Sammy Watson Is Going Pro

No no no wrote:

what's up here wrote:

Seems odd, she has been running slower this winter than she did last winter. The iron might not be as hot as it was last year?

Let’s not overreact. Even Clayton Murphy ran poorly in college at times and as a pro. Talent doesn’t go away

Not unusual for girls to struggle as they get older..

The timing and circumstances (no agent) is setting off all sets of warning bells in my head regarding either academic or disciplinary issues where she was told she would not be welcome on the team anymore. Doesn't really make much sense otherwise.

Agreed. She will probably get a small deal with some drink powder company. I view her as a 2:03 runner at this point.

For a runner wanting to run 2:00 in July/August, especially as a 19 year old, I wouldn't want to be racing at all right now. If I had to race because of the NCAA Season, I would have realistic expectations about what those results are. Look at Watson (and Collier) last year. Both ran their best races right around NCAA/USAs. Their times dropped steadily until then and then got to Worlds and they were both burnt out and couldn't make the finals. It is a long season if you race from December to August. Too long to be fast the entire time. There are going to be some runners who peak for Indoors, but that doesn't look like what Sammy has ever done.

If I were a shoe company, I wouldn't worry one bit about Sammy Watson. I might be more worried if she WAS running fast right now, because that would probably mean she would be crap by the time we get to USA's and Worlds this summer.

Something is going on at A&M.

She's run 2:06, a couple 55+ 4x400 splits, a 2:51 1k, and a DNF in a slow mile this indoor season. I don't think it's injury because she's been racing since December. Jazmine Fray has performed very poorly as well.

To make this decision and the timing of it, it seems like she is frustrated and wants a change. Keep in mind that she wouldn't even qualify for the NCAA champs right now.

A&M is demanding on its stars so my guess is this did not go over well.

Do you hear how dumb that sounds? So the slower a runner is right now the better? I guess the shoe companies should jump right on the women who are running 2:20. Watson was only 17th best American last year. There is no reason to think she would be better this year. She won’t even get into the top meets. There is no money to be made by a sponsor.

Maybe - but her running slower now either means that she's washed up and will never be heard from again OR it means that her training is pointed towards USAs and not indoors. No way to know that yet.

The year Sammy ran 2:00 - her first races of indoors/outdoors were each 2:07 / 2:08.

Sammy has seemed to point her training towards USAs for the last three years - no reason to think this year would be any different. She won USA juniors 3 years ago, made the finals at USA Seniors 2 years ago (when there was no HS competition for her) and won USA juniors last year, running her fastest time of the season (2 seconds faster than the week before when she won NCAAs).

Machate99 wrote:

Are you kidding me with this Millenial BS? She had the guts to leave a program that clearly isn't working for her. She could have stuck around and been mediocre.

You guys jump to concluscious so fast. And Rojo sounds ignorant to the idea that being in a toxic environment affects you mentally and physically.

No, are you kidding me? You clearly didn't read the article.

Toxic environment? Please read the article. If you had read it, you'd have learned that it says , "The wide view of Watson's plan is to train at Texas A&M, where she will enter the university's civil engineering department, she said."

That implies to me that she will have the same coach (admittedly her coaching changed midseason last year) unless she's going to be coached remotely. It certainly doesn't sound like a toxic environment if she is staying there. If it was a toxic environment, I imagine she'd be transferring.

You people do realize she won an NCAA title last year? I doubt it was too toxic.

And I'm not saying she's not great. But haven't Candace Hill, Mary Cain, Alexa Efraimson, etc shown us that it's idiotic to expect all 16-17 year old women phenoms to be world beaters at 21?

Two weeks before the conference championship and you "turn pro" without having an agent or a contract? Something is peculiar. Could be anything from eligibility issue to social problem, to athletic problem.....but has many have said, she is at the slowest point of her career and mid academic semester and mid indoor season. This timing is peculiar given the facts we know. The answers are in the facts we don't know. Best of luck to all involved. Would have to think she was a "point scorer" at the important SEC Indoors in the 800 and DMR......so again, peculiar.

Wait, if you announce you are "turning pro" but have no agent or contract, have you really "turned pro?" That would make all of us at our keyboards without agents or contracts "pros." So congrats to all of us........go post it on social media!

I didn't think it was a good idea either, but then I saw rojo is crapping all over it... which makes me think it IS a good idea. Go Sammy!

No no no wrote:

what's up here wrote:

Seems odd, she has been running slower this winter than she did last winter. The iron might not be as hot as it was last year?

Talent doesn’t go away

Yes, it does!

Rojo, I wouldn't read too much into her staying at A&M comment. Pat Henry knows what he's doing. He's managing the PR/recruiting hit. He learned from Brazier incident.

No way she stays with her coach at A&M.

If she was just going to stay at A&M and train with the coaches, why in the world wouldn't she wait 2 weeks and do it after SEC's or 4 weeks and after NCAAs?

The "going pro" is happening because she is running slow.

Astute Observation wrote:

Rojo-

I completely agree with every word you said. I would not invest one dollar in her. It seems like she probably feels entitled to an annual six figure shoe deal because of her past achievements. She is likely living in ignorance, or maybe not, and is hoping to capitalize on those achievements before her performances get worse from here.

-former ncaa athlete that spoke with you in the recruiting process while you were at Cornell.

What do you know about her? “She feels entitled to a six figure shoe deal... likely living in ignorance.” You don’t know anything about her personal life or anything. She’s a 19 year old girl who likes to run and happens to be good at it. If she’s able to, why not go pro? Go fck yourself

German shoulda gone pro out of HS

It the problem was just with Sammy, we would be worried. But NCAA indoor record holder is also performing poorly meaning there is a systemic problem. Sammy is a very talented girl and really had two choices: to transfer to another college or turn pro. Turning pro was/is the better of the two in that she would be able to choose her coach(es) , teammates and supporting crew. Turning pro because this is a world championship year and next year is Olympic year. So she wants to position herself well for the two busy seasons.

On the shoe companies giving her a contract, it is no brainier considering her youth and how much she has achieved. Shoe companies can recommend knowledgeable coaches who could turn her career around, maybe give her a one year contract as a start and see how she progresses. You have to look at the potential.

I have to say from reading the article and watching the NCAA champs video that Watson is very smart and composed. First, she's a civil engineering major. Second, she runs in traffic, completely boxed for much of that race, yet it does not seem to faze her one bit. She waits and waits, knowing that a gap will open up, and when it is starting to open up and the Middle Tennessee State runner makes a huge surge and is about to close it down, she darts out at exactly the right moment to block the MTSU runner, without fouling her but with some apparent contact, and to go into the lead. That is a very smart racer, well ahead of her years in race savvy. There are many pros who cannot do that. She has proven this race savvy in winning NCAA as a freshman (how many 800m runners do that? Brazier did it), winning US juniors last year, winning gold at world juniors in the 800m AND the 4x400m in 2016 when she was just 16, and winning world under 18 in 2015 when she was just 15 years old. Do you realize what a splash would have been on the message boards if a U.S. male had done all that in the 1500 or 5000? I'm not sure what's going on with her training right now, but this is a super talent.

The last talent we had with this kind of competition record at an early age was Ajee' Wilson (as a senior, 8 national championships plus world bronze, two world indoor silvers, two world relay golds, in an era with intersex athletes dominating the 800m), who won gold in the under 18 world race in 2011 and gold in the under 20 World champs in 2012.

If you just look at her in the field of that NCAA race, you can tell she is the most talented. I don't know whether this is the right coaching system for her but my bet is that she will not be one of those teen phenoms turned bust, because her competition record last year was just as good as ever.

Your post is way too positive for you to be posting on this forum! Did you make a wrong turn some where?

Desire does