This is a Joke wrote:
"A Duck"-have you personally interviewed and screened all of the Oregon kids before they come in? Do you host weekly dinners with them? Obviously every year at least one kid that qualifies for Footlocker nationals ends up at Oregon so I'm not throwing any particular names out by saying this... But, when I made footlocker nationals not too long ago I had to spend time with one of the to be Ducks and I can tell you that the word "prick" could only begin to describe him. These kids aren't attending a top 25 university, let alone a top 25 public university, so they definitely don't have to deal with the academic stress that some of the guys at a school like Stanford have to. They are pampered by Nike, and have very low academic stress being placed on them at a school like Oregon.
I'd probably agree with you if you named the "prick." OF course I haven't met them all, I've met most of them, and had dinner with a lot of them, it just happened that we all ended up at the same restaurant after a big meet. That actually happens a lot, and for anyone who doesn't know, if you go to a big meet a lot of people, runners included, end up at the same restaurants.
It's a lot easier to meet almost any USA elite than you would think, it's far easier than say, meeting an NFL player.
The only ones that I know for sure are pricks, are no longer with the team and were not running today.
Let's still realize that these are young people, and their are not fully formed as individuals yet.
Do you really think it is fair of a former US record holder in his 60's to be calling college kids "pricks" on the internet. Last I checked, Oregon, and Hayward Field was pretty good to Malmo.
It's a sport, for chrissakes, don't take it so personally.
Most of us probably pulled some ahole moves in college. I look back and remember some things that almost all my teammates did at one time. Now we're old farts who've all apologized to each other at some point where needed and hugged it out (as the kids say), or whatever.
Life's too short for this sht, and I just think someone of Malmo's accomplishments and age should hold himself to a higher standard.
As a former American record holder, which is a hell of an achievement, he still has the opportunity to comport himself at a higher level.
Can you imagine Jim Ryun doing what Malmo has done on these boards?
Which gets at a larger problem, the behavior allowed on this board over the years has chased away many wonderful former elites in the sport, as well as many former great fans.
Is our sport so wealthy with fans and support that we can even support a chat board like this tolerating a prick who calls ipso facto kids "pricks" ???
Hey, I agree that the move was a dumb dumb dumb dumb choice, there's just no need to use profane name calling at any college team. Call a tactic or a move dumb, or dirty or whatever.
In the end it doesn't really matter, traffic on threads on this board has severely declined over the past 7 years, although the brojo's will still site the traffic on their home page etc., and "proof" that things haven't way-y-y- died down here.
The threads for big meets and races are far smaller than 7-8 years ago.
This place doesn't really matter any more.
Enjoy the sport.