What an outrageous thing to say
For those who are interested, here is the letter from the Wesleyan President that was sent to the University community this week:
Dear friends,
Earlier this week, Wesleying published powerful and disturbing accounts by several alumnae regarding experiences during their time on the women’s cross-country team. As I wrote on my blog, I sincerely apologize for the profoundly negative experiences described in these testimonies.
The Office of Equity & Inclusion has opened an investigation, as called for by the Director of Athletics. The standard timeline for such an investigation is 60 days, and we will keep the University community informed as appropriate. The coach at the center of these allegations has been placed on leave pending the outcome of the investigation. If anyone has information that would be helpful to the investigation, you can share it with the Office of Equity & Inclusion through an online incident reporting form, or by emailing
. Wesleyan Athletics will fully cooperate with this work, and the University will report on its findings.
Beyond the investigation, we’re mindful of the other demands made by the women’s cross-country team alumnae in their petition. I pledge that we will take all necessary steps to fix any systemic issues that have been brought to light, and that we will ensure the health and well-being of our student-athletes.
For many, these issues are profoundly disturbing. I urge any students in need of support to contact Counseling and Psychological Services at _________. Faculty and staff may contact the Employee Assistance Program at ________.
Michael S. Roth
President
Why anyone would want to become a college coach is beyond me. After what happened to Metcalf and things like this. You’re at the mercy of idiot 18-22 year olds. If they decide they don’t like you they just make up or embellish some crap to get you fired and publicly shamed.
I ran in college at a D1 school, and I am a female. I think coaches have to be really careful about how they talk to their female athletes about body weight. I had several teammates that said our coach had called them fat in individual meetings, which I just don't believe he did. We had to log our body weight in our training log which he would look over during weekly individual meetings, but I don't think this was for him to be able to body shame us, but for us to keep track and be mindful about it. I remember, during my first season, I lost 4 lbs and his comment about it was just "you're getting fit", which I did. But I think other girls probably would have interpreted this as "keep loosing weight".
One of my former teammates came back after Christmas break one time and she had obviously lost a lot of weight. She went from about 105 to 98 at 5'7. She then went on to gain weight and within 2-3 weeks she was back at 107. At that point, she told everyone coach had called her "fat", but when I asked how he had worded it she said he had told her to not gain any more weight. This was just so ridiculous. So she interpreted "don't gain any more weight" as "you're fat". At 107, she was still underweight, but so much fluctuation in weight is not good, so coach told her to keep it the way it was. Well, later it turned out she had an eating disorder.
Maybe athletic departments should have a dietitian on staff to talk about these things. You are right, some girls are being stupid about these things, but you have to remember that at 18 years old, most girls just went through major changes in their bodies and are sensitive about it. I don't know about other girls but I was being really weird about it and almost ashamed that I had gotten boobs. It's just not an easy time. And as I said, some girls may interpret comments in a wrong and harmful way.
ADs needs more money to hire nutritionists to doing the monitoring. Having a coach to be the sole person to regulate weight isn't worth the headache. No different than football and basketball players who get their weight gets scrutinized but those teams have the resources and support staff to implement standards.
entitled 19 year old wrote:
Why anyone would want to become a college coach is beyond me. After what happened to Metcalf and things like this. You’re at the mercy of idiot 18-22 year olds. If they decide they don’t like you they just make up or embellish some crap to get you fired and publicly shamed.
Your statement would only make sense if scores of coaches were being fired. There are hundreds of coaches in North America. Most of them are not facing dismissal, probably because they have found a way to treat their athletes with respect. Doubtless there are a few cases of unfair rebuke, but not in the case of Wesleyan. I think if you read the voluminous testimony about the coach involved you would see a scenario where a guy had many chances to realize his approach was appropriate and was unable or unwilling to change. This isn't the French Revolution. It is merely an appropriate shift in what is considered appropriate behavior.
I don't have a Username wrote:
I ran in college at a D1 school, and I am a female. I think coaches have to be really careful about how they talk to their female athletes about body weight. I had several teammates that said our coach had called them fat in individual meetings, which I just don't believe he did. We had to log our body weight in our training log which he would look over during weekly individual meetings, but I don't think this was for him to be able to body shame us, but for us to keep track and be mindful about it. I remember, during my first season, I lost 4 lbs and his comment about it was just "you're getting fit", which I did. But I think other girls probably would have interpreted this as "keep loosing weight".
One of my former teammates came back after Christmas break one time and she had obviously lost a lot of weight. She went from about 105 to 98 at 5'7. She then went on to gain weight and within 2-3 weeks she was back at 107. At that point, she told everyone coach had called her "fat", but when I asked how he had worded it she said he had told her to not gain any more weight. This was just so ridiculous. So she interpreted "don't gain any more weight" as "you're fat". At 107, she was still underweight, but so much fluctuation in weight is not good, so coach told her to keep it the way it was. Well, later it turned out she had an eating disorder.
Maybe athletic departments should have a dietitian on staff to talk about these things. You are right, some girls are being stupid about these things, but you have to remember that at 18 years old, most girls just went through major changes in their bodies and are sensitive about it. I don't know about other girls but I was being really weird about it and almost ashamed that I had gotten boobs. It's just not an easy time. And as I said, some girls may interpret comments in a wrong and harmful way.
You're naive or maybe you have a very strong body image. It is wrong for a coach to say to an athlete who just lost weight "you're getting fit." These statements plant seeds of eating disorders. The great book on women's running The Silence of Great Distance articulates this much better than I could. Many psychologists would also agree.
So, how to handle it? The fact is, carrying more weight makes you slower.
If gal, or guy, is getting heavier and slowing down, do you just say nothing and drop them next year? Or do you say something and get branded as a horrible person for opening a can of worms?
Of course, encouraging the loss of weight from the athletes long term baseline is not the thing to do.
ggkjfdfgbbhjjfserghj wrote:
So, how to handle it? The fact is, carrying more weight makes you slower.
If gal, or guy, is getting heavier and slowing down, do you just say nothing and drop them next year? Or do you say something and get branded as a horrible person for opening a can of worms?
Of course, encouraging the loss of weight from the athletes long term baseline is not the thing to do.
Ask an eating disorder specialist the best way to approach this.
I always encouraged fitness derived from a combination of eating healthy clean foods and exercise- no reason to worry about or discuss weight.
coach wrote:
Ask an eating disorder specialist the best way to approach this.
I always encouraged fitness derived from a combination of eating healthy clean foods and exercise- no reason to worry about or discuss weight.
If you encourage fitness, then you're encouraging eating disorders. Need to turn coaches of females into bus drivers and entry form fillers in only, let the girls handle their own training or lack there.
entitled 19 year old wrote:
Why anyone would want to become a college coach is beyond me. After what happened to Metcalf and things like this. You’re at the mercy of idiot 18-22 year olds. If they decide they don’t like you they just make up or embellish some crap to get you fired and publicly shamed.
A group of women express a relevant issue they have.
First reply on LRC? This is a terrible problem for the coaches, which invariably are men.
This place would be a lot better if all the right wing incel brigade just ST FU once in a while.
ggkjfdfgbbhjjfserghj wrote:
So, how to handle it? The fact is, carrying more weight makes you slower.
If gal, or guy, is getting heavier and slowing down, do you just say nothing and drop them next year? Or do you say something and get branded as a horrible person for opening a can of worms?
Of course, encouraging the loss of weight from the athletes long term baseline is not the thing to do.
You focus on training towards fitness, not training towards weight. If you do the proper training you will fall into your correct racing weight quite naturally. Focusing on cutting weight as a path to fitness is putting the cart before the horse. In addition to endangering the athlete's health, it's just bad training methodology.
entitled 19 year old wrote:
Why anyone would want to become a college coach is beyond me. After what happened to Metcalf and things like this. You’re at the mercy of idiot 18-22 year olds. If they decide they don’t like you they just make up or embellish some crap to get you fired and publicly shamed.
That depends upon your place in the pecking order of the Athletic Department. The NCAA has been a cash cow scam for decades.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/march-madness-tax-exemption-inequality/"the court concluded that the NCAA rules 'that permit, limit, or forbid student-athlete compensation and benefits do not follow any coherent definition of amateurism.' "
coach wrote:
It is wrong for a coach to say to an athlete who just lost weight "you're getting fit." These statements plant seeds of eating disorders. The great book on women's running The Silence of Great Distance articulates this much better than I could.
It's a fantastic book, but that's not really its message.
800 dude wrote:
coach wrote:
It is wrong for a coach to say to an athlete who just lost weight "you're getting fit." These statements plant seeds of eating disorders. The great book on women's running The Silence of Great Distance articulates this much better than I could.
It's a fantastic book, but that's not really its message.
No, but the chapter that discusses Herbst's casual question to Peter Tegen about weight is powerful and shows the fragility of young runners and the power of even a subtle response by a coach.
Fair enough...but 107 at 5'7" is a BMI of 16.8. When BMI was used to diagnose anorexia it was less than 17.5. A weight fluctuation like hers would indicate that she was likely not naturally at such a low weight, especially at 98lbs or a BMI of 15.3, which for anorexia, would be classified as severe. Under BMI 15 would be extreme anorexia from that metric. Sure, some people are healthfully very lightweight without eating disorders, but her situation seems like a red flag for an ED that the coach should have been mindful of from the start (or at least mindful of the possibility).
Much of this is driven by the carb-and-plant-heavy dietary orthodoxy, which gives female athletes one of two options:
a) be at a competitive weight, but deprived of adequate nutrition or
b) get somewhat more adequate protein and fat-soluble nutrients, but be overweight for athletics.
Men get around this conundrum somewhat by running higher mileage as a form of appetite and weight control (and many get injured in the process). College-age women are more vulnerable to injury attempting this.
Stunningly 'naive' or deliberately creating controversy -- as well as being DFW. One implication of your statement is that the inmates at the Camps that Germany ran would be the best runners.
You might also want to read what Mary Cain wrote, and I think that she knows more about this than you do.
Well, the sheer number of young women coming forward to express their concern about the culture on that team (as promoted by the coach) is worrisome alone (irrespective of what the underlying truths may be). If i'm going to pay close to 70K for my daughter to attend school there, they damn well better make sure her health is not jeopardized by the coach or team. I don't have much sympathy for coaches who take a 'the ends justify the means' approach especially w kids who are paying full tuition and the coach's salary.