LRC Bashing of LV - Selfish and Unwarranted

If the minute he crossed the line at Nationals he said "I'm done running for Oregon" I would be fine with it. He is free to make his own decisions. But leaving your team right when they need you most is one of the biggest selfish dick moves he could make. Now Oregon didn't even qualify for Nationals. Instead of saying he's welcome back any time, Lanana should just give him the finger and never let his sorry ass back in Eugene again.

MOUSE wrote:

Obviously he left UO at a very poor time in terms of the team's chances for success this season.

You said it all in your quote right there. Had he left after the semester was over or at least the season, he would not have been criticized nearly as much. It was the timing of it that showed incredible selfishness on his part.

Seriously. Looks to me like his ego couldn't handle not being the best.

In all honesty I thing its kinda funny that the running community is mad, we have been ranting about football and other sports luring our greatest athletes away to be second-rate players when they could have been gold medalists for years. When you really look at it he does seem to have a better shot at being a world great at the triathlon, I think saying he has the same shot in the track would be a bit of a stretch.

HOWEVER he did leave his team in the middle of the season which is a really douchy thing to do. It doesn't matter what genre of life you are talking about competitive sports, the business world, in combat, whatever leaving your team in the middle of a fight is just wrong. What would it have cost him to finish out the season? Is there some triathlon out there that he is going to win now because he started specific training on it 1 month earlier? I don't think so, i think he was just scared and embarrassed that he wasn't up there in the top of the country and thought that if he quit now no one would think he had really tried. This way in his mind he is still awesome and he could have one NCAA's etc he just choose to go with the triathlon.

Lukas is great.

I do not know LV personally and I have no idea about his psyche. However, through all of his career to date thus far, he never seemed like someone who would be egotistical enough to leave OU simply because he wasn't running at the front of the pack during his first season as a freshman.

His decision was incredibly untimely for the OU team and their chances at nationals. However, if the team was this dependent upon a runner who hadn't done anything too remarkable so far this season, they weren't destined to do anything on a national level this year anyway. His decision to leave the team should be between him, his coach, and his teammates. Even if he did 'quit' on them, he shouldn't be subject to the opinions of everyone on here who has no involvement in the situation.

Hes an incredibly talented kid, but still a kid. Let him do what he thinks is best for his career.

You are so right. He's only 18-19. He should be allowed to puss out until he's at least 27-28.

Notachance wrote:

You are so right. He's only 18-19. He should be allowed to puss out until he's at least 27-28.

The fact that you are even using the term 'puss out' just shows that you are bitter because of your own selfish desire to see him compete only as a runner. He isn't 'pussing out' of anything. He's making the decision that he thinks is best for his career as an athlete, regardless of how the USA distance running community feels about it. Nobody on here will agree, but I see his decision as bravery rather than cowardice. The amount of pressure on him is certainly unbelievable. Im sure that nobody on here bashing him would ever be able to understand the pressure that he is feeling to drop tri. and run. It takes a huge amount of courage to walk away from that and pursue what he thinks is HIS dream, not the dream all the sh*tbirds on here

If you have ever run college cross country before, you know 4th man on the team is as equally important as 1st man. He should have finished the season out of respect to his team mates.

Most of the people on this board have run high school and college cross country and know what it means to run for a team. 800m runners have run in excess of ten times their best distance. We have run while sick and injured. Middle distance stars have run their guts out for 40th place. Freshman have raced 25 year-old seniors. Runners from the south have suffered through frozen races up north.

Cross country is about being tough, despite your position in the race. As cross country runners, we identify with this aspect of the event. L.V. could not manage what all of us have endured. That's why we know he's a giant pussie.

Well he didn't leave RIGHT before the regionals

http://www.slowtwitch.com/Interview/The_first_love_of_Lukas_Verzbicas_2435.html

but it wasn’t like I decided this just now. I was already in Colorado for a week. Oregon of course tried to stop me from making this decision, but I didn’t want to be jumping back into the same river

no...quitting on your teammates at the most crucial point in the season is selfish & unwarranted.

why don't you go explain to his teammates (who will now be sitting at home next monday) about how this move is in "his best interest". I'm sure they'll understand & be cool with that...

proof this board is bought and paid for by Nike, Salazar, U of O, and Phil Knight.

Frankly its disgusting. Solinsky is practically ignored because he was first before Rupp.

Heavy heavy Nike slant on this board.

I agree that putting this much pressure on an 18 year-old is over the top. I would guess, in fact, I'm pretty sure that LV's decision had more to do with academics then with running or the triathalon. The last day to drop classes without failing was November 13 and I'm thinking that LV probably was way behind in all his classes, otherwise there would be no reason to leave before the end of the semester. Otherwise he could have dropped off the XC team and done his own tri workouts until the end of the semester and not wasted the 6 weeks of academic work that he had put in.

Good luck to Lukas ! We support Lukas all the way. Hope to see you at Mt Sac sometime with UCCS.

Did he flunk out because of his academics, puss out from the cross country team, or both?

nsfts wrote:

I agree that putting this much pressure on an 18 year-old is over the top. I would guess, in fact, I'm pretty sure that LV's decision had more to do with academics then with running or the triathalon. The last day to drop classes without failing was November 13 and I'm thinking that LV probably was way behind in all his classes, otherwise there would be no reason to leave before the end of the semester. Otherwise he could have dropped off the XC team and done his own tri workouts until the end of the semester and not wasted the 6 weeks of academic work that he had put in.

Unfortunately, most of the people on here have tunnel vision and think that running is the only thing that affects any decision made by a collegiate athlete. From the way it sounds, there are many other factors that played a part in LV's decision to leave at this time and not after the season.

Keep in mind that if he really wants any sort of shot at qualifying for the London games, he needs every week of training that he can possibly get. 2 more weeks of running and attempting to peak for nationals would only be detrimental to the already small chance that he has.

While it is obviously disappointing to the running community to see such a talented athlete leave the sport, I think everyone needs to look at this through LV's eyes instead of their own. In the end, its his career, nobody elses, and people should respect his desires to be a world class athlete regardless of which sport it is in, and who he supposedly 'quits' on.

Think about it this way. If any other athlete won a World Junior Championship, would they ever be scrutinized so much for not pursuing a full-time career in a different sport?

I would have no issue at all if Lukas left the Oregon team after nationals. However, the fact he left right before regional shows a level of selflessness that I do not see very often. I mean honestly, he had one month left untill the season was over, he really couldn't tough it out for that one month and then pursue his triathlon career full time?

He has no chance of representing the US in the London Olympics. He is not an American citizen. It's obvious to everyone that he quit because he was getting beaten. If he had any balls, he would have finished the season.

selfish sam wrote:

If the minute he crossed the line at Nationals he said "I'm done running for Oregon" I would be fine with it. He is free to make his own decisions. But leaving your team right when they need you most is one of the biggest selfish dick moves he could make. Now Oregon didn't even qualify for Nationals. Instead of saying he's welcome back any time, Lanana should just give him the finger and never let his sorry ass back in Eugene again.

This more or less. I've been in some pretty shit situations, but bailing on your team instead of sticking it out a mere two weeks is classless under almost any circumstance. He should have held off leaving at least until after nationals.