Is Danny Mackey a bad coach or just really unlucky?

what would you do? wrote:

Good athletes make coaches look good. Jerry schumacher is angood coach but he also has a strong collection of talent.

Woody Kincaid, Vanessa Fraser, Elise Cranny, Josh Thompson, Kieran Tuntivate had nowhere near the credentials of Henry Wynne, Allie Ostrander, Kidder coming out of college

sure..as a whole shumacher gets better talent, but he's getting it done with second tier college graduates too.

its almost impossible to have a roster of 12 athletes and only have 2 perform well. Can't put all the blame on the athletes

Flew the coop mobile wrote:

I actually forgot about Heath, he’s probably been under Mackey for longer than Windle. He did well for a while, although he again hasn’t done much recently.

He's 35 years old. Every day he can get out of bed is a win.

The Beasts and Mackey just seem kinda goobery.

Swaglord_the_realest wrote:

The Beasts and Mackey just seem kinda goobery.

Like most of the Millennials and Gen-Z's that have moved to Seattle over the last decade - all hype and no follow through.

I never understood the Beast's inability to get more out of their talent. One can only assume, at this point, that Mackey is part of the hold-up. If Windle is the high-water mark for a bunch of 1:46/3:36/13:20 type talent, one has to wonder.

having his athletes come out off of no speedwork and run balls out 150s at end of practice was clearly a mistake while it was happening. Thats how Spencer got hurt. I was watching that video thinking what the F...

What I am about to say is blasphemy to most but I have always thought what people are saying about Mackey can be said about Gags. Most never seemed to make big jumps under him as well

Put yourself in Julie Culley’s shoes (as Danny’s boss)-what do you do coming off the 2021 Trials with 3 years to the next Olympics?

Are you kidding me?? I have known Gags for over 40 years and have met maybe 1 athlete who has nothing but praise for Gags. He will coach anybody willing to put in the work. I was in my early 40's and he invited me to run with the team, not as a member but as a workout partner. Those who in the man should remember this

1 Faith

2Family

3Studies

4Athletics

lmb wrote:

Are you kidding me?? I have known Gags for over 40 years and have met maybe 1 athlete who has nothing but praise for Gags. He will coach anybody willing to put in the work. I was in my early 40's and he invited me to run with the team, not as a member but as a workout partner. Those who in the man should remember this

1 Faith

2Family

3Studies

4Athletics

I don't know much about Gag's system or the depth of his athletes over the years, but I always heard good things.

That said, regardless of the man's character and how much his athletes liked him - did the majority of them actually improve? That's the question at hand.

Kidder had pretty major surgery last year - torn meniscus. 145.39 and 335.27 in 2019 and one of the first guys out of the world 800 final.

agree that mackey's program seems light - they don't run high mileage and they don't seem to do killer workouts. looks like nick symmonds' training from 2012, which makes sense as he was under mackey for a while

Was listening to a podcast with Gabriela Stafford the other week - can't remember which one. Not sure on the exact wording, but basically said how in 2019 Brooks weren't interested in renewing her contract? Or that they wouldn't sign her if she ran with Laura Muir in Scotland? And that Nike were the only company interested in signing her which I find insane. Not wanting to sign a woman who made the Olympics at 20, run 4:03 +world semi-finalist as a 21 year old//three Canadian national titles by 22. Compare that to some of the other talent they have signed since and it doesn't make a ton of sense...

Also not like Allie Ostrander was a nobody when she signed with Brooks too.

Anyway. The group has been sub-par for a long time now. Josh Kerr and Allie Buchalski keeping the program afloat.

Westlake Tavern Pizza wrote:

That said, regardless of the man's character and how much his athletes liked him - did the majority of them actually improve? That's the question at hand.

I don't know about the majority or how much of the coaching he did but with athletes like trautmann, holman, kenah, Riley, symmonds , Cabral , and so on, he has a pretty decent list of guys who got better.

In all this stuff, you can't look at it in a vacuum. How many miles/week should spencer brown be running? Normally I would say an elite 1500m guy should be up around 80-90 in the base phase. But if you had only run 50mpw in the previous year, 60-65 is probably closer to what you have been doing.

I also haven't seen enough of these guys training to have complete picture(are they doing 5miles every day in the morning) but the general fall base (lots of tempos, a little bit of faster work) seemed reasonable. I haven't seen as much lately to see how they progressed.

Injuries are also tough as programs seem to go through cycles. How much is luck and how much is coaches overloading too much is hard to say. You see this a lot in XC where every now and then an otherwise solid program gets like half their team injured.

All that being said, I also have zero evidence this guy knows what he is doing. Give me daniels running formula and dozen guys, 1 or 2 will do well. That wouldn't make me a good coach...

If you want an idea of Gag’s training check out the sub 1:50 thread

Westlake Tavern Pizza wrote:

Swaglord_the_realest wrote:

The Beasts and Mackey just seem kinda goobery.

Like most of the Millennials and Gen-Z's that have moved to Seattle over the last decade - all hype and no follow through.

Yeah idk there's this certain vibe, and the only way I can describe it is "goobery". Like they would be the type of people to make these specific protein vegan pancakes and think they are awesome, and listen to basic azz alternative music where the band claps and goes "HEY." and stuff like that.

I guess seeing some other posters, Kidder seems to have run pretty decent. 3:35 is pretty fast. Although he has run fast before, so just a small decent improvement, nothing wild.

Harbord St wrote:

Was listening to a podcast with Gabriela Stafford the other week - can't remember which one. Not sure on the exact wording, but basically said how in 2019 Brooks weren't interested in renewing her contract? Or that they wouldn't sign her if she ran with Laura Muir in Scotland? And that Nike were the only company interested in signing her which I find insane. Not wanting to sign a woman who made the Olympics at 20, run 4:03 +world semi-finalist as a 21 year old//three Canadian national titles by 22. Compare that to some of the other talent they have signed since and it doesn't make a ton of sense...

Also not like Allie Ostrander was a nobody when she signed with Brooks too.

Anyway. The group has been sub-par for a long time now. Josh Kerr and Allie Buchalski keeping the program afloat.

This is more insane when you think of how much money they throw at their new signees. Rumor has it they tried to sign Isaiah Harris for $150000 a year. Sounds like they just throw a bunch of tihs at the wall til it sticks.

Harbord St wrote:

Was listening to a podcast with Gabriela Stafford the other week - can't remember which one. Not sure on the exact wording, but basically said how in 2019 Brooks weren't interested in renewing her contract? Or that they wouldn't sign her if she ran with Laura Muir in Scotland? And that Nike were the only company interested in signing her which I find insane. Not wanting to sign a woman who made the Olympics at 20, run 4:03 +world semi-finalist as a 21 year old//three Canadian national titles by 22. Compare that to some of the other talent they have signed since and it doesn't make a ton of sense...

Also not like Allie Ostrander was a nobody when she signed with Brooks too.

Anyway. The group has been sub-par for a long time now. Josh Kerr and Allie Buchalski keeping the program afloat.

Your answer is probably in the Muir connection. Lots of rumors about her. I’d imagine those working at a major shoe company know more than we do.

If Brooks declined because of that, it’s likely because they were making a moral judgment call. Which should be applauded, not condemned.

Symmonds is not the best example because wasn't he under Mark Rowland at OTC in 2012? BTW his training log from that year leading up to his 1:42 for 5th (lol) in London is available for free download. Definitely a good read.

Let it Rupp wrote:

With Spencer Brown injured AGAIN, one has to wonder if Mackey is a sh!t coach or just really unlucky and attracts athletes that are injury prone and/or past their prime. He's had athletes run some decent performances but almost all of them besides Kerr (who is a new addition and was great before joining the Beasts) is currently running like donkey crap or injured or just coming back from injury. Is it safe to say that Mackey officially sucks as a coach?

This has aged well…….

I know people “in the business” and it is well know that he has absolutely know idea what he is doing. NO coach has produced as little as he and kept his job. I assume he is an incredible “networker” or no chance he would still have a job. His boss (J Williams) got canned years ago and somehow he still has a job.