USATF accidentally gives Craig Leons Pan Am spot to Tyler McCandless. Should TrackTy give up slot?

Wow, it actually went to arbitration: http://blogs.registerguard.com/track-and-field/eugenes-craig-leon-added-to-u-s-pan-am-roster/

According to Leon, USATF had reached a similar conclusion last Friday after Leon lodged a complaint with the organization, but the athlete he was bumping from the team, Tyler McCandless, protested his removal, leading to an arbitration hearing on Tuesday.

Looks like Tyler DID refuse to give up his spot even when USATF admitted overlooking Craig Leon. Maybe that's what Craig was referring to when talking about someone's character is more visible by their actions than by their words. I'm surprised someone in Tyler's position would still feel deserving of the spot knowing full well someone else earned their way on the team. For someone who boasts about all the charity work he does through social media, you would think he'd be more apt to understanding the situation. I guess Craig was right....

this is fair for Leon and very tough to McCandless, very bad for USATF but at least there is a process and it was worked through

I totally understand McCandless not initiating anything, volunteering to hand over his spot or whatever, but it sounds as if he was directly told by USATF that he wasn't supposed to be on the team and still refused to give up his spot.

Like you said, glad the process worked, but wow. Not volunteering to do the honorable thing is understandable, refusing to do it when asked is rough.

Can't wait to hear USATF's official response to this.

Don't hold your breath on an official response from usatf.

After reading all of this, I realized I'd been misspelling USATF. Evidently the proper spelling is SNAFU, with FUBAR as an accepted variant.

True: USATF offered McCandless $25,000 as a settlement. He and his lawyer refused, and then counter-offered with $300,000. Seems fair, right?

$300k for not being allowed to run in a race that you weren't supposed to be allowed to run in that almost no one in the entire country even knows about is pretty steep. Still, this is America, and people get rich via lawsuits like this pretty often I guess, so whatever. Can't say that I'm sad USATF will have to pay money for this. Maybe if people bleed them for as much as possible every time they do something stupid they will stop doing as many stupid things. Or at least hire a high school student to put all the top marathon times at USATF-sanctioned marathons on, you know, a computer.

Basic negotiating, though, right? Refuse the first offer and act like it's completely ridiculous. Maybe he'll get $75k now.

If the refusal of $25k and countering with 300K post is true it proves two things: 1) Tyler is reading this thread because a previous poster used the $300k example from the US mountain biking issue and 2) he is very entitled and the least bit genuine when he makes it seem like he does the charity work out of the "love of the sport" and "paying it forward". More like doing it to boost self-image and self-value to sponsors.

Makes sense, though wrote:

$300k for not being allowed to run in a race that you weren't supposed to be allowed to run in that almost no one in the entire country even knows about is pretty steep. Still, this is America, and people get rich via lawsuits like this pretty often I guess, so whatever. Can't say that I'm sad USATF will have to pay money for this. Maybe if people bleed them for as much as possible every time they do something stupid they will stop doing as many stupid things. Or at least hire a high school student to put all the top marathon times at USATF-sanctioned marathons on, you know, a computer.

Basic negotiating, though, right? Refuse the first offer and act like it's completely ridiculous. Maybe he'll get $75k now.

Basic bad negotiating. Did he get one of his college buddies who just graduated law school and passed the bar a month ago to represent him? Unless he could show that he lost $300k of potential income by committing himself to the PanAm race in the short time between his being named and the arbitration a $300k counter offer would be a total non-starter. If USATF did offer $25k, then that was a decent attempt to make it right by both Leon and McCandless.

Has anyone seen the twitter account Not_trackty ? I had no idea who Tyler was before this issue but he seems to have quite the following, both positively and negatively. Seems like quite a bit of self-promotion for a D-League runner. In the words of TO, "I love me some me" https://twitter.com/Not_trackty/with_replies

I have only once met one of these young fellas but I got the strong sense that he felt entitled to receive sponsorship-same feeling I get about the other guy: no humility at all. How dare the world not give them what they deserve, what is rightfully theirs as rightful compensation for their hard work. Same feeling I got when reading about both athletes' reactions to (not) being selected. I am more and more convinced that all athletes (including the so-called "class acts") are self-promoting, humble bragging, entitlement-radiating, attention-loving, prideful, but insecure souls. Why does everyone in this country believe they deserve anything? That said, why not just give them both a few $k just to make sure they are compensated according to the ridiculous amount of mental and financial damages they had to endure in this first world problem of the millennium.

Tyler Fan! wrote:

True: USATF offered McCandless $25,000 as a settlement. He and his lawyer refused, and then counter-offered with $300,000. Seems fair, right?

Tyler and his agent/lawyer are both rich- they don't need the money. This is the only "hardship" he's faced in his life, and yet he wants MORE. Putz.

Tyler Fan! wrote:

True: USATF offered McCandless $25,000 as a settlement. He and his lawyer refused, and then counter-offered with $300,000. Seems fair, right?

You don't expect anyone with a brain to believe that nonsense do you?

Pretty Into Himself wrote:

Has anyone seen the twitter account Not_trackty ? I had no idea who Tyler was before this issue but he seems to have quite the following, both positively and negatively. Seems like quite a bit of self-promotion for a D-League runner. In the words of TO, "I love me some me"

https://twitter.com/Not_trackty/with_replies

I really cannot tell if you are trolling, but you realize that is a troll twitter account, right?

Yes I realize it's a troll account, my point was that Tyler seems to be a polarizing figure in the running community. Some people love him and some people dislike him enough to create a fake account about him. Interesting response to a guy that isn't close to the top tier in distance running

A guy that refuses to give up his spot when asked in this situation is a goof.

Pretty Into Himself wrote:

Yes I realize it's a troll account, my point was that Tyler seems to be a polarizing figure in the running community. Some people love him and some people dislike him enough to create a fake account about him. Interesting response to a guy that isn't close to the top tier in distance running

Ok, I understand your point now. I agree with you. I'm surprised there is somebody that would create the fake account and have so many followers for an unknown runner.

That being said though I think some of the tweets are hilarious. It is the type of humor that reminds me of one of my hometown friends.

Whoever said that he met Craig once and therefore knows Craig to be someone who feels entitled is wrong. First off, meeting a person does not entitle you (see what I did there) to make sweeping judgement calls about that person's character to others online. Craig is a good person and not the least but entitled. For what it's worth.