Verzbicas?

If it's because he wants to turn pro tri jock so what? How is this any different from any other sport when a stud athlete leaves early or goes right to the pros. i.e. Kobe, LeBron or KJ. Go make that green now and go back to school later. Plus, it's not like he was going to beat any of the Africans.

IF it is true that LV is thinking about leaving Oregon, that would make him ... typical. A significant number of college freshman think about bailing midway through their first term, especially if they are from out-of-state. Just like a lot of freshman cross-country guys go out too fast in their first race. LV is faster than most, but that doesn't make him immune to the challenges that many college freshman deal with.

Wow. It is hard enough that T&F barely gets a blip in the media. But if this is the kind of journalism T&F gets, then the sport is cooked. Who in the world prints a story about an internet rumor? And what kind of hack journalist can't even get a story on whether the rumor is true or not and then run with just a story about not getting the story?

I've restored this thread.

The moderators have removed a lot of Verzvicas threads I see in the last day. Not sure why but probably because they don't like 10 threads on one subject. So they could have decided to remove them all.

Since there is a newspaper story on this we'll leave one thread up.

I saw one thread on letsrun.com on this yesterday. Robert wrote me about it and I looked into the IP addresses and what not and said I thought 85% it wasn't true. I obviously could be wrong.

I think I left the thread up. Other moderators if they saw a bunch of threads on this could have concluded it was trolls and removed them.

My question is where else have their been rumors on this. Curtis Anderson acts like it is widespread in the running community.

I'm really surprised he wrote an article on it.

wejo wrote:

My question is where else have their been rumors on this. Curtis Anderson acts like it is widespread in the running community.

It was on Flotrack last night.

Maybe he just doesn't like running full time. If his true goal is 2016 Olympics, he has a much better chance in triathlon then in track. US male triathlon isn't doing so hot on the international scene and he is the Jr. World champ. I was actually surprised he did choose to leave triathlon

I think we can all agree now that LV is a straight up mama's boy!

Also picked up by T&FN

Just maybe you should have some controls set up for your moderators. The first post had a link to the Flotrack site and their article. Had they simply left that one up and deleted those that followed it would have worked out. I don't get paid to moderate this board, but it was pretty simple to firgure out which was first and why it was posted. Perhaps there are other reasons you are not telling us about.

He's a college freshman. Lots of freshman decide they've made a wrong choice. It's not unusual or a big deal.

There's no need to slam a teenage kid because he's still trying to figure out what he wants to do with himself.

He's gone.

What a dope! So much hype was made about this kid. How many threads and posts were made by the Oregon fanboys about how great this kid was going to be and how he was the next big thing for Oregon, so on and so on. How many nationals titles did they predict for him, how many records was he going to get. On and on. Now after 2 sub par races he wusses out. Jumping ship and taking off. The kid has an ego longer than a mile. From the ridiculous victory laps in high school races to going out with the leaders at pre nats.

Wejo,My bad for starting a thread based on info from a competitor's site (flotrack).

Honestly I hope the kid was so inspired by the NYC marathon that he just starts the marathon training now goes after that paper! Lets get some effing youth in the game and lay it down.

I think that the real problem is that he's frustrated. He wants to win, he wants to be #1 and he's used to being treated that way. I think that he honestly expected to be the #1 runner for Oregon this year. As it turns out, he hasn't had a part of being part of a team environment. Instead of it being all about him he's just a piece of a bigger puzzle.

Add that to the adjustments that every normal freshman has (being homesick, classes, lifestyle changes) and it all adds up to his reason for leaving.

He doesn't feel like the environment that he's in is helping him to reach his potential.

I see that, "Today there was talk in the running community and among some NCAA coaches that Lukas Verzbicas has left the University of Oregon. We spoke to a representative at the University and no definite answer was given either way. We are currently trying to verify the news and will update when we find out more. Below are his most recent updates on twitter."

I'm pretty surprised they published it straight up as a rumor. On the criteria they published it on one could publish anything. They must believe it is true and not want to reveal their coaching source but I'm still surprised they published it. You wouldn't believe the rumors we've heard from NCAA coaches. Doesn't mean it's not true but I'm still surprised with what is written they published it.

They don't identify the coaches (which I can see, but I always say coaches cause the most trouble on letsrun) or even more importantly the representative of the University. They should by name identify the rep at the school like Curtis Andersson did, the question asked, and the response.

Having said that, if it is on another website and someone links to it that type of discussion should be allowed on letsrun. Like the Deadspin article on Bolt. I'm looking into why it was removed. My gut is so much noise on here about Lukas (him falling down on races, marrying Jordan Hasay,etc) that a moderator just saw a bunch of Lukas threads, many of them nonsensical without the flotrack mention (the thread I saw last night didn't have it) and got rid of them without looking at each one specifically. That shouldn't happen but sometimes when moderators decide people are trolling they'll just start deleting stuff on one subject. Just as they'll delete entire threads without reading each individual post, they'll delete threads sometimes based on the subject.

So my apologies.

No doubt Lukas can't be happy how things started at Oregon. He's used to his running going great. Now he's struggling, not the #1 guy, and away from home for the first time.

This guy hit it on the head:

He's a freshman in college. If he does leave, I hope it's not a rash decision.

Obviously, some parties KNOW the answer to this question. Oregon KNOWS who it's taking to the Regional.

I also thing people should just realize that if Lukas does decide to train for the triathlon for the 2012 Olympics, it hardly means that his running career is over.

This sounds like a job for Phil Hersh. Pack your bags for Eugene man.

RIP LV