I've read Francis work.
The bottom line is that he cheated, knowingly, and continued to use the "everybody's doing it" excuse. Sorry, that excuse didn't pass in elememntary school.
I don't understand the love for his training methods. Did he know a good deal about training? Yes, but did it ever work?
All his athletes were drugged up. His programs/ideas worked for athletes with drugged up bodies.
The same can be said for the crazy east german or chinese training programs. They produced phenomenol results with drugged up athletes. Yet, you don't hear anyone saying the coach of Maria (sp?) Koch is a genius.
I'm sorry if this comes off as harsh as I'm sure Charlie has done some good. But, the excuses of everyone's doing it, etc. should not cloud the fact that he started the downward trend of track in North America, and almost killed it in Canada, all for selfish reasons.