Mary Cain and Nike

[Conor Dary]

Reminds me of Chuck DeBus from 40 years ago...

[tandfman]

Debus was banned for life by USATF (then TAC) in 1990. But for some time, he was rumored to be continuing to coach some elite athletes. He could never be credentialed as a coach at a USATF championship, but there was no way to regulate what he did privately with individual athletes on local tracks. I haven't heard his name mentioned in connection with any athlete in more than two decades. But he's apparently still making a living in a related field and capitalizing on his successes as a coach of elite athletes. http://velocitysportsclub.com/charles-debus/

Of course that web page makes no mention at all of the fact that he's banned from the sport.

I don't know what Salazar might be planning to do for a living if he loses his appeal, but I'd be surprised if he ended up doing the sort of thing that Debus is doing.

[Conor Dary]

Debus could get away with it 30 years ago...but no way now could Salazar..

Anyways the Scott Glenn character in "Personal Best" was supposedly based on Debus...

[polevaultpower]

Debus was banned for life by USATF (then TAC) in 1990. But for some time, he was rumored to be continuing to coach some elite athletes. He could never be credentialed as a coach at a USATF championship, but there was no way to regulate what he did privately with individual athletes on local tracks. I haven't heard his name mentioned in connection with any athlete in more than two decades. But he's apparently still making a living in a related field and capitalizing on his successes as a coach of elite athletes. http://velocitysportsclub.com/charles-debus/

Of course that web page makes no mention at all of the fact that he's banned from the sport.

I don't know what Salazar might be planning to do for a living if he loses his appeal, but I'd be surprised if he ended up doing the sort of thing that Debus is doing.

I'm not sure if he is actually still banned. He isn't listed as banned anywhere.

I've sent an email asking for clarification on his status.

[26mi235]

Nike has a huge number of track and field athletes, and multiple training groups, including the nearby Bowerman TC in Portland, so this does not seem to be a systemic Nike problem other than how they monitor their people. To think that it would have a big hit on Nike stock is to misunderstand both the difficulty in assessing such things among all the other signals and noise, as well as the scale of Nike's activities in so many sports, especially the big-money sports.

I hope that the biggest effects of this are at the next level down where a lot of high school coaches probably are guilty of things, and if it reaches the athletes and parents then it might help clean up that much larger population segment.

[18.99s]

Of course there is validity to the idea that for elite athletes to perform at their best, their body composition matters.

But what is clear from listening to the podcast I linked a few comments up, and the now numerous statements from other athletes, is that Alberto was not basing his coaching on what body composition worked best for a particular athlete.

Exactly.

Imagine if AlSal was a tennis coach and Serena Williams was one of his athletes. Either she'd end up hospitalized for malnourishment-induced ailments after trying to become as skinny as her competitors, or she'd clobber him with her racket for trying to shame her into doing so.

Look at Shaq and Dirk. Shaq is only 1 inch taller, but was 75 lbs heavier than Dirk in his NBA days. If Shaq tried to become as slim as Dirk, he'd be sick and weak all the time. If Dirk tried to become as big as Shaq, he'd become an immobile ox if he got to that size, or he'd have frequent gastrointestinal distress from overeating to get there.

Mary Cain qualified for the US national team and placed 10th in a global championship at age 17 without dieting to become super-skinny. That should have been Salazar's first clue that she didn't need to be super-skinny to succeed, at least not at that point in her career. Bodyweight and composition are important at the elite level of almost every sport, but what is optimal for one athlete can be disastrous for another. There is no one-size-fits-all.

[tandfman]

Here's another Mary Cain interview, this one on NPR:

https://www.npr.org/2019/11/17/78031...s-against-nike

I don't think there's anything new there.

[Conor Dary]

Mary talk about her experiences at length in a podcast, definitely worth a listen if you want to understand the situation better: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000457047411

Very weird stuff...

...a story related by Amy Yoder Begley, where Salazar would tell her on Day 1 that she looks flabby, and send her to be weighed, then by day 4 he’s saying how lean she is, her “husband is a lucky guy”. Aside from gross, it reveals a properly distorted attitude to weight...

https://mobile.twitter.com/Scienceof...52823904460802

[Dave]

I had lunch today with a friend who follows Nike stock pretty carefully. He had heard something about some guy named Alberto something or other. He then went on to talk in depth about Colin Kaepernick.

It was an interesting reminder about just how little Track matters in this country. Btw, this lunch took place in Portland.

[Halfmiler2]

I find it hard to believe Salazar will ever coach again...at least in the US..such a pariah now...this isn't football...

Also a lot of his success was all the resources Nike had...and that is over...

He is 61 years old and is certainly vested in a Nike retirement plan. He probably does not need to coach again. But he may want to.