Please fire Dennis Mitchell!

JMS3 wrote:

It is absolutely shocking a former drug cheat is a USATF coach!! Much more should be made of this. Is the USATF board responsible for this? If not, who?

Seems to me he is an affirmative action choice as coach much like the notorious Stan Wright, head coach of the US track team at the 72 Olympics where the two American favourites for the 100 never got the chance to run, missing their race, as he failed to read the correct timetable.

Even more disastrous for the history and what-if of athletics, he and his staff were nowhere to be found when Jim Ryun was seeking someone in authority to put in a protest after he was tripped in the heat he shouldn’t have even been running in.

Ryun had to find an old lawyer friend who was a spectator to dictate a sort of protest note while knowing nothing of Olympic procedures.

Ato Bolden mentioned that Gay should have more to the inside of his lane.

If I remember correctly Rodgers had his left hand up and back waiting for the baton when he took off. With Gay on the outside of his lane and Gay bearing down on him in the outside of the lane Rodgers is forced to twist himself in a exaggerated position to get the baton.

I've never run a relay, but common sense would tell you that the incoming runner with the baton in his right hand should enter the zone on the inside of the lane and the outgoing runner should be on the outside of the lane with his left hand back. Why wouldn't Gay know that? It seems so basic.

Gay was way too far to the outside of the lane. Spatial awareness is a must for relay legs. Curve runners = inside of lane. I wouldn't put up with that from my High School freshmen relays.

Definitely, Gay does not have a clue about running relays. For minimum damage they should put him on leg 1. After his doping and now this the only logical solution would be to to vice his head up.

Intro to Relay Running 101: 1st and third legs run on the INSIDE of the lane to minimize distance, and keep the stick in the middle of the lane. There's almost no way Tyson can pass the baton across his body when he comes in on the outside of the lane. US male sprinters are so much about the pure "bigger, stronger, faster" model that there's very little attention to basics (see Justin Gatlin's final 5 meters in both sprint finals)

Look closely at Gay's leg on the video of the final. See that French guy with his butt sticking way into the U.S. lane? Think that mat be why Gay swerved to the outside?

Or, just keep badmouthing someone out of ignorance.

JMS3 wrote:

It is absolutely shocking a former drug cheat is a USATF coach!! Much more should be made of this. Is the USATF board responsible for this? If not, who?

There is nothing in the bylaws that said a former drug cheat can be a USATF member, coach or administrator.

You are stating mishaps as if they happened because the coach was Black.

While we are at it, why don't we go through the history of Olympic mishaps at the hands of white coaches. There have been many coaching mishaps over the years and it has never occurred to me that the coach's race had anything to do with it.

old guy 69 wrote:

Ato Bolden mentioned that Gay should have more to the inside of his lane.

If I remember correctly Rodgers had his left hand up and back waiting for the baton when he took off. With Gay on the outside of his lane and Gay bearing down on him in the outside of the lane Rodgers is forced to twist himself in a exaggerated position to get the baton.

I've never run a relay, but common sense would tell you that the incoming runner with the baton in his right hand should enter the zone on the inside of the lane and the outgoing runner should be on the outside of the lane with his left hand back. Why wouldn't Gay know that? It seems so basic.

You are correct, that is the way it is supposed to be done.

We don't need bylaws. We need common sense.

trackcoach wrote:

JMS3 wrote:

It is absolutely shocking a former drug cheat is a USATF coach!! Much more should be made of this. Is the USATF board responsible for this? If not, who?

There is nothing in the bylaws that said a former drug cheat can be a USATF member, coach or administrator.

JMS3 wrote:

We don't need bylaws. We need common sense.

trackcoach wrote:

There is nothing in the bylaws that said a former drug cheat can be a USATF member, coach or administrator.

I was asked to organise a sprint relay team for the company I was working for that that time, to compete in a local business house league’s sport day. I was the only one working there who was even a member of an athletic club, but they did have a football team. I checked out with them who they thought was their fastest runners and I found the three willing to train for the event. To cut a long story short, we managed to not only win the event, I was told it was in a record time, although I suspect that wasn’t very fast in the first place. It wasn’t rocket science to coach chaps how to successfully exchange a baton, maybe I should offer my services to both the British and American athletic authorities. On an amusing note, during the training, I was mystified as to why they were getting slower and slower at each practice changeover when it occurred to me, not being athletes, that they weren’t fit enough to run a series of short sprint intervals with very short recovery periods, especially as the event wasn’t being held during the football season.

Having Tyson Gay on relays is a proven bad idea. Doesn't matter how well he does in the individual 100 at USATF Championships. Don't let him on relays.

What was Tyson's SAT record?

He failed, kept dropping his pen.

Stephanie and Max's best buddy wrote:

... as long as he is buddies with Stephanie and Max, he'll be the relay coach.

There was a little overlap between the end of Stephanie's and the beginning of Dennis's elite track careers - I suspect DM has something on Stephanie that allows him to force this incredibly tone deaf arrangement. I suspect Dennis is the not the only "former" doper in the conversation.

Watch the Frogs wrote:

Look closely at Gay's leg on the video of the final. See that French guy with his butt sticking way into the U.S. lane? Think that mat be why Gay swerved to the outside?

Or, just keep badmouthing someone out of ignorance.

Gay did not swerve to the outside of his lane, he ran the entire leg on the very outside. He did the same thing in the Bahamas 4x100.

This is egregious relay running and coaching.

Gay was bad but Rodgers was worse.

If you watch the heats, Rodgers left early and the exchange was bad then as well. Rodgers didn't have the sense to adjust the incoming mark for the final after having an early start in the heats.

These two guys are taking off right where Doc Patten, who was either handing off or receiving every failed exchange in a championship race in the 2000's. In fact it got to the point that whenever I saw Doc Patten was in the relay lineup I would say to myself "well here comes a failed exchange guaranteed" before i happened. And yet every championship the coaches would continue putting the guy out there. Wat a disaster. Good to know his legacy lives on with Gay/Rodgers.

Just heard that DM has been arrested for assaulting a plumber.