College coach taunts HS runner during race

A Coach taunting ANY athlete in ANY sport at ANY time is 100% out of bounds. The coach should be fired, unsportsmanlike conduct is not something any coach should be guilty of.

Maybe the HS kid knocked up his daughter or something. Hard to say.

It's so far out of bounds that I doubt the veracity of your story.

The story is not made up because I was at that meet and saw what happend. The original poster was being very discreet by not naming names. But the 800 meter runner who was being taunted was from Long Beach Poly, and the coach doing the taunting was from UCLA. We are in no position to judge whether this kid deserved it or not. Sometimes things happen during the recruiting process and it gets ugly. That's life in competitive sports. Leave it alone.

well he must have been a good runner to be recruited by those schools in the 1st place

Everyone in the Moore League knows what the original poster was talking about. It was Miles Andrews of Long Beach Poly being taunted by the UCLA middle distance coach during his indoor race a few weeks ago. Some people say that Andrews deserved it because he was a strong UCLA lean and then changed his mind at the last minute. While others say that a college coach should never publicly taunt a high school athlete like that under any circumstance. What that coach did was wrong, but its not that big of a deal.

or maybe he meant it as in the kid raced like an idiot...

xc955 wrote:

or maybe he meant it as in the kid raced like an idiot...

Still out-of-bounds. Runners make mistakes during races - especially high school runners.

I hope the runner appreciates the taunting, in a way, because it will confirm to him that going to UCLA would have been a shitty decision and his coach would have been a complete asshole. Good job, kid!

That is yesterday's news. Both people are at fault here. First, Miles Andrews went on his UCLA visit and almost committed after his visit. Secondly, Johnny Gray of UCLA is also at fault because a college coach his no business taunting a high school runner for any reason in public.

sounds like he was cheering for the other runners in the race. he didnt say anything to that kid

Mike Gandorf, you must be joking. You think a 17 year old high school kid should be blamed as much as a 50 year old coach from UCLA?

Johnny Gray is 100% at fault here. You do not publicly humiliate a high school runner like that under any circumstances. I don't care what happend during the recruiting process and i do not care how this runner acted during his recruiting visit. A college coach has a code of conduct to follow. I am happy that this high school runner didn't sign with UCLA. Good luck to him.

Coach Rick Z wrote:

He was yelling at other runners to "beat him and teach that boy a lesson",

What specific lesson was he expecting that runner to learn by being beaten by the others?

wilfredo wrote:

sounds like he was cheering for the other runners in the race. he didnt say anything to that kid

This is what it sounds like from what has been posted in this thread. Maybe there is more to the story. Encouraging a kid by stating he should beat his competition is not out of bounds.

What you've accomplished on the track, who you've coached and where you work does not give you a license to be an asshole.

Moore League wrote:

...during his indoor race a few weeks ago...

The most shocking thing is that people from Long Beach are racing INDOORS. As a northerner, I begrudgingly accept indoor track. If you live in SoCal, why do you need to race indoors?

not to go out in 53 or whatever

here's a question I always wondered about then; what do you all think about coaches that yell at their runners "get him, he's dying!". okay to say? okay to say if the "dying" runner can't hear? not okay period?

Maybe because it is the indoor season and not the outdoor season so you cannot have these races outdoors (unless you are in North Carolina, where problems with the indoor venue led to holding the 'indoor' meet outdoors).