UO women track athletes alleging they felt victimized by the program's data-driven approach to weight and body fat percentage

i wonder wrote:

Angelo Pappas wrote:

Then go to a different school. There are hundreds of other options. Some people like this approach.

Do they tell recruits and their parents about this before they sign?

Good question. If I were a parent and a coach said, "we do frequent DEXA scans, and if an athlete is above 12% they don't travel to meets and are prescribed an extra hour a day on the bike until they are at they make weight."

This all sounds like crap coaching. All star recruits, unlimited resources, and crap coaching can still produce titles. I'm fine with a coach telling athletes not to have fried food or to skip dessert. If you are in championship season and you are hungry, have some fresh cut veggies and lean protein - not KFC and beer. But if you are eating good food, recovering well, avoiding injury and performing then these scans are lazy and stupid. And who is their nutritionist, the same fraud that Tom Brady uses? Better avoid tomatoes too.

I am going to wager a guess that most of those on this thread who are defending this practice are men. It’s time to wake up and realize the world is changing. Woman are speaking up and uniting to stand up against this type of behavior. These athletes EARNED a scholarship based on their times and as you can see based on the transfer rate many are refusing to let a coach define them based on the number on a scale. From Mary to Simone women athletes are finding their voice and the tide is changing…

Would a female rather hear the subjective musings of her coach, "Hmmm, you look a little chubby, are you emotional eating?" or would they rather get the output from a Dexa scan that objectively measures optimal body composition? I'm of the opinion that a college coach of women would be nuts not to use the Dexa/mathematical approach - that way it's coming from the scan not the coach.

I've said this in another post somewhere; I'm not sure why xc/track athletes are so prone to eating disorders and coaching derived anxieties.

Maybe because running is such a hard mental sport HS coaches have coddled and protected them from the realities of the world. So yes, xc and t&f are mentally tough sports but they're not that dangerous when compared to other sports like equestrian, gymnastics, boxing, wrestling, etc.

Also, Goe was approached by "several female athletes" out of a population of what? As another poster alluded to maybe 5 out of 100?

I'd be more concerned if it was 50% as there is always a smallish percentage of any group that will wash out.

Maybe it will grow to that number, then Colleges can make the choice to not look and reward winning championships and focus instead on enhancements to the college experience as Malmo pointed out. I suppose if track and xc became an intramural sport I might still watch but I certainly wouldn't pay for online streaming.

ehehh wrote:

Good question. If I were a parent and a coach said, "we do frequent DEXA scans, and if an athlete is above 12% they don't travel to meets and are prescribed an extra hour a day on the bike until they are at they make weight."

This all sounds like crap coaching. All star recruits, unlimited resources, and crap coaching can still produce titles. I'm fine with a coach telling athletes not to have fried food or to skip dessert. If you are in championship season and you are hungry, have some fresh cut veggies and lean protein - not KFC and beer. But if you are eating good food, recovering well, avoiding injury and performing then these scans are lazy and stupid. And who is their nutritionist, the same fraud that Tom Brady uses? Better avoid tomatoes too.

That whole 12%/no travel scenario sounds like a one sided story because it's not all that believable. If it is, and the athlete was on the travelling team to begin with, then I agree with you - crap coaching. I would add that I doubt there is a whole lot of crap coaching going on a Oregon.

As to Brady's nutritionists, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak.

I read through all these posts, and the common theme I keep coming up with in the end is that MEN and WOMEN are different.

interesting.

Says the guy who was never competing to keep their scholarship at a Power 5 university. Go back to when you were in high school, run fast enough to get a scholarship from the leading Power 5 universities, then tell us how you feel being asked to perform at your maximum capability three seasons per academic school year.

I’m glad these athletes are speaking up. Weight in and of itself is not a great tool and shaming or pressuring people to lose weight should not be tolerated. I wrestled at a top high school program and the pressure to lose weight was unbelievable. Boys who were 5’8 or 5’9 were encouraged to wrestle at 112 or 119 pounds and my teammates would run to school on trash bags, not drink any fluids the day of a meet, throw up and spend time in a suana to make weight. Many developed eating disorders and our coach himself a former state champion bragged that he could still throw-up on command, this same coach was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in his mis forties. A few years ago they increased the minimum weight class from 103 to 106 but the pressure to compete well below ones natural weight is still there. I quite as a sophomore when the coaches wanted me to wrestle at 123, as a freshman 400 / mile runner who qualified for the state freshman meet I was around 140 to 145. I got down to 131 in December and looked like I had just left a concentration camp so smartly in retrospect quit the team and not without a lot of grief from the coach about not being tough enough.

Our top wrestler lost in the final for his weight class because he feinted from dehydration during the March.

Most of these diagnostic tools are developed and tested by men. Physiologically speaking men and women are very different in terms of body mass and body fat etc.

nina_sjl wrote:

https://twitter.com/KenGoe/status/1452654590596313101

They aren’t “alleging” they felt victimized. They’re saying they did feel vicitmized.

This is all ridiculous anyway as better body composition and performance generally comes with better fitness, not the other way around.

If one athlete was told to reduce her bodyfat percentage further when she was already amenorrheic, that is frankly outrageous, not to mention seriously jeopardising the athletes health.

Also, stopping athletes from competing if their body fat isn’t low enough, I thought the purpose of sport was enjoyment?

The problem with this logic is that the women who came forward in this story were NOT overweight to begin with. 16% body fat is already incredibly lean for a woman, and the 13% body fat that the coach wanted is BELOW the healthy range for female athletes (14%-20%).

Of course, a runner who is 22% body fat (still lean compared to the general population) would perform better at 18% and making that change would likely keep her in a healthy range and keep a menstrual cycle. Probably a few *minor* lifestyle changes can make this happen for most people in a competitive D1 environment.

But shaming someone who already is underweight (given the missed periods) to drop down to an even more unhealthy level is the problem. Men can be healthy at a much lower body fat % compared to women. Whatever logic this coach is using to compute an ideal weight for female athletes is flawed. Body composition is a factor in elite sports, but would you rather have a runner at 18% body fat and is strong and healthy enough to handle a higher training volume or an athlete that is 14% body fat and getting sidelined for stress fractures all the time? Last time I checked an injured athlete doesn't score any points.

I can't emphasize enough that body fat percentage doesn't tell the full story--it also doesn't even tell THE story in some cases. In some cases, women run BETTER when they are HEAVIER. And no, that's not some PC stuff. It's the truth of the matter.

There is a pro athlete out there who I won't name, who I think looks like they have pretty severe visible signs of an eating disorder. They might benefit from actually gaining more weight and getting healthy--because sometimes weight=strength. Healthy diets also mean less injuries and ability to sustain more training. This individual's career has been rocky to put it lightly, and would probably benefit from some help.

Additionally "skinny" doesn't look the same on everyone. One person's skinny could be another person's severely unhealthy. Some people were meant to have more weight on them to be healthy and strong than others.

These scans are ridiculous because they might be forcing otherwise healthy women to lose more weight than they are supposed to in order to feel strong and maintain bone health to avoid injuries.

A few things stand out to me, first of all the women are mainly coached by Helen? Confused why all the heat is on Robert? Secondly any nutritionist that suggest an athlete continue restricting food after losing their period should be fired and most likely will be sued. That is a clear sign of the female athlete triad. That’s the more worrying part imo. Most college coaches push their athletes into disordered eating because they don’t know better. A nutritionist should know better.

Also, Katie Rainsberger, a former U of O athlete posted this article recently on her insta story. Any other U of O athletes going public?

https://www.instagram.com/katierains_17/

I love when articles like this come out bc when I was a female college athlete 20 yrs ago dealing with these issues it was not cool to come forward or speak out. The culture then was to ride the fine line of disordered eating & hope you finished the season injury free. It’s refreshing to see The culture shift to where women feel they can address these issues publicly & stand up to powerful figures in the sport. My story has been documented in the e book She Was Once a Runner if you are interested

Former u of o runner Emma Abrahamson used to do what I eat in a days on her YouTube channel & I remember always thinking she underfueled & that her videos were representative of the team’s general eating habits. I am curious if she participated in this article since She has been public about the fact she didn’t menstruate in college, a clear symptom of reds.

Cdot2005 wrote:

It’s time to wake up and realize the world is changing.

The US is changing in a different way than the rest of the world. Many places around the world aren't exactly a good place to be a woman nowadays.

Also, I guarantee the US 2040 Olympic track and field team is going to look like a bunch of lardazzes.

Too many on here overlooking the articles’ focus and other posters comments on here. The athletes who spoke to Goe are ALL in Johnson’s group - sprinters, hurdlers or jumpers. They all were All-Americans and one won an Olympic medal. These were not overweight, out of shape athletes. This is the first of much more to come out. All those so quick to defend will look just like those who defended Lance and Alberto.

One very prominent athlete could blow the whole program to pieces but her agent has warned her not to until her career is over. The bigger focus on this should be on the inability to speak up because doing so means career suicide with the ties of UO to Nike, USATF, etc. Knowing this Robert Johnson has run his program as a menacing dictator for a decade. Since Safe Sport banned Alberto for his interactions with Mary Cain I have to believe this is the next step coming in this story…….

Oh, the poor women at U of O!

Have you ever been privy to a U of Alabama football practice? Or U of O for that matter?

How about a Collegiate Wrestling practice at U of Iowa?

Or a Duke University Lacrosse locker room?

Perhaps some gals get the serious business from their coach in the top collegiate hoops programs but except for gymnastics, women have no idea what it's like to be coached by real tyrant style coaches, U of O track & xc included.

Every one of these gals from U of O would suffer real PTSD if they had to suffer what an average NCAA D1 football player gets from his coaches on a daily basis.

Too fat in football??

You and everybody on the team will experience a true calling out, publicly and daily until the player gets his act together

Too skinny?

"Beef up, ballerina-boy! ...Hit the weight room, pu$$y!"

Representing U of O in T&F and XC is a privilege only a few get to experience.

Performance counts the most, but if you're not performing or have plateaued and you weigh three pounds more than you did last year, then yeah, coach has a basis to tell you to lose weight.

It's not a Male vs Female thing either.

Both male and female runners should be as fit as possible if they want to represent their school.

If a varsity athlete doesn't like that, then perhaps club sports are a better suit. ....Plenty of talent there too and

no one in club sports has to answer to a coach who has obligations and expectations to win.

Varsity isn't for everybody, and if they choose to do it, then it come with the expectation that they will suffer some emotional and mental stress.

Oregon and Nikes chickens have come home to roost.

When your defense is to point out all the other athletes that are mistreated that really tells you all you need to know. I can see the recruiting slogan now “Run for Oregon because it could be worse!”