If I was coaching Mary Cain, I probably wouldn’t have done it to begin with. The first key is knowing who you are.
And knowing her ex-coach a little as I do https://www.jackdogwelch.com/?p=14127 the result seems somewhat inevitable.
But let’s say you are a high school distance coach and you are trying train young runners.
Boys and girls. Fifteen- to 16-years-old. Boy and girls, 15 to 16?
My first thought is, I probably wouldn’t do it to begin with.
My daughter is in her forties and stories are still being told of her teen years.
Imagine I got a letter from a coach. A volunteer. So neither he nor his kids are getting paid. No professional pressure on anyone. I need to figure out a way to incorporate this https://www.jackdogwelch.com/?p=26899 with our students.
I thought, cool, I am making an impact. Then I read the next sentence.
Any suggestions?
Oh, crap. Hadn’t seen that coming. A lot like Mary’s accusations. But I have been really, really puzzled and worried about her recent lost years. Wondered what happened. She was a bright beam of joy on the track. And then…
It’s Okay To Be Good And Not Great
Mary Cain was too young to realize it’s okay. And nobody said slow down.
For some, there is a finish line and that finish line is greatness. How do you achieve greatness? And when does it make sense to settle for something less. Which might be more in the end.
But you can’t know, can you? Some fortune cookie material right there.
I’m just spitballin’ here. An entire shelf of my library is devoted to the study of my favorite sport, cross-country foot racing. The muddier, the better. I have Joe Newton’s book and his documentary. I imagine everything you need to know to be a success is in there.
Also figure today’s young athlete requires more innovative coaching techniques. Screaming is over. Public humiliation is over. Two arrows in the old coach’s tool box. Can still hear my coach’s voice, telling me how slow I am – you go run with the girls – and it’s been sixty years.
Accept Where You Are
“The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.” – Stephanie Perkins
And the less you let things upset you, the faster you will grow.
The key phrase might be It’s about being at least OK with where you are.
And the first thing you do is find out where that is. And I’d start by weighing everybody. Individually and privately. Bigger engine, better fuel, lighter chassis is a tried and true formula for distance running success.
Just sayin’. Ironic somehow.
Be Patient
First thought, maybe don’t skip steps. Like college.
“Amongst the qualities a hero should have, I would include determination, loyalty, courage, perseverance, patience, focus, intrepidity and selflessness.” – Ricky Martin
Patient is a cool thing to be. Remind your kids daily. Demonstrate patience yourself.
Every once in a while, have your fastest runner run with your slowest.
Be Present
“Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, just like the muscles of the body.” – Lynn Jennings
Show up on time, first of all. Always be where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there.
Make it a game. Just give me fifteen minutes.
What’s in it for me?
Just pay attention and see.
What are you doing RIGHT NOW? Pay attention to whatever.
Be Vulnerable
Distance runners are the true heroes and heroines of the sporting universe. It’s just a fact. And vulnerability is one of our special assets. It’s a strong athlete who admits she needs help.
“Get going … walk if you have to, but finish the damned race.” – Ron Hill
This is high school. Your brain isn’t fully developed until after the teen years. Everybody is miserable. Even the head cheerleader. Nobody’s comfortable. Not even the bus driver.
Stop trying so damn hard to be invincible, and just be yourself. Even if you don’t yet know who that is.
Foster An “In-Real-Life” Community
“Run. Because zombies will eat the untrained ones first!” – Zombie Apocalypse Survival Guide
A training partner is a life saver. You don’t have to outrun the walkers, only the person with you. You two motivate each other. I prefer a training throuple, if you will. With a trio of athletes, somebody is always gonna be feelin’ it that day. Almost always anyway. Easier for two to carry one and the variety of new stories is greatly increased.
This where a coach can do some of his or her best work.
Winning streaks are about branding. The Long Green Line. Your team believes it is part of a successful tradition. Know it’s true. Winning is part of the program’s genes.
Coaching is about marketing and rein-pulling. Explain over and over and over again how running makes you smarter and sexier. (If your AD is the Mother Superior or if you coach at a Christian charter school, forget sexier; emphasis should be placed on how much closer running brings you to Nature.) And the more good training you do, the better life becomes.
Then make sure they don’t overdo it.
Don Kardong – the man, the myth, the legend – recently offered these tips.
Three tips for hopeful lifetime runners
1) Be the best you can be at whatever stage you’re in. If you’re in high school, be the best high school runner you can be. And so on.
2) Find good running partners.
3) Enjoy the journey.
That’s what a coach of boys and girls, 15 to 16 years of age, should really be teaching – enjoyment of a journey which will last a lifetime. So, make it fun.
I’ll be honest. When paychecks are involved, I have no idea, except forget the money. Forget the money.
Running is more important than that. And while I’m being honest, I’d also recruit the hell out of the middle schools and poach the soccer teams. Two other old coach techniques.
Running prodigy Mary Cain: ‘I was emotionally and physically abused by a system designed by Alberto Salazar and endorsed by Nike’
The former track star describes a ‘sick’ training system at Nike’s Oregon Project
By NICOLELYN PESCE
She was the fastest girl in America — until Nike ran her into the ground.
So says Mary Cain, a running prodigy who joined the athletic giant’s Oregon Project led by star coach Alberto Salazar when she was 17, in a New York Times video op-ed posted on Thursday.
Cain, now 23, walked through the highs and lows of being a part of Nike’s NKE, +1.94% elite track and field squad in a seven-minute video and accompanying article that soon went viral on Twitter TWTR, +1.25% and topped Google GOOGL, +1.86% searches on Thursday. “It was a team of the fastest athletes in the world, and it was a dream come true,” she said.
“I joined Nike because I wanted to be the best female athlete, ever. Instead, I was emotionally and physically abused by a system designed by Alberto and endorsed by Nike,” says Mary Cain.
But that dream soured as she was drilled to focus more and more on her weight. “An all-male Nike staff became convinced that in order for me to get better, I had to become thinner … and thinner and thinner,” Cain explained, alleging that Salazar set an “arbitrary” 114-pound target weight for her. At five-foot-seven, that means she was underweight, according to the BMI scale.
Cain also said there was no certified nutritionist on the team, and that Salazar would weigh her in front of her teammates, and publicly shame her if she wasn’t hitting her weight. “He wanted to give me birth-control pills and diuretics to lose weight — the latter of which isn’t allowed in track and field,” she said. Salazar was recently banned from the sport for four years related to doping charges; he is appealing the decision. The Oregon Project has been shut down.
She said her running suffered as her physical and mental health deteriorated. She stopped getting her period for three years, and broke five bones, which are signs of RED-S, or Relative Energy Deficiency in Sports syndrome. “I got caught in a system designed by and for men, which destroys the bodies of young girls,” she said.
“I joined Nike because I wanted to be the best female athlete ever. Instead, I was emotionally and physically abused by a system designed by Alberto Salazar and endorsed by Nike.”
Cain also started having suicidal thoughts and cutting herself — but said that when she told Salazar and the team psychologist about her self-harm, “they pretty much told me that they just wanted to go to bed.” So she quit the team in 2015. “That was my kick in the head where I was like, ‘This system is sick,’” she said.
She’s speaking up now to protect other athletes, and especially young women.
“We need more women in power — part of me wonders, if I’d worked with more female psychologists, coaches, and nutritionists, where I’d be today,” she said.
Cain also called on Nike to make real changes. “You can’t just fire a coach and eliminate a program and pretend the problem is solved,” said Cain. “My worry … Nike is merely going to rebrand the old program, and put Alberto’s old assistant coaches in charge.”
Salazar told the Times that he denied many of Cain’s claims, and that he supported her health and welfare during her five years with Nike.
Nike sent the following statement to MarketWatch on Thursday evening: “These are deeply troubling allegations which have not been raised by Mary or her parents before. Mary was seeking to rejoin the Oregon Project and Alberto’s team as recently as April of this year and had not raised these concerns as part of that process. We take the allegations extremely seriously and will launch an immediate investigation to hear from former Oregon Project athletes. At Nike we seek to always put the athlete at the center of everything we do, and these allegations are completely inconsistent with our values.”
Cain’s video is the latest damaging report against Nike, which have mounted since doping allegations led the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to suspend the brand’s star coach from track and field. CEO Mark Parker is stepping down in 2020, although he said that the doping scandal had “absolutely nothing” to do with him leaving. The World Anti-Doping Agency also announced this week that it will be investigating every athlete that ever trained with Salazar.
Several elite runners and coaches shared their support for Cain on Thursday. The 2017 New York City Marathon winner Shalane Flanagan apologized for not reaching out when she saw Cain was struggling. “I had no idea it was this bad,” she wrote. “We let you down. I will never turn my head again.”
Shalane Flanagan✔@ShalaneFlanagan
I had no idea it was this bad. I’m so sorry @runmarycain that I never reached out to you when I saw you struggling. I made excuses to myself as to why I should mind my own business. We let you down. I will never turn my head again. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/opinion/nike-running-mary-cain.html …Opinion | I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined NikeMary Cain’s male coaches were convinced she had to get “thinner, and thinner, and thinner.” Then her body started breaking down.
U.S. Olympic distance runner Kara Goucher, who also trained under Salazar until 2011, told the Times that she experienced a similar environment, and was also weighed in front of her teammates.
For the people claiming Mary should have known better, not taken Nike $ and is not a victim: she was a child, her parents were called by the most powerful coach in T & F and lied to. She is a victim and your comments prove why this abusuve culture is able to continue.
And while some on social media questioned the truth of Cain’s account, Jonathan J. Marcus, the head coach for the Duniway Athletics track club in Portland, Ore., verified one harrowing story Cain shared about Salazar yelling at her about her weight after a 2015 track meet, and in front of all of the other runners.
Bravo @runmarycain!
This took a lot of guts to say.
I can verify her account of the “rainstorm” meet in 2015 where she was yelled at in public for “gaining weight.”
I was there, I was the meet director.
Believe Mary.
She is telling the truth.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/opinion/nike-running-mary-cain.html …Opinion | I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined NikeMary Cain’s male coaches were convinced she had to get “thinner, and thinner, and thinner.” Then her body started breaking down.
This story has been updated with a response from Nike.