No more group for Jonesy

member wrote:

So you all can put an end to the speculation, and to give some historical perspective to Jonesy and his group of runners.

I am a current member of the BX group, and one of the original members. The "original" group began because Pete Julian was training with Jonesy in 2005 and wanted some company in his training sessions. So his brother-in-law and 2:20 marathoner, Sean Nesbitt started running the sessions with him. John Supsic, myself and Eric Griffiths joined them shortly after. Then Chris England, Justin Young and Chester Kurtz also joined in and soon we had a "group". Actually, I remember that Pete and Justin really wanted to develop a group that could get some sponsorship in 2006. I think Jonesy just wanted the athletes to get some support, so he seemed ok with coaching a group. What was unique about the team was that we all got along as friends and had a lot of fun.

In 2006, we had enough members, along with Clint Wells, TJ Doherty and John Tribbia, to form 2 teams to compete in the Marathon Relay Champs. The "A" team won and the "B" team was 3rd or 4th. Since there were a couple of international runners on the team, we also put together a non-USATF team which came 5th. In order to compete in these USATF champs, we had to form a club and thus BX was formed.

Shortly after, Pete and Alan Culpepper decided to form Tempo Sports with Jonesy and Alan coaching the small group (including Shane Culpepper) and supported by NYRR, etc. Over the next couple of years, Tempo picked up Jorge, Ed, Cabada, and Jonesy also helped Kathy Butler and a few other professional athletes.

After Pete started coaching @ Metro and Alan retired, it was mainly Jorge and Cabada and then Hartman, the Slatterys and Troopy. The BX group remained strong and continued to run Sunday long runs aside the Tempo Sports professionals. The BX group at one time was about 12-14 men and couple of women. Now it is a handful of men and 12-14 women at times.

Things have changed a lot. Age and other priorties have played more of a role than anything. When you put 20+ strong-willed athletes into a group with one training mindset, the drama outside of running is bound to have some effect. But we are all adults.

I hope that anyone reading this thread can understand that there is a ton of respect by all of the athletes for Jonesy as a man first, coach second. It is tough to watch Hartmann's video, you can see that he was hurt that things sort of fell apart. And from a coaching standpoint, Jonesy did play a large role in helping both Cabada and Hartman win Twin Cities in respective years, as well as giving Jorge the confidence to compete so well in NYC.

I'd like to think that it is all just a part of the sport. That friendships are more important than the coach/athlete relationship. But these are all proud and committed people. Some don't work out, some have. I can tell you one thing with certainly. No matter who has come and/or left the two groups coached by Jonesy, all of those involved will continue to rout for the others.

I don't care who Troop, Cabada, Rizzo, Hartman, Slattery, Young, Torres, etc. is inevitably coached by or what direction they take ... they are all good people and we definitely hope they succeed!

So lay off the personal attacks, especially when it is based on speculation and false information. Those of you who continue to think the personal attacks show some sort of weird support for the sport... well I guess you can do so knowing you are just full of crap!

Peter Vail