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My Thoughts on the World Relay Championships
Focusing on coaching my high school kids, I missed discussing the early season to date, primarily the Diamond League and the World Relays Championship. That’s a lot of action/discussion, so will tackle one then the other and will start with the World Relays Championships since the subject has already come up. While I think that having some sort of relay championship sounds like a great idea in principle, with everything done by this sport it really comes down to execution – and in my opinion the execution was horrible. Yes, I said horrible. I know that will incite some people to call me negative – because I don’t just praise…
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Perhaps the Youth Will Lead
It’s early June and the "elite" track season is about to hit high gear. Pre last week; Oslo today; NCAA Championships started today; and the New York Grand Prix on Saturday. It doesn’t get much better than that if you’re a track fan – or does it? Well, on the flip side of the coin, the high school athletes here in California are just winding down their season. The State Championships were just this past weekend in Clovis and I was fortunate enough to have athletes in three different finals in my first full year of coaching since my kids were born. And after a full season at the high…
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We Need MORE Track Towns, Not Just One
In my last post, I mentioned several things that I would like to see happen in 2014 – and I will address all ten of them during the early part of the new year. Reading the news yesterday morning, however, I decided to close out the year with something I don’t want to see happen. The establishment of permanent sites for major championship meets in the United States. Now before I get too far along, I’ve somewhat breached this topic before – and each time I’ve been accused of not liking or putting down Eugene. This in spite of the fact that I’ve said little negative about Eugene, and nothing…
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Are the Athletes Truly Ready to Make Change?
One of the big off track stories of the Olympics, was the athlete protest against IOC Rule #40 which prohibits athletes from promoting their sponsors during the Games. No tweets, headphones, headbands, in short nothing that in any way would “advertise” any sponsor that is not an “Official” Olympic sponsor. Which left the athletes a bit bothered. After all they make their bread and butter from the people that sponsor them, and certainly wanted to show a bit of love during the biggest moment of their lives. So, for the first time I can think of since the 60’s when protests were common place and people like Steve Prefontaine voiced…