Why are we letting Pete Julian slide?

I am sure a "new" team is being formed as we speak that isn't NOP (but is).

Pete will tell you he had no knowledge, lives in Boulder, kept his distance from Alberto, blah blah blah.

That guy had his spine and conscience removed somewhere along the line. He works in a corrupt program with and around athletes that have crossed the line.

He is complicit and should be banned as well.

I wouldn't be surprised by that at all, but other than the poor optics of a coaching fracture amidst an active investigation, I'm not sure why they didn't just do that a long time ago. Once the NOP name was tainted, I don't understand why they didn't just immediately leave it to Alberto and Galen and try to bring up their new talent (Engels, Hull, etc) under a new name. Unless of course they're up to something too

As soon as you take out a kingpin, another one emerges.

That's the most frustrating part. How can you claim your distance from someone when you were there gd assistant coach! It's just baffling to me, and makes Engels post seem all the more like an arrogant, Lance Armstrong-esque "People want to know what I'm on. I'm on the bike 4 hours a day busting my ass. What are you on?" campaign

their* before I get jumped on by some NOP fanboys

I don't know Pete that well but have always considered him "one of the good guys of the sport."

We both ran the 10k around the same time and then he had his fight with cancer.

So I start out by giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Then I hear from others like Mark Coogan whom I presume are suspicious of Alberto but swear to me that Pete Julian wouldn't cheat. That may not mean anything to you as we're all human and can cross lines but to me it's further reason to believe in him.

Then we can look at the timing. Pete joined the Oregon Project full-time in 2012. None of these allegations came out until just before in USAs 2015. The L-carnitine stuff is alleged to have happened in the leadup to the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials (before Pete started).

If you're an assistant college coach and the most powerful coach in America comes to you and wants to hire you and assures you there isn't anything wrong (and there haven't been any published reports saying there is), I think most people are going to jump at that opportunity.

And once you have the job, I think most people are going to keep it. You could question Pete for maybe not resigning when some of this stuff came out, but Alberto asserted his innocence and I believe it all predates Pete being there.

Now maybe Pete held a watch for Alberto in the summers from 2008-2011 but I don't think he really joined until 2012. Maybe I'm wrong on the timing but feel to correct it.

***

Pete was like 20 people behind me at customs in Doha. I remember thinking, "I shouldn't let the fact that Alberto is the guy I fear most in the sport let me from being nice to Pete. I've got know reason to think he's doing anything wrong. I should talk to him in Doha." I'm fine if Pete takes over coaching the athletes.

Nice article on Pete here if you don't know his backstory:

https://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/2014/07/pete_julians_race_isnt_over_bu.html

Take Pete Too wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised by that at all, but other than the poor optics of a coaching fracture amidst an active investigation, I'm not sure why they didn't just do that a long time ago. Once the NOP name was tainted, I don't understand why they didn't just immediately leave it to Alberto and Galen and try to bring up their new talent (Engels, Hull, etc) under a new name. Unless of course they're up to something too

I'm sure $$$ had something to do with it.

I'm pretty sure Pete Julian doesn't even exist. He was invented by NOP so the majority of their athletes could pretend they'd never even met Alberto. When it became clear the ship was going to sink, Julian became the life raft for most of them.

When Pete was coaching at WSU he would often speak negatively about Alberto.

I guess I should clarify that I don't necessarily think Craig, Donovan or even Pete Julian are cheaters, but I do question the fact that credible doping allegations weren't enough to turn them away. I ran post-collegiately for one of the fathers of a former NOP athlete that despised Alberto (hint hint), and he never spoke poorly of Pete while he never hesitated to jab at Alberto, so I always trusted his judgement on that.

My perspective on it is this though, and feel free to correct/critique me on it:

* Pete joins right after Steve Magness leaves, so it is safe to assume that he took over Magness's roles on the team.

* This is also after the L-cartinine testing would have occurred, so let's just assume that he played no role in that.

* The L-cartinine experiments are just one of the few experiments we even know about Alberto conducting, in addition to the Androgel stuff

* Alberto also has faced allegations of being shady dating all the way back to his days as an athlete. This started with him doing experiments with legal but underground drugs like, for example, my former coach used to gripe about Alberto using DMSO in his Oregon days to recover from injuries quicker.

* So let's connect some dots: he has a history of experimentation with drugs and also a history of using his assistant coaches and close circle as a means to conduct those experiments. There's also a 3 year span of time in which Pete is on the team and there are no public allegations raised against Alberto yet (2012-2015).

So what are the odds that Alberto just suddenly stopped his career long pattern of shady drug experiments for a 3 year span of time from 2012-2015? And if he didn't stop, then what are the odds that he didn't ask Pete Julian to at least help or have inside knowledge of those experiments? Especially when Petes predecessor, Steve Magness, was fully included in these in the past.

well I mean its obvious how the NOP works right?

Salazar is salaried by Nike and is charged with "taking care" of the athletes that Phil and Mark believe have the most value to the brand.

So you have Galen - maybe the best American born distance runner ever. You had Farah - the best distance runner in the world for the last decade, you had Centro, Rowbury, Ritz who all rotated through there and got "the attention" based on what they ultimately offer the swoosh.

Alberto gets the money, resources, protection to make it happen - and he more often than not gets the job done (with every athlete on thyroid meds and TUE's pushing into the 20's it's kind of easy to see why).

So what does PJ do? - well similar to the minor league/major league "talent development" system, he takes care of the crew that may be worth "getting attention" in the future, but at the moment aren't quite there. So take Engels - is he worth taking the risk on? No - he hasn't shown he can be of big value to Nike yet so isn't worth taking to the next level. The reason why Murphy was with Alberto - he was an Olympic medalist and why Brazier was with Julian was he didn't have the international result (until today's World title and AR obviously).

So should we be letting Julian slide? Do I believe he does to his athletes what Salazar does? No - the net would be too large. But does he know whats happening? I mean come on - is the Pope Catholic!

So should he slide? OF COURSE NOT, don't be stupid. We aren't talking corruption in a multinational corporation here, we are talking corruption in a project team of which literally 3-4 guys matter and he's one of them. Draw your conclusions from that.

Jambo Cabao wrote:

I'm pretty sure Pete Julian doesn't even exist. He was invented by NOP so the majority of their athletes could pretend they'd never even met Alberto. When it became clear the ship was going to sink, Julian became the life raft for most of them.

Agreed

Take Pete Too wrote:

I ran post-collegiately for one of the fathers of a former NOP athlete that despised Alberto (hint hint), and he never spoke poorly of Pete while he never hesitated to jab at Alberto, so I always trusted his judgement on that.

If papa Centro despised Albuterol Saladbar, then why did he allow his son to run for him?

Julian is kind of like Rommel in WW2: good buddies with Hitler (not equating Alberto with Adolph), but the bad rep of being a Nazi washed off his back...he was a ""Good German" who was unaware of the Nazi atrocities".

Defending Pete Julian, or any asst coach in the Project, is akin to playing the ‘but he’s a good guy’ card when ‘good guys’ are popped for doping.

It doesn’t matter if you think Pete is a good guy (or a good coach) and Alberto is a bully. There are plenty that would also call Steve Magness , the asst coach prior to Pete, a good guy, but he admitted to crossing the line with NOP when he went public as a whistleblower.

Even if there is not an additional instance in Pete’s long history with NOP, Tara Erdman testified to USADA that it was Pete that accompanied her to Houston for an l-carnitine transfusion. That’s damning in and of itself, more so when combined with all the shady practices we can assume with that group over the years.

wejo wrote:blablabla

Very disappointing post mainly driven by emotions, one might speculate if Nike marketing team wrote it for you.

Of course Pete necessarily was and is very close with Salazar, are you really that naive? After all he didn't start even with coaching several athletes himself, but basically took Magness' role.

Also re " The L-carnitine stuff is alleged to have happened in the leadup to the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials (before Pete started)." -->read Usada report again, Tara Erdman received L-carnitine in September 2012 and went to Dr. Brown together with Pete.

Goodness, you're a horrible writer.

hopefully rojo knows better wrote:

wejo wrote:blablabla

Very disappointing post mainly driven by emotions, one might speculate if Nike marketing team wrote it for you.

Of course Pete necessarily was and is very close with Salazar, are you really that naive? After all he didn't start even with coaching several athletes himself, but basically took Magness' role.

Also re " The L-carnitine stuff is alleged to have happened in the leadup to the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials (before Pete started)." -->read Usada report again, Tara Erdman received L-carnitine in September 2012 and went to Dr. Brown together with Pete.

To play devils advocate for Pete; just because magness left doesn’t mean Pete knew why he left or took over his responsibilities. If Salazar was worried about what he was doing, or that what he was doing might be crossing the line, then he probably would try not to involve Pete with much. Even if Pete did accompany Erdman for a transfusion, the transfusions themselves were not illegal, and Pete May have had no idea athletes or Magness took over the legal amount at some point. I don’t think Pete and Alberto were buddy buddy behind the scenes and secretly scheming and planning. It’s almost as if it was two separate groups so Alberto could focus on his big guns and Pete probably got advice or some workouts and stuff from Alberto.