Gags chooses Nike OTC over Brooks Beasts

Coach on Team USA has three functions

Herd the flock on the bus/plane and into and out of the hotel

Pick up the number packet and help the little darlings pin on their numbers at the appointed time and place

Take the blame for the asinine decision Opie and Fantasia make.

Shoe company stuff aside, I understand going with the hot hand if one was clearly running better right now.

But it's not clear that Casey is so much better right now.

3:35.95 is pretty good.

Heath ran 3:34.12 last year and is showing good fitness right now at 3:36.88.

If Heath had some verbal assurance of being in the top 4, then I think he has done his part to be on the team.

reed wrote:

i know you guys ignore this possibility...but maybe it's not about shoe companies.

maybe

-Or perhaps, it has nothing to do with USATF, Nike, Money or any other c-theory...just perhaps it is a coach (one man) making a decision to field what he thinks is best team possible and is not considering anything else.

Although, personally I would choose a safe Heath over an athlete with a recent breakout performance. With that said, I know Coach Gags personally and he has incredible coaching instincts and he is very straight up guy as well.

Why are people going bonkers about Pat Casey running?

Do we need to go over the only people he has lost to this season at 1500m/mile?

Leo Manzano.

Nick Willis.

Matt Centrowitz.

If you haven't noticed, those are all medalists at the world level.

gags isn't a company man -- this is not about the shoes.

Is it really Gags making the call? Because, if it is, then there's no way that he gives one half of one crap who sponsors the athletes he picks.

Let me throw an alternative scenario out there. Gags sees a young professional athlete have a couple of break out performances. One of the athletes on his roster is a mile specialist pushing 30 who, honestly, has always been a B - lister (to steal a term from this site) and who's best times are probably behind him. Gags goes with the younger runner.

There may be more to it than that. Maybe there were agents involved or money changed hands. I don't know what promises were made or by whom but, looking at who these guys are, I think this makes sense. Heath has had lots of chances to make international teams and he never has. Let's get Casey, who probably has more upside in the mile at this point, a USA jersey and some experience on a bigger stage. Who knows it could make a difference on a future world/olympic team.

I'm not saying Heath isn't a great athlete who's still capable of big things on the track. But I don't think anybody owes him anything. If promises were made and broken then that sucks for him, but so it goes. And Mackey can pretty much blow it out his ass. Brooks makes some money by ragging on Nike. So does LetsRun. That's fine. But don't start on Gags and Pat Casey. All they're doing is their jobs.

It is mind blowing how stupid this website has become. You morons are working Gags into your Nike conspiracy theories. That's beyond stupid. Why don't you stop and think about what you're saying before you write it?

Rojo, you used to be a real part of the sport, coaching a good team. Now you're a drunken fool who does nothing but provide a place for anonymous jerkoffs and conspiracy theorists to try and bring people down. I can think of about a 1000 ways that LetsRun could make a positive difference for U.S. distance running, as it has in the past. You guys could start with making registration mandatory. We all know that case has been made and you won't do it because it might cut into your profits a little.

Maybe hire someone who can spell to write articles for you guys? Or...here's a good one...you guys could sponsor an athlete besides Wejo. There's numerous kids running unattached this season who would have had deals even 5 - 10 years ago. Why don't you throw one some plane tickets and shoes? You guys,all your bullshit aside, have the connections to keep costs pretty low. Rojo could coach or even drag JK out of whatever hole he's in. Of course you might actually have to do some work then. God forbid. That's what Gags does every day by the way. I'm sure people can think of a lot of reasons why this won't work but, at the end of the day these guys would rather sit around and collect paychecks from this trashy website then even try and do something real and good.

You are completely missing the point and did not read Ken Goe's blip on this:

1) Gags promised Heath a spot

2) A few days out and a few days after Oxy Gags retracts his promise

3) Heath's coach simply says "I wish we would have known all the information a head of time because it sucks not knowing."

Pretty straightforward. This has nothing to do with Casey, Heath or Mackey, you can change all the names and it is the same crap we are finding out about the USATF every week. What it has to do with a Team USA Coach (a respected one too) changing the agreement last minute and not telling anyone. That would make any athlete or coach frustrated.

+100

races wrote:

Casey barely beat him. Heath has far more strength and has been one of our more consistent performers. Casey is very streaky. Heath trained through oxy. Seems unfair but also gives Heath a chance later to prove gags made the wrong decision by just kicking Casey's ass.

Nike goons at it again.

This is so dumb. Pat has been racing great and beat heath twice head to head. Pat has had a very strong season this year indoor and outdoor. Nothing about groups, don't make this political. Besides they didn't do the same thing with the men's 800

Mackey is losing it. He knows that he can only control the issues for so long. No details but Danny knows.

I am falling asleep on you. Goodnight sweetheart.

Interesting how any disparaging comments about Mackey from this thread have been deleted, yet letsrun allows threads to remain that bash other athletes and training groups namely those Nike-affiliated. Biased much??

'If' Gags actually promised Heath a spot, he was wrong for doing so, but it is not as horrible a thing as people are making it out to be. From college to as far back as a age group track, I can tell you as an athlete and coach, changing up relays at the last minute happens all the time. There are times when you find out the day of the event who is on a relay...that is not uncommon.

The problem with pro athletes is you need to get commitments early and in the case the World Relays, you are reaching out to athletes when they may only have one performance on the books for that season. I would not be surprised if Gags reached out to several athletes and gave some type of soft commitment and forgot to get back to them. Gags has perhaps the best coaching instincts of any coach in the USA, but he does forget things from time to time...he is actually quite old. But, when it really comes down to it, relays are about 'what have you done lately', appareantly Gags felt Casey was hotter and it is his job to put the best 4 athletes out there regardless of everything else (even prior commitments).

Btw, I am not sure if it actually happened as Mackey said it did, becasue coaches usually to talk to other coaches and agents about those types of things and commitments for big events are usually in writing. Exactly what did Gags say to Heath and why hasn't someone presented an email exert. - I think this whole discussion is a lot about nothing, just another one of those LRC c-theories.

what is that wrote:

Rudiger wrote:

But in all seriousness, this is probably going to get blown up as a USATF corruption story about shoes, money, or yada yada. This seems to be largely the decision of the coach picking a more in season runner.

How is casey who just got out of college more seasoned than heath who is 29?

I'll agree it has nothing to do with shoe companies but is all about false promises.

You seriously don't know the difference (it's ok if you are ESL) between "in season" and "seasoned"?

The official procedure all along was that five people per event would be taken down to Nassau and on May 21 the four who'd run would be chosen. I'm not sure what kind of "assurances" could have been made in advance.

No one, absolutely no one, despises USATF more than I do. I'm still mystified as to how it hasn't been decertified already. But I'm not sure there's really a story this time.

kybaws wrote:

Interesting how any disparaging comments about Mackey from this thread have been deleted, yet letsrun allows threads to remain that bash other athletes and training groups namely those Nike-affiliated. Biased much??

I am shocked that the folks running this site don't want all the juicy details. This kind of drama normally draws a good amount of attention to the site.

Does anybody have a better set-up than Danny Mackey in our sport?

I don't think it's correct to paint a picture of Heath as this "mile specialist pushing 30" and Casey as a young guy who hasn't had any chances. Heath is only 28 and is actually less than 1.5 years older than Casey who is now 27. As for the "mile specialist" part, Heath has run 13:16 for 5k and 3:36 for 1500 in his last two races, and he also ran 3:34 less than a year ago as well as a 7:37 3k indoors this year. If either of them is a more of a versatile runner, it is Heath.

It doesn't make sense to me why Heath is not running on the team for many reasons. First, if Gags, or whoever is in charge, promised Heath that he was going to run and then went back on their word based the performances at Oxy, it would not be fair simply because Heath and Casey probably approached Oxy differently. In Heath's case, he was coming off a hard 5k 10 days prior, and, thinking he was slated for the relay team, was probably looking for a 1500 tune-up before the big race. For Casey, if he was told he was the alternate, Oxy is a much more important opportunity to run fast and go after a PR. With that being said, its not Casey's fault he is running well right now, so maybe he does deserve to be on the team. As trackcoach said,

trackcoach wrote:

...But, when it really comes down to it, relays are about 'what have you done lately', appareantly Gags felt Casey was hotter and it is his job to put the best 4 athletes out there regardless of everything else (even prior commitments).

However, using this logic illuminates another reason why this selection doesn't seem fair. If we assume that no promises were made and Casey's insertion to the team was just a shuffling of the existing tentative roster, why was Heath the one that was kicked off. It seems like he is being penalized for racing and proving his fitness. This might be a different discussion if he had run 3:4X at Oxy, but he ran 3:36 to follow up his 13:16 5k from Stanford. It makes you wonder what would have happened if Heath decided to not run the 1500 at Oxy like Manzano, Torrence and Leer. Would his spot have been safe then? I have a hard time seeing it fair to punish a guy for going out and racing consistently well. If you are going to ask "What have you done for me lately", I think you should ask all the guys in the relay pool.

Another way you might select the team is to go back to the last time all 5 guys raced head to head, which was the indoor 1500 from USAs this year. Leer was 2nd, Heath 3rd, Manzano 5th, Torrence 6th and Casey 8th.

Lastly, you might say that the US needs to gamble a little bit and go with the guys with the fastest all-time PRs. That would produce the following list.

1. Manzano - 3:32.37

2. Torrence - 3:33.23

3. Heath - 3:34.12

4. Leer - 3:35.27

5. Casey - 3:35.95

No matter the motives or reasoning for selection, it doesn't seem fair to Heath.