Peg Bundy wrote:
HOOWIEE wrote:
Classic case of a square peg in a round hole. And listen people; I get it that she joined a 'professional' running group and training is hard, yada yada, we are all a bunch of tough-guy-know-it alls, I get it. But getting your damn athlete to the starting line would be a good start for American distance runners who only race twice a year as it is.
A square peg fits just fine if it's smaller.
This is a serious thread, but this is laugh out loud funny.
coach wrote:
Hateraid wrote:
There isn't a 17/18 year old girl that wouldn't know that she is bigger than her peers. She didn't need to be talked to, much less try to push her into an eating disorder or shamed or pushed to the point of depression and cutting herself.
True, anyone who works with young girls should understand this.
What Mary Cain supporters are saying is that coaches shouldn’t treat girls/women the same as they treat boys/men.
Throw equality out the window!
No, perhaps they're saying coaches shouldn't treat anyone - male OR female- callously. It's just that women tend to be the ones who speak out when they're maltreated. Why is that? Maybe women have a greater sense of compassion/respect for others (and themselves). Maybe men should too.
ascap wrote:
No, perhaps they're saying coaches shouldn't treat anyone - male OR female- callously. It's just that women tend to be the ones who speak out when they're maltreated. Why is that? Maybe women have a greater sense of compassion/respect for others (and themselves). Maybe men should too.
It would be an image destroyer for a man to have an OP ED like Mary's. look how callously the board treats the mental state of a girl who was in her late teens/early twenties when this all went down. The threads would be 95% filled with LRC old men going SSSSNNNNNOOOOWWWWWWFLLLLAAKKKKE. Rojo would jump in too, call the guy a p*ssy. Onlt thing of value would be the ensuing funposting.
On bored wrote:
Dr. Renée Pirkl (a licensed psychologist),
"But there appears to have been no licensed nutritionist or psychologist on staff. Nike said in a statement, “We are not aware of the specific staff that you say Alberto referenced.” In his statement to SI, Salazar named three experts who he said were available to his athletes as resources. Cain does not recall working with any of those specialists."
One of them is lying. Who's telling the truth, Salazar or Cain?
KittenMittens4All wrote:
Wow, this entire thread is a dumpster fire. There are too many people who have never and will never be in a situation like Mary was yet are trying to minimize her experience by saying she wasn't tough enough or she is too sensitive. This is an athlete that was obviously unafraid to work hard. She wanted to be the best and was willing to push herself as hard as possible to achieve that. She trusted her coaches to make good decisions and be supportive of her.
I think too much focus here is on the fact that she went pro as a teenager. Whether or not that was a good decisions is definitely debatable, that isn't the real issue here. If you look at Salazar's actions with Mary Cain as an athlete, not her merely as a teenager, they still wouldn't be acceptable. Commenting in front of others about an athlete's weight in order to shame them to an unhealthy size is not good coaching. Ignoring blatant distress that an athlete is going through (the cutting) just to keep pushing them is not good coaching. This is more than just trying a 'one size fits all' approach with everyone and not succeeding. This is Salazar punishing his athletes for not performing to whatever level he set for them. It is like them 'failing' is an embarrassment to him and he wants them to pay for it.
It looks to me like Salazar treated her like he did any other of his athletes, but that was the wrong
approach for Cain.
However, I don't think you can claim she was willing to push herself as hard as possible.
From the article:
"Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein, who ran for Salazar from 2009–14, shared a condominium with Cain when she trained in Park City, Utah, as a high schooler. Cain recalls stealing Ritzenhein’s Clif Bars to sneak away to her room because she was afraid to eat them in front of Salazar."
So she was sneaking food and couldn't make weight. Now whether that weight target was the best
for health/performance or achievable by her is another question, but it's clear she wasn't all in--at least
on the weight part of Salazar's program.
Salazar isn't stupid. He knows that is the case. Public shaming is a tool in the coaches tool kit. Probably
a bad decision to use in this case but it can definitely work (and blow up in others).
salazar named some experts who may have served some of his athletes, but they were never official members of the team the same way that darren treasure was. cain's point is that there were never any specialists who were official resources for athletes on the nop.
ventolin ^4 wrote:
cain's point is that there were never any specialists who were official resources for athletes on the nop.
So you're saying Salazar might have hired a few people as consultants who would appear irregularly? That they were never properly introduced as psychologists or nutritionists? That they weren't available after practice, a race, at the cafeteria, or condo in a private room?
In this case, it's possible that both Salazar and Cain are telling the truth. It's just that Salazar didn't provide good enough professional help.
Deer young Mary Cain,
You may not yet know this but you are slated to be an exceptional runner. Doors will open and opportunities will present themselves. It’s understandable that you will want to pursue your natural talents with an aim toward being the best, but be forewarned because being a professional athlete is tantamount to the very worst imaginable cases of hopeless drug addiction.
You see, being the best will require that you involve yourself with some pretty shady characters. They will ask that you subscribe to the single minded notion of putting all your eggs in a single basket. They will tell you that your talent is a sacred fruit from which every possible trace of juicy nectar must be squeezed.
It will not be irregular for them to demand that you run at least once a day, sometimes two. They will insist that being scantily clad while performing is preferential to a more conservative ensemble for reasons of resistance. Given that the object is to lug your person from point A to point B they will try to instill the vital importance of being lithe and nimble, to appear malnourished which you are kind of and would actually be if it wasn’t for all the supplements you take.
To conclude, the world of sport is toxic. It’s tenets come from a class of individuals who’s very survival depends on their obsessive single minded radical inclination to do whatever they can get away with to win.
Wasn't Chavez a huge NOP fan boy about 7 or 8 years ago? Was it him or someone else? I could have swore that I remembered him posing with Rupp and Salazar accepting an NOP singlet as a gift?
Slripe111 wrote:
Deer young Mary Cain,
You may not yet know this but you are slated to be an exceptional runner. Doors will open and opportunities will present themselves. It’s understandable that you will want to pursue your natural talents with an aim toward being the best, but be forewarned because being a professional athlete is tantamount to the very worst imaginable cases of hopeless drug addiction.
You see, being the best will require that you involve yourself with some pretty shady characters. They will ask that you subscribe to the single minded notion of putting all your eggs in a single basket. They will tell you that your talent is a sacred fruit from which every possible trace of juicy nectar must be squeezed.
It will not be irregular for them to demand that you run at least once a day, sometimes two. They will insist that being scantily clad while performing is preferential to a more conservative ensemble for reasons of resistance. Given that the object is to lug your person from point A to point B they will try to instill the vital importance of being lithe and nimble, to appear malnourished which you are kind of and would actually be if it wasn’t for all the supplements you take.
To conclude, the world of sport is toxic. It’s tenets come from a class of individuals who’s very survival depends on their obsessive single minded radical inclination to do whatever they can get away with to win.
Satire? "you run at least once a day, sometimes two"
it's very possible that they're both telling the truth - cain replied to that point by salazar by saying, "well, they were never made available to me or others."
it only makes salazar look worse in terms of the self-harm and suicide ideation mary practiced - the FIRST thing he should've done is connect to her one of the specialists he kept in his back pocket.
it's possible - there were a lot of nop fans before the bbc investigation in 2015. they started selling that gear on their website because so many people wanted it. i'm not sure though how it's relevant to the story at hand, though.
Luke The Drifter wrote:
So, if NOP had treated its female athletes differently than its male athletes (not expecting them to ‘make weight’, different training routines, lesser overall expectations) would there be a gender discrimination outcry?
Is it OK to think that young female athletes might develop differently than young male athletes? What do the thought-police have to say about that?
Alberto was paid to develop world-beating professional runners, not to be a nice guy, and he clearly succeeded (Putting aside the PED issue for the moment, I don’t think all the NOPers were DOPers, my personal opinion). Virtually all athletes who set out to be the best fail and that journey is physically and emotionally demanding, win or lose. That’s professional sports.
I’m not saying its OK to be an a-hole (or to dance around with PEDs). However, if you, as an athlete, think a more emotionally nurturing coach and team environment would guide to you to higher heights, why not go there? Why did so many athletes want to be on NOP? Might it be because they thought it was their best shot at reaching their athletic best?
Alberto nearly killed himself (literally) in his running days with his astonishing training and racing intensity. Was Mary C and her family ignorant of this? What did they expect from Alberto as a coach when he personal approach seems to be ‘victory or death’?
What’s next? Navy SEAL Hell Week too tough?
Safe Spaces America has come to Track & Field. We will soon be, or maybe we are already are, judging coaches on how woke they are, not on their results. Maybe we should declare everyone winners and stop recording results as doing so shames slower runners..
Mary wasn't training to be Navy SEAl dbag
SureBuddy wrote:
Wasn't Chavez a huge NOP fan boy about 7 or 8 years ago? Was it him or someone else? I could have swore that I remembered him posing with Rupp and Salazar accepting an NOP singlet as a gift?
Yeah and people thought Jerry Sandusky was a generous and caring person who wanted to help at risk youth.
You can change your view on someone.
1. What happened to Mary Cain is unacceptable and was clearly mishandled.
2. Salazar without question made inappropriate comments and is on the aggressive/abrasive/insensitive side.
That being said, this whole thing has reached pitch-fork mob levels. Part of the issue is that Cain was placed into a training environment that wasn't best for her age, personality, and experience. Ignoring the unacceptable behavior by NOP staff (not taking action on the cutting etc.), part of it the problem stems from trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Salazar didn't adapt and the system wasn't right for Cain.
Everyone else (Ritz, Cam Levins, etc. etc.) is getting the benefit of having their views judge on hindsight whereas Salazar and NOP are being judged solely on historical behavior.
To me, the "cult" etc. comments in the SI article swing too far one way. The article presents a purely one-sided argument from many of the same cast of characters that never have anything good to say about NOP. I put more weight in Ritz and even the comments from Julian, but an NOP article filled with quotes from Goucher, Magness, and Yoder-Begley, while not necessarily inaccurate, is not well-rounded.
There is a lot of relevant stuff in all these statements, but the article, and the twitter etc. bandwagon of everyone jumping on to make Salazar the devil incarnate, to me, reduces some of the effectiveness of the real issue being addressed.
Women aren't exactly the same as men.
Too much weight loss for a woman results in loss of estrogen, cessation of a menstrual cycle, bone density problems, stress fractures. We've known this for decades!!!
Female athletes have to approach weight loss more carefully and sensibly than male athletes.
It sounds like Alberto wanted to disregard basic female physiology and Cain's long-term athletic development in the pursuit of short-term gains.
Positive Contribution wrote:
Mary wasn't training to be Navy SEAl dbag
She was training to be the equivalent of. She signed on with NOP to be a world beater, not a journeyman pro.
"... Salazar and NOP are being judged solely on historical behavior."
It's called evidence. It's what they did, what they said, and the actions they took (or failed to take). These are the things that they can and will be judged by.
don't you think it's a little strange that the only people really defending nop is alberto (the founder and head), pete julian (the heir apparent), and treasure (who even tried to push off some liability in the si interview)? if you're going to mention "the usual suspects" like magness and goucher when they criticize the nop, shouldn't you also note that the only nop defenders willing to go public are alberto and his assistants?
tldr: the only person really defending the oregon project is alberto himself (julian suddenly sounds very apologetic in his si interview), while there's quite literally a chorus of former athletes and associates who are all saying the same thing. i guess i'm just trying to say that this sentiment that magness and goucher's words somehow mean less because they're longtime critics is silly.