Track coach fired for running Boston Marathon

The AD is a total whack job. Good luck finding a new coach who'd want to work for this imbecile.

Send the AD your thoughts

jdpotter@stgregorys.edu

I'm so glad you started this thread...

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=5835299&thread=5835299

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=5834455&thread=5834157

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=5834514&thread=5834514

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=5835322&thread=5835322

This must be a big deal since there are now at least 5 threads on this since subject since Thursday morning (though none have very many posts).

By the way, I'm also a tool.

This is a joke, right?

bump bump bump

Wait what wrote:

This is a joke, right?

Nope, just like when I first ran Boston I was up to my neck disputing a very unfavourable job appraisal. Quite unconducive to a friendly situation for me to focus on a great running event - but I did and still had a job to come back to.

Guess some educational institutions place hummungous value on their students so that educators have no personal latitude?

From the AD's bio:

"Prior to arriving at St. Gregory's, Potter spent 22 years as a collegiate track and field/cross country coach on both the NAIA and NCAA levels."

http://www.sgucavaliers.com/staffBio.php?staffID=2

And this guy says he doesn't think running relatively well at Boston bodes well for connecting with recruits at all...

Sounds like the AD was focusing on the wrong things in this conversation. They briefly mentioned that he had missed practices and meets for reasons they didn't really talk about. That seems like the worst offense discussed. Instead they decided to focus on not being on campus when the university was closed and telling a student-athlete how to grieve over the loss of family. AD could easily be ousted with this conversation on the net now.

this kind of thing happens more than you think - the only differences is most of us who experience this don't get a national stage upon which to tell it. (but don't get me wrong, I think it should be told - the AD's of the world who do this kind of thing need to be exposed)(as do the college administrators who do the exact same kind of thing)

I have personally had no fewer than 3 of these in my coaching lifetime and as a college adjunct teacher I have had 2.

Let me just give to a simple example of what happened to me in my first year of college coaching.

I have uniforms for our team but no team name on them...I ask the AD, can I add our school name, "yes" he says but why don't you go through our secretary and use our person. I do. Two weeks later "their" person skips town with our uniforms. I inform the AD. His priceless response: "why did you use that guy". ah, because you specifically told me to. Which he totally denies... WHat? I was not accusing him of anything, just stating the fact that the guy skipped town. It was no one's fault. But our AD sure wasn't accepting any responsibility.

Years later working as an Asst. - high school level:

AD is mad after one meet where we did not run all of our girls (we allowed some of the younger ones to take a week of from racing) - we got beat as some who-cares invitational. WHy is he mad, because he spent the whole week telling the host school's AD how good we were and he got a little embarrassed when we didn't win. From then on, we always got downgraded on evaluation for poor communication with the AD. That same year we win state with these girls, but he almost blew that too. One minute before the start of the state meet he decided to give them a pep talk (has never done this before to any of our teams or any other sports team at the school and does not do the same thing before the boys' race)...he pumps them up telling them they will never have another opportunity like this again - which is not true as most are Fr/SO...but it does cause our Seniors girls to go out so hard and die... it was a good thing we didn't need them to win because we wouldn't have.

I could go on and on...

No se wrote:

And this guy says he doesn't think running relatively well at Boston bodes well for connecting with recruits at all...

Is he recruiting marathoners?

Doubting Thom wrote:

Send the AD your thoughts

jdpotter@stgregorys.edu

"Mr. Potter, I know nothing about your school or program, but I did happen to read a rather opinionated article on a blog, therefore I feel that my opinion regarding a coach I hadn't heard of before today should be of great consequence to you."

"Dead Grandfather, rub some dirt on it." Total dickweed, not one shred of knowledge of the sport, or respect for the Coach's job or the lives of his athletes (e.g. the French exchange student). Man shouldn't be allowed near college athletics.

Why doesn't the university president step in... demand the AD rehire the coach and also get some professional AD counseling, or outright fire the AD? Seems like university president's are usually woefully absent when their ADs/coaches misbehave.

I might have missed this somewhere in the thread, but I will post here so that others do not have to search:

He ran 2:35:33. Splits of 1:18:02-1:17:31. Nicely done.

He could be recruiting marathoners, since it's an

NAIA school.

He could be... wrote:

He could be recruiting marathoners, since it's an

NAIA school.

Looks like one of the coach's runners won the NAIA marathon in 2013.

I don't think this idiot AD understands for how big the Boston Marathon is in running circles, it's almost certainly bigger to the "regular" population. I was All-State in two sports in high school, All-American in college and nobody really gives a shit. But I tell people that I ran in the Boston Marathon and they are very impressed.

This AD absolutely should not have his job. Total idiot.

The president defends the idiot AD.

http://fittish.deadspin.com/st-gregorys-university-president-defends-athletic-dire-1587373697

Let me start by saying that the firing sounds like total BS. Sounds like the AD simply did not like Aguero and was looking to sack him. However, in terms of keeping his job, getting it back, or getting a new gig, recording the conversation and disseminating it to Gugala was a mistake.

The college president is right about this being unethical. The AD and the HR person were recorded without their consent. But most egregiously the private affairs of a student were broadcast without his consent to the press. I mean, come on, Aguero! Even if the athlete would have been ok with the entire world knowing about his grandfather's death and administrators calling him 'a basket case,' this is still a disgusting breach of ethics. Isn't this legally actionable in some states?

If in such a position of power, I would NEVER hire someone I knew had recorded a conversation without consent and then given it to the press. This is my, almost certainly debatable, opinion but if you are going to record your employers without their consent, give out private information about your student athletes to the press, then be ready for other potential employers to view you with a wary eye.

Also, Gugala, are there not ethics in terms of printing such materials? Even if you wanted to print such a sensational story ('Man fired for running marathon'), could you not have edited out the discussion of the student?