Harvard Takes Another Hit - From a Coach on Staff

Watching the coaches closely and reading them the riot act would be a mild punishment. That would be getting off scot free. What about the girls who are still physically suffering from the abuse they received? These coaches willingly and knowingly harmed them, and in some cases smeared their names.

HarvardAlum wrote:

Judging by how defensive this thread is getting it's very clear the Harvard contingent going up against PWD is all over these boards to smear his name. Maybe if you guys went about this better you'd have some traction.

Repeats after me: "even though I'm Harvard edumacated doesn't mean I'm any more special than anyone else and I will hopefully some day learn how to handle what it takes to run for a high level program without crying to the school newspaper."

It seems to me that you are creating a false narrative because it allows you to act like a sexist, condescending jackass. You're so wrong that it's actually impressive.

1. Many of the student-athletes have also voiced their concerns to coaches, advisors and other appropriate Harvard staff. They're not "crying to the newspaper", which obviously has sexist implications. Some people chose to make public statements, which has encouraged other other former athletes to share their experiences.

2. There's a false narrative that some Harvard T&F athletes have a problem with "working hard". That's a blatant lie. The T&F athletes who have complained about the team are incredibly dedicated and many of them were top performers on the team.

3. The T&F athletes who complained aren't "entitled", "divas" or "snowflakes". In fact, they represent the best of Harvard. These students have chosen, at their own risk, to fight for fair treatment. For example. I'm sure that Lauren knew that she'd have to deal with stupid trolls like you, but she published her editorial anyway, because she cares about the athletes.

Before you write your next post, I suggest that you take a moment to consider how perfectly wrong you've been in the past.

harvard alum, Patrick doesn't need any help smearing his name, he does just fine in that department all by himself, and he will continue to smear the harvard name as well.

Why is all this happening there? Is it all false allegations? Hardly?

The head coach is equally at fault as he has no control of his assistants and is the enabler here. Not to mention the poor coaching record.

Beardingus wrote:

elbatata wrote:

Is that supposed to be scary? You're going to "tell on me"? You aren't even good at trolling. God, you're pathetic.

Looks like I struck a nerve. Hope your day gets better lol

Not at all, actually. It seems like you've realized that you don't have a valid argument, so you're resorting to weird threats. As far as trolling goes, "I'm going to tell on you" is pretty sad. I'm glad that you have enough self-awareness to recognize that you don't have anything useful to add. You have a long way to go, but a journey of a thousand miles...

elbatata wrote:

1. Many of the student-athletes have also voiced their concerns to coaches, advisors and other appropriate Harvard staff. They're not "crying to the newspaper", which obviously has sexist implications. Some people chose to make public statements, which has encouraged other other former athletes to share their experiences.

How is "crying to the newspaper" obviously sexist? Are you implying guys don't cry? Maybe I missed something, but I don't see the sexist implications one bit.

I thought what happened at Evergreen state recently with Weinstein was an isolated incident, but it seems that sort of thinking is rampant at schools where our seemingly brightest minds are. Why is everything made out to be sexist and racist in the eyes of our young intellectuals?

Lol good lord! Nothing like calling someone sexist just because someone doesn't agree with you. I have a plot twist for you...I am actually a woman, so I guess you're just making assumptions about men that I'm sure not they would appreciate. What are you hoping to accomplish here?

There's nothing wrong with speaking freely as a woman, but it's pretty clear there's 2-3 current/former athletes or coaches that are headhunting here. This thread is simply not very productive towards finding a resolution for this issue.

Yep. Wasn't trying to imply that only women cry here. I can tell this sexism thing is a big part of your narrative on this thread. I hope when you get older, you find a way to deal with people who have a difference of opinion than you. Have a nice day.

Just out of curiosity, what sort of mileage doubling are we talking about here do you think? If someone says she was encouraged at Harvard to double her high school mileage, did she go from 30 to 60? From 35 to 70? From 40 to 80? I have no sense how few miles a high school female runner might be logging, or how many miles a college coach might require.

Something you obviously didn't learn at Harvard.

Just because someone does not agree with you, or simply dislikes you, does not mean they are sexist.

It seems like the issue here is that we are discussing a women's team. Should the (women's) team speak out? If they do, in what light are they viewed?

Recently the Harvard (men's) team was caught participating in sexually explicit/ sexist behavior.

Some good points here.

The scene at Harvard is, as far as I'm aware, pretty standard treatment of athletes at top/near-top programs. Pressure to compete, pressure to train more, pressure to focus more on running, etc. This is effectively the norm at many, many high power programs, so is not really shocking w.r.t the Harvard situation, per se. However, by and large this sort of environment is hurtful to most of the athletes who come through such programs, and it being common is no excuse for its presence on any campus.

The accusations of lording over runners' diets and such are next-level stuff to me. Obviously it's a case-by-case and runner-by-runner situation, but it seems like a line that should rarely be crossed. Especially on a woman's team where weight issues are all too common and can quickly turn severe.

A rapid change in the culture, however, will alienate a decent amount of athletes, though. So I think it can be hard to tell the difference in complaints. Some of them have sounded awfully whiny, some of them seem highly serious. Unfortunately the signal-noise ratio isn't helping the whistleblowers' cases.

Curious. Is there any precedent of a coach of a defending cross country conference championship team being let go for fostering an unhealthy team culture?

There's no real proof or evidence from anything she said. Kept waiting for a specific accusation but none came.

Harambe wrote:

A rapid change in the culture, however, will alienate a decent amount of athletes, though. So I think it can be hard to tell the difference in complaints. Some of them have sounded awfully whiny, some of them seem highly serious. Unfortunately the signal-noise ratio isn't helping the whistleblowers' cases.

I don't understand why it's so difficult for you to believe the complaints that are being made, what "noise" are you hearing? And since you're not there, what are you adding to the discussion by questioning the validity of their statements? Why not believe the women at face value? Why question every statement?

In my experience, runners who make it to the D1 level don't usually complain about tough coaches. It's more likely to be the other way around -- they're more likely to push themselves too hard and complain about lax coaching. The fact that there has been a great deal of experience with abusive coaching and malnutrition and injury in D1 XC doesn't mean that this is something that people should accept as normal behavior.

adsfsdafasd wrote:

I don't understand why it's so difficult for you to believe the complaints that are being made, what "noise" are you hearing? And since you're not there, what are you adding to the discussion by questioning the validity of their statements? Why not believe the women at face value? Why question every statement?

In my experience, runners who make it to the D1 level don't usually complain about tough coaches. It's more likely to be the other way around -- they're more likely to push themselves too hard and complain about lax coaching. The fact that there has been a great deal of experience with abusive coaching and malnutrition and injury in D1 XC doesn't mean that this is something that people should accept as normal behavior.

I agree with you for the most part. However given that current members of the have spoken out to defend the coaches makes it difficult to take every statement from every person at face value. Like Harambe said, culture changes are difficult and evoke a number of response. Some complaints are expected, while others are worthy of concern.

In my experience as a D1 runner there are plenty of athletes that push too hard but many who begun to treat it more as a club as their interests shift elsewhere. A coaching staff choosing to cast off those athletes isn't wrong per se, but it certainly generate strife and complaints. Filtering out normal "noise" from a culture shift from irresponsible, dangerous, and unacceptable behavior by the coaches is what people are trying to do here.

The problem is not that coaches cast off athletes whose interests shifted elsewhere. There were top runners on the team who were pushed out!

Usually there are periods in Ph.D.

where civil discourse and intelligent debate WERE the norm

Harvard's bellwether today is who, [The verb 'to be' takes the nominative case.]

I don't think that you know what hoyden means.

M64 wrote:

The problem is not that coaches cast off athletes whose interests shifted elsewhere. There were top runners on the team who were pushed out!

Performace doesn't tell the whole story. A quantitatively top runner can still be detrimental to team culture and performace as whole. Runners being pushed out isn't necessarily indictative of dangerous or unhealthy coaching.

Please understand I'm not denying there are very troubling things likely happening on the team, ones that must be addressed from above, possibly through termination of coached. This is a tricky issue that the school, team, and athletes will have to find common ground on...

The fact that different athletes might have different experiences is consistent with some of the complaints, and doesn't form a contradiction.