the Olympic stage about how terrible America is with total ignorance that if many of the athletes from other countries at the Olympics said the same things about their countries they would be jailed or murdered upon their return. Now it is offensive that runners perform better when skinny. Big difference between encouraging a low body weight to run fast and encouraging anorexia amongst your athletes. From what I have heard from other athletes who are more credible and had eating disorders is that AlSal was on the side of the first and not the second and tried to help athletes with eating disorders.

If Cain was put on a diet that resulted in a significant calorie shortfall, it was not a eating disorder.

The Militia does hazing so BFD! wrote:

hazing is universally practiced at regular US local, state, federal militia style jobs

millions of Americans endure hazing each year to enter lucrative militia careers

in the usa, hazing it's not a crime unless they touch you, or spit on you

you can quit anytime, no harm, no foul, if you choose to

This is a complete lie. Hazing and abuse are illegal. Even the military is prevented by law from doing this... sounds like you were abused and given excuses that it was fine? It is not.

Yes, to lose the excess weight keeping her from optimal performance. Part of being (or attempting to be) a world class runner. Not necessarily the picture of health….is this all news to you???

Precious Roy wrote:

I don't think Cain is out for cash.

You're kidding?

While I am not generally a fan of lawsuits or woke culture, Mary Cain's complaints against Salazar are far different than being simply encouraged/told to lose weight. If what Mary Cain says is true then:

1. She was 5'7 and weighed 121 lbs (which is in fact a healthy weight for an elite female mid distance runner) and Alberto insisted to a teenage girl that she arbitrarily get down to 113 lbs.

2. Alberto did this by weighing her in front of older teammates (both make and female) on repeated occasions while telling her that her butt and boobs were too large. Again, a man in his 50s with a huge amount of power and prestige in the sport of track and field was telling this to a teenage girl in front of other much older professional athletes.

3. Darren Treasure was in fact a fraud and was not a licensed psychologist/mental health worker. He allegedly knew that Mary Cain was severely depressed, beginning to develop eating disorders, and was cutting herself. He did nothing to help her, and instead broke counselor patient privilege by divulging this information to Alberto and other coaches.

4. Mary Cain told Alberto and another coach that she was having suicidal thoughts and that she was cutting herself and they just told her to go to bed.

5. Alberto also tried to prescribe her diuretics for weight loss which were banned by USADA

Regardless of whether or not Mary Cain would have ever become a world class athlete is irrelevent. This is far different than a coach being a bit insensitive by asking an athlete to lose some weight in too blunt of a manner, or simply working her into overtraining. She had 5 stress fractures and missed her period for three years!

Vacilated wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

If Cain was put on a diet that resulted in a significant calorie shortfall, it was not a eating disorder.

Yes, to lose the excess weight keeping her from optimal performance. Part of being (or attempting to be) a world class runner. Not necessarily the picture of health….is this all news to you???

No, its not. There was a minimum weight her body was capable of achieving and she shouldn't have been pushed to being below that level. Attempting to be a world class runner should not require 5 stress fractures.

At her training level, she would have needed about 3000 calories. If Salazar put her on a diet of 1500 calories so she would look like Klosterhalfen, he should be sued.

If her accusations are true, there is absolutely no way Scumacher or Ritz would do the same thing. Houlihan is not thin and I seriously doubt Schumacher was pushing her to lose weight. Her powering down monster burritos makes me think she was on an unrestricted diet.

Did anyone here stop and think that Mary was abused like she is claiming?

Has she made claims proven to be false before?

Her story about her former training group hasn’t changed since she left.

If she’s lying or exaggerating, it will come out eventually.

Al seems like a believable fellow. Hahahahahaha…….

SDSU Aztec wrote:

No, its not. There was a minimum weight her body was capable of achieving and she shouldn't have been pushed to being below that level. Attempting to be a world class runner should not require 5 stress fractures.

At her training level, she would have needed about 3000 calories. If Salazar put her on a diet of 1500 calories so she would look like Klosterhalfen, he should be sued.

What was Ms. Cain's age at the time of the recommendations of the coach in question?

You know nothing of what her minimum weight should have been but I’ll bet it was pretty clear to her coach and he did his job pushing her towards that. Doing it in front of the team is less personal and more business than any other possible way. Not sure what you guys expected Al to do when Mary claimed she was cutting herself. Probably just seemed like immature teenage angst and in the long run that proved true.