I have no connection to this whatsoever, but the logic here is a bit flawed. You can't give the coach the credit for the successes and then not give him the responsibility for the failures.
Dean Suncan wrote:
Anonymous Umass wrote:Hey Jay,
I am not going to say who I am but I am absolutely going to respond to this. I know the Umass track/xc program inside and out and as a result know that the above post is extremely immature, extremely misleading and downright incorrect on a number of accounts.
First off, I want to mention the following things about the performance of runners who have been coached by the above mentioned "80+ years old" coach over the past two years to attempt to bring some context to the notion insinuated above that this coach is "losing it" due to age.
First, the team had finished 4th and 2nd respectively in the previous two cross country championships with 4 individual all conference athletes and one athlete finishing 2nd in the 2015 xc championships.
On the track, the 800m indoor record was broken, the 1,000 meter 2nd best all time mark was set, the mile record was broken with a 4:01 mile, the 4th best all time mark in the mile was set at 4:07, the 2nd best all time mark in the DMR was set and the 4th best all time mark in the 4X800 was set.
Additionally, in outdoor track, the 5th best all time mark in the 1500m was set, the 6th best all time mark in the steeple chase was set, and the 3rd and 4th best all time marks in the 4X800m relayss were set.
What all of these historic Umass performance having occured in just the past two years indicates is that the coach is not really the common denominator here but rather that it might just be an athlete or multiple athletes who are too immature to take responsibility for their own actions. It is clear from the above post that you as an individual athlete are extremely soft and far too immature to even consider looking internally as to why you and your teammates did not perform well. Maybe the athletes aren't eating or sleeping well, maybe they drink too much alcohol or do not train smart when deviating from what the coach says, i don't know exactly because there are just too many variables.
What I do know is that it is a soft, unprofessional and immature move to attempt to pin the poor performance of the UMass XC team on a coach who has consistently and recently demonstrated the ability to coach at a very high level. Hopefully you learn to grow up soon.
I wonder who this could be....