Jerry Schumacher deserves to be fired

Jerry was a good coach at one point in time. He basically took a martin smith approach and mixed it with his nice guy personality. That worked for a while and then it appears he began to think himself as a coaching genius and took himself way to serious.

His ego got rather exaggerated. He loved the image of having secret training and very few races by his athletes. I think there was a time when athletes might have over raced but he has taken this too far. Plus, there are so many differences between college athletes and pros. Their peak seasons are different. Their maturity levels are different. And there are many more differences.

i actually think because he takes himself too seriously, has a large ego but pretends not to, he is doing a poor job coaching.

There's a new SE vid out where during this base phase Cooper notes getting 65mpw in 5/day week with 2x sessions/5day and then 2 days off.

CT's new group, "SOVA" has been responding well and also notes the 85mpw/7 day week was going backwards. I wonder if they're doing a lot of gym/ cross train for those 2 days?

A couple observations on the Jerry situation:

1. Jerry is not an idiot, and we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that after the NOP disintegrated his group was the only one in North America producing world class results. I think Jerry can be forgiven for looking around at all the other groups running 13:15-13:30 and thinking he was pretty freaking smart for getting so many guys sub-13, sub-27, and winning medals.

2. Jerry's system was always heavy on intensity, a "sink or swim" mentality, and famously took even highly talented college graduates a full 1-2 years to adapt to. If he's not significantly modifying that approach for these college kids that seems like a huge recipe for disaster.

3. He's also very selective with when he allows his athletes to race. Again, seems ill-suited for the NCAA. These kids need to learn how to race, many of them spent all of high school blowing their competition away. They need reps competing at the next level, learning tactics, making mistakes and learning from them.

4. Oregon appears to have given up on every event outside of the mid-distance and distance events. They've essentially gutted one of the most well-rounded track teams in the country, in favor of a distance-heavy squad that so far can't qualify for XC nationals or get anyone to into track nationals.

5. How patient will Oregon/Nike be? If Jerry was a football coach, the last couple seasons are about the equivalent of winning 5 or 6 games at Alabama. Will he get more time to produce because of his longstanding ties with Nike? It has to show signs of life within the next 12 months or we're verging on a full-blown disaster.

Let's be honest here guys. He is not taking nobodies and turning them into stars, he gets the best talent in the US and some of them make it and many don't. Problem is that when they make it, they rarely trace, so who cares.

The college team he coaches is getting screwed out of their collegiate careers, they should get out as soon as possible, the portal makes it easy. Do it before people forget who they are.

It seems like typically they do 6 days, but the point is it’s flexible. 6 days with a lot of sessions right now is pretty en vogue. They do a long run Saturday morning, so Cooper said the 48 hr buffer there helps them maximize each day.

Some make it and some don't for all recruits, regardless of talent. They have the ability to leave any time and guess what? They aren't.

Jerry's Oregon Philosophy

1. Redshirt guys their freshman year after they had HISTORIC senior years in high school

2. Overtrain them until they are injured and burned out

3. FINALLY race them when they are unprepared to run fast only 3 weeks after an injury

Genius.

Just wondering what the philosophical differences are between Jerry and Shalane Flanagan? It seems like they're having more success on the women's side than on the men's side. Does Shalane write the workouts or does Jerry micromanage the workouts the women do? Is Shalane a watch holder?

Why James Harding?

Is he...? If so Ben Thomas, Andy Powell, and everyone who came before them must be f*cking geniuses with how well they did at the worst place on Earth to coach.

In the words of multiple time Mr. Olympia, Lee Haney, “Stimulate. Don’t Annihilate.”

Sociopath coaches don’t get this.

I disagree. I'd rather run for the guy who doesn't fake his voice and marry one of his athletes.

Can you imagine being so into psychologically manipulating your athletes and creating the guru mantra that you fake your accent? It would be exhausting for me to remember to speak in the fake voice.

Just look at his athletes' results in the 1500m and marathon. 3:34 is about the best they ever do. Evan Jager ran 3:32.97, I think, but basically Jerry gets a lot of 5000m guys to run 3:34-36 and hardly anyone faster and he does not convert 5000m men to 1500m or have much success in the 1500m. However, I will give you Lopez Lomong, who had success on the American level at 1500m and 5000m. It's been a while.

Pride cometh before the fall

Lopez Lomong's best days as a mid d guy were before Jerry coached him.

He’s been there less than 2 full years.

2 trophies at ncaa championships for women’s track.

4 other top 16 placings as a team at championship between the two genders. With March madness on the brain, how many sweet 16 coaches are getting fired? Final 4?

So an Athletic Director is supposed to fire and coach that just for a trophy (probably oregons highest finish across all sports this year) because we are disappointed in a freshmen men’s class and their performance?

His most talented distance guys don’t run the marathon and how has he done with 1500m specialists? You don’t think runners like Hobbs and Hocker would do well with Schumacher? Why not?

I ran for a coach like this, problem is we’re a crappy d3, not Oregon or Bowerman

I can only imagine how a kid like Simeon enjoys that