Pete Dolan is officially out as head coach at UCSB

Sounds like you're associating with the wrong people of that generation. That's not been my experience. My experience has been the opposite.

oldcrowbar13 wrote:

Hey tough guy how is an elementary PE teacher a first grade A..hole for disciplining kids who are disrupting a class and not doing what is being asked of them? And the big punishment is to give up 10 minutes of their recess time. Seriously are you a seventh grader on here or just a clueless duche? Have you ever tried to teach a class of 25 third and fourth graders? You are precisely what is being discussed here. Probably one of those dads that runs to the phone every other day to defend poor Junior from all those teachers and coaches who are picking on him. Get a clue jerk.

People like this should be kept far away from young children.

You make some very good points. I think what was a telltale sign of my coach's failing methods was the attrition rate of talented runners from the team. I was the only sub-17 runner of my grade to make it all four years, even though we had a few guys with that kind of talent during freshman year. I had an Aspergerian work ethic and focus and work hard on my own regardless of the coach, but not everybody is like that. I used to think that most of the guys that quit just couldn't handle the running lifestyle, but looking back, most of them would cite the coach as the main reason because he just rubbed so many people the wrong way. The coach's style led to a decline in team participation, team performance, and talented runners not meeting their potential.

The guy in charge now is basically reloading every year with runners that previously put up middling results. He seems to have created a great team culture that people want to be a part of and squeezes every ounce of talent from these guys. It seems like a totally different culture than what I experienced.

There isn't enough info here to understand the full situation with Pete Dolan, but the point is that certain coaching styles will run dry after awhile, and there could be consequences.

Great reply tough guy. Why don't you stick with one user name. Also please defend your at least explain your rather bland and meaningless reply. I honestly would like to know what you find so offensive about my post or dealing with children's discipline. My students know that any unwarranted physical contact with another student will result in their loosing recess time or worse. Kicking and hitting and pushing other students is not acceptable but happens all the time with elementary kids. I am curious what i have said that warrants your reply. Thanks for any reasonable clarification you can provide. Not holding my breath however.

John Utah wrote:

vivalarepublica wrote:

Male baby boomers are probably the most sensitive group that I have encountered in this country. When the topic of parents comes up with friends and dating partners, we can agree that out dads can't take an ounce of criticism, have a tragic sense of pride and stubborness, and an angry, willful arrogance towards anything that challenges their world view. Quite frankly, older males' inabililty to process and express emotions in a healthy manner has hurt a great deal of people in this society and resulted in emotional damage that takes many years to understand and recover from.

Sounds like you're associating with the wrong people of that generation. That's not been my experience. My experience has been the opposite.

^This is a bunch of Boomer BS propaganda. If Boomers had actually been paying attention to running the country, instead of running 100 miles per week to get 30th in some meaningless, no-name road race then we wouldn't be in the mess we now are as a country. They also wouldn't all be on their 3rd and 4th marriages if they had a little less running and a little more balance in their lives.

Boomers are a worthless generation that has done nothing but destroy this country and continually take credit for things they did not do. They have run BOTH political parties into the ground and are responsible for running the economy into the ground and creating a mountain of debt by consistently voting for generous entitlements for themselves while simultaneously refusing to pay (i.e. Raise taxes) for those entitlements.

They claim they have benefited us all by giving us cultural gifts--by starting movements that gave us fast running times, equal rights for blacks, women, gay folks, by giving us modern music (like rock & roll) through their pioneering efforts, by giving us modern computer science, and through things like iconic movies.

But a closer look at these claims reveals their lies. As a starting point, please take note that it is widely agreed that Boomers were born 1946-1964. This means that the oldest members of this generation turned 30 in 1976 and, thus, they have been running the show (...or they should've been instead of running 100 miles per week) in the US since the mid to late 1970s.

The major civil rights leaders for black equal rights in the 60s (Martin Luther King, Jr., Medger Evers, Rosa Parks, Ceaser Chavez, Fred Shuttlesworth, Jon Lewis, Malcom X, and many more) were all born in the 20s to early 40s. But you know who is a boomer? Al Sharpton.

The major players in the second wave feminist movement (Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Mary King, Alice Rossi) of the 60s were all born in 20s - early 40s as well. Of course, this means the women who fought for basic equal rights (like the right to vote) were even older. These brave women were not boomers. But Boomers are the leaders of the disgusting mess that is third wave feminism...

The folks that were the pioneers in equal rights for gay people (Harvey Milk, Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon) also not Boomers.

Who is widely acknowledged to be the father of modern computer science? Alan Turing. A gay non-Boomer.

Let's examine the music claims...Jimmi Hendrix? ‪Jim Morrison‬? ‪The Beatles‬? ‪The Rolling Stones‬? ‪Bob Dylan‬? Yup, all non-Boomers.

How about movies, directors, actors, etc?... Stanley Kubrick? Harrison Ford? George Lucas? Robert De Niro? Al Pacino? Robert Duval? Martin Scorsese? Clint Eastwood? George Romero? Francis Ford Coppala? Chevy Chase? Steve Martin? J.J. Abrams? The entire Monty Python crew? Yup, all non-boomers.

To summarize, Boomers frequently claim that their generation was responsible for major cultural and art movements but it's totally not true. Boomers are parasites and leeches....and I am assume some are good people. We should build a wall on our southern boarder, strip the boomers of their ill-gotten entitlements, and ship them down to old Mexico. All of our problems would be solved. Let's make America great again!

Toni Reavis has written a piece on Dolan's ouster. Clearly, Reavis thinks it's a joke.

lol.... wrote:

lol, pathetic baby boomers who talk about how "this generation is full of softies." Guess who raised this generation, you idiots. Sorry that this generation actually stands up for itself, unlike yours.

If he's been a "good coach" for 30 years, he should get over it and pull himself up by the boot straps....

Seriously that is one of the dumbest things ever posted. I am nominating you for a top spot in the new annoying thread. Congrats.

Bump :-)

Rojo, could you tell us, for the uninformed, how Toni Reavis is familiar with the situation that lead to Pete Dolan being fired? His article doesn't mention any connection or knowledge of the events so just wondering. Thanks!

30 years on the job, dude is 60, time for new blood.

I agree, and have been wondering myself.

I've read every post on this thread, and the facts are vacant.

Dolan's lawyer and Reavis' statement does not convince me that he is free of any wrongdoing. I mean, can we really trust someone's attorney to provide us with factual information?

I can't comment on why he was fired... I tend to think Admin witch hunts are a real thing. It may be that he was fired for no real reason at all given what we know or don't know about the situation.

I was a decent runner that ran competitively on the team for ~3 years (top 7). I found Dolan (my negative perspective) to play psychological games, wanted you to prioritize the team over academics, made a point to give you a hard time if you were participating in a religious event that on the rare occasion interfered with training a couple days a year, and capable of saying nasty things to people on the team.

He cared deeply about running but I would hope that's the case.

It may have been me, could have been him - I felt that being a part of the team environment he created pushed me to lose my love of running - which was substantial at that period in my life.

When I eventually quit the team, he looked me in the eye and said you are a quitter and you'll always be a quitter.

Not exactly inspiring words. I imagine my experience was not a rare one.

I certainly learned a lot from that experience and I guess those are character building moments. Saying those things to a 20 year old kid also kind of makes him a jerk.

He's not the kind of coach that helped inspire me to live a happy and fulfilling life (luckily I've had others in my life who have been great role models to whom I really am indebted).

Perhaps I was too soft or I wasn't dedicated enough in his eyes. Perhaps he could have been a more inspiring person. After all these years, most of my disdain for him has washed away. I hoped he had treated others after me better, but from the sound of it that may not have been the case.

All in all change is good. The program has mostly been flat for 30 years which is a shame since the running is good and convenient, the weather is almost always agreeable for training, and the school is becoming more impressive from an academic perspective.

I wonder if this has more to do with a retirement eligible employee and CA pension. 30 year CA state employees can retire with up to 80% of their last salary.

I have been disappointed in the University for the way they have handled Pete. As a runner who ran for 5 years for Pete, I can echo what some of my former teammates have said about him ... he was a no-nonsense coach who cared deeply about success. He could be brutally honest with you at times, and joke with you the next. He gave walk ons a chance through the time trial process, and there were many guys/gals who were not given a shot at other D1 programs that ended up being very successful at UCSB.

As for requiring athletes to run 7 days a week, Sunday runs were optional, but we all chose to do long runs in order to prepare ourselves as best possible to compete.

From my experience, he was not abusive but would kind of give you the cold shoulder for a day or two if you bombed a race. Is that a fireable offense? I don't think so.

Pete did a lot with what he was given ... low funding yet produced several All-Americans and many conference championships.

Sad to see things end this way ... my assessment is that he was an old school coach which didn't jive well with some sensitive student-athletes who can't take criticism.

Now that Pete Dolan is out of the way, can we focus on getting Tony Sandoval fired at Cal?

Here are non-anonymous people talking about him:

http://www.keyt.com/sports/former-ucsb-track-athletes-speak-out-in-wake-of-firing-of-head-coach-pete-dolan/751939700

One is one person.

One.

dassfsfsdfs wrote:

Here are non-anonymous people talking about him:

http://www.keyt.com/sports/former-ucsb-track-athletes-speak-out-in-wake-of-firing-of-head-coach-pete-dolan/751939700

I’m impressed with those letters. The UCSB grads I know still write in crayon.