Is this the worst high school track coach ever?

No, Art and Linda Kranick of Saratoga Springs High School in upstate New York are the worst high school coaches in the U.S.. Perennial chumps -- I mean champs. Article in today's Albany Times-Union:

Saratoga Springs superintendent defends handling of complaints against track coaches
Tying a student to a truck is not an "unlawful act," he said.

as bad as this is, why didnt your brother just get there 20mins early and do a WU?

He tried. The coach is there right after school lets out.

A very thoughtful post, producing a number of thoughtful responses. I may not have any great answers, but I do have one very personal story and, I now realize, one important and reassuring conclusion.

When I started to read about your brother's training under his school coach, it reminded me of some of my own training in scholastic and even college programs. I went to a tiny prep school for boys (graduating class of sixty-one). My cross-country coach was also my wonderfully erudite teacher in European history, and he let us go off to run for some fairly random amount of time each day, so that's what we did. My track coach, in some contrast, was also the very gentle and sad-eyed chair of the English department, and he had me running almost nothing but a few quarter-mile repetitions with quarter-mile walks in between, so that's what I did. The great majority of my classmates earned varsity letters in at least one or two sports, but I never did. I did, however, receive the most-improved runner award in two consecutive years, and was awarded honorary varsity letters in both cross-country and track by my schoolmates, because I showed up for every practice and tried really hard.

I'm still not sure why I showed up for the first cross-country team practice at my Division III school. By the end of my college years, I had managed to break ten minutes for the two-mile run twice (never broke 9:50), and then only after I started skipping team interval workouts and running on my own, receiving my first and only varsity letter in my last season of cross-country. My "real" coach was Runner's World magazine and some little pamphlets from its greatly underappreciated founder and publisher, Bob Anderson.

After college, I served in the military for four years, regularly running local road races but otherwise avoiding fast running, and started to see that I might have a bit of talent for the sport only after about six months of no racing or similarly fast running, "coached" only by another greatly underappreciated resource, a little book co-authored by Marty Liquori and John Parker (of "Once a Runner" fame) called "Marty Liquori's Guide for the Elite Runner."

After military service, I spent three years in law school, with fairly sporadic running. Almost thirty, I started running much more as a young lawyer, and again had another spurt of improvement. Eventually, my college two-mile pace became my half-marathon pace, and I qualified for the Olympic trials in the marathon after a couple of 2:20 marathons and a couple more sub-2:20s. At the trials, I had a severe stress fracture, but I ended up having a terrific conversation with 1968 Olympic marathoner Ron Daws ("The Self-Made Olympian"), who waved his hand at the other trials competitors, exclaimed that "almost none of these guys have even heard of Lydiard," and then introduced me to another massively underappreciated fellow, the truly great former world record holder in the marathon, Buddy Edelen, describing me to Buddy as a guy who "ran even slower" than Daws had in college.

I didn't run much more in my thirties, but did return to competition in my forties, completing my single marathon in under 2:30, but perhaps more importantly reconnecting me to the running community. Now in my late 60s, I do my best to avoid competition, but still get out to run ten- to twelve-milers and some very taxing and enjoyable treadmill workouts in the thin air of Colorado's foothills.

I sometimes wonder how good a runner I might have become with better coaching and training when I was young, but -- and here's my conclusion -- it was far more important that I ran on teams with a "no-cuts" policy that kept up my enthusiasm for and participation in this unbelievably simple, profound, and delightful sport.

You sound very wise, so I think you understand, far more than most competitive athletes, that your main role is to help your brother avoid injuries and keep up his enthusiasm for running. In the long run, that's what really matters.

The worst coach in high school is Chase Frazier at j Serra hs.

he recruit’s athlete, which most get a private coach after he fails them. But walks around like he is the greatest.

You’re a lucky duck. Would you mind sharing some of that conversation with us?

In our running, we had a lot in common -- slow in high school and college, much faster as self-coached post-collegiate runners who used Lydiard's general principles of training along with our own peculiar modifications and innovations. (For me, that included intense interval workouts running in deep water (first with a water ski jacket, later with no flotation device), hard runs on steeply sloped (about twelve to twenty degrees) treadmill surfaces, and (much less frequently) interval workouts on a stationary cycle.) I shared his obvious disdain for many of the mature athletes who were still relying on coaches to tell them what to do rather than learning the history and physiology of training and figuring out what seemed best for their own bodies. We also agreed that a significant but rarely mentioned benefit of training at higher altitudes is the reduced pace and consequently lower impact forces at a given effort (or, as people might say now, a given blood lactate level or percentage of V02 max). So that's the kind of stuff we talked about.

I also told him that I was thinking of just giving up the sport (at least, on the competitive side), because my numerous injuries over the years were too discouraging and I was probably past what should have been my peak years. (I was 33 at the time.) He suggested that I try cross-country skiing, which by then was his primary form of exercise. He said it would take two or three years to get the technique down, but then "you can kill yourself" in training because the impact forces are so much lower than they are in running. That sounded appealing to me, and I did buy a NordicTrack cross-country ski simulator, but didn't follow through on Ron's idea.

Shockingly, Ron died only a few months after our conversation, from what I recall (perhaps wrongly) was a heart attack. He was only 55 years old. He had been, in his slightly quirky own way, a giant in the training of American distance runners.

Thank you for sharing! Those radical ideas about training are very interesting.

I’ve always wondered if rollerblading would be a suitable cross-training activity, instead. It doesn’t snow here, and it seems similar enough to skiing, that I believe it’s worthwhile to pursue.

I don't know much about rollerblading, but it strikes me that the neuromuscular effects of intense rollerblading might be more similar to those of speed-skating, cycling, and freestyle (as opposed to classical) cross-country skiing. I sought out forms of exercise that, when combined, seemed to most closely match the stresses of intense road or trail running in intensity, cadence, and specific muscle engagement with similar forces and impulses. For long stretches, almost all of my really intense exercises were running in deep water and on steeply sloped treadmill surfaces. Combining the two allowed me to work around or avoid injuries with more complete, well-tailored training.

on my particular select soccer team we were taught to (a) avoid injuring each other in practices -- no hard slide tackling -- save it for the other team (and we were very physical and defense oriented) -- and (b) don't run your legs off before the games, be fresh gameday.

practice serves a few purposes, 2 important ones here being (1) get ready for meets (fitness etc.) and (2) help the coach pick the team. if you have many distance runners, (2) is a competition and you are forced to go fuller gas to chase a slot. but you suggested he has 5 guys to spread over 3 events. i don't have to kiss up or win a time trial to make the team. all i have to do is go through the motions such that he doesn't kick me off the team. he then has to run me meet day. in other words, i don't have to run the time trial how he wants, if he can't cut me for it.

if i don't have to worry about (2), then my sole focus on (1) is meet prep. i can do his work at my speed/effort, with an eye towards what prepares me best for the weekend and works with my supplemental regime.

to me your coach sucks but the worst parts of it can be done off-speed. he then has you run too little but if you off-speed the trial and other annoying parts you can up the mileage or effort on the side. if you're gonna argue with me that your brother needs to run the trial full speed, having said before he shouldn't, you're either trolling us or forgetting that he can do the effort work on the side with you. and i am not saying loaf the whole practice. you identified obnoxious elements. you run the harmless stuff sincerely. you tank the time trial. you run your side stuff. you cover (1) like you want. meets are what we really care about. don't even try and please the coach, just do what it takes to force him to take you to meets.

compare that to, say, my junior high, where we won district, had a ton of kids, and every event was oversubscribed. we had time trials to make the meet every week on a dirt track. if you tripped in a hole you didn't make that event or relay even when you should have on meet performances. the time trial wouldn't be first thing in practice, either. i learned to keep my ear to the ground when time trials for events were and take it easy those days until we raced.

point being, part of the game here is do what it takes to get to meet day. a "time trial" that doesn't decide "who makes the team?" so what. run it 80% unless the coach actually has a cut or say who makes it, or unless the trial decides the team. if all it is, is workout, then treat it like a workout.

You just keep digging. I admire the dedication and resilience.

I’ve given this idea some proper reflection and I think it is an extraordinary idea. I can’t stand the treadmill, but it’s prodded me into thinking about new ways to use hills for interval workouts. Thank you so much for the inspiration, Mr. Avocado.

Uh, they do. I just changed schools, and am assisting a sprint coach with track this year. He does hard repeats every day, and every athlete (sprints, distance and throwers) does the exact same workout. I am new here, so I am mostly observing and trying to learn how he wants things done, but if I can get his attention when the season ends, I will explain to him why his kids are getting injures, why he has no real throwers, and why his distance kids suck. It's like he is training his team to be all 4X2 and 4X4 guys and gals. Nobody is good at the 100 or hurdles. Nobody is good at the 8, 16, or 32. There are a couple of good horizontal jumpers, but no HJ kids that can score points.

the one time in my life i think i could have gotten a coach fired, in retrospect, was my college soccer coach told me to guard and "hurt" the conference player of the year/all-american on the other team. he asked at half time when i was going to do it. i marked him out of the game and we lost close. but he gave me crap for disobeying orders. i should have been at the AD's office when the plane got back on monday. i have had good and bad coaches, and some bad ones have been incompetent or jerks, but my general opinion is short of abuse, molestation, orders to hurt someone, etc.? not happening. you mention poor results, well, if he's on a contract, maybe bring that up to the principal or AD or other leadership. but he's probably also a football position coach protected for that purpose. so good luck with that, at least on a timescale that helps your brother.

i think some of the parents went after the HS XC coach who ran me into the ground. it worked a year after we graduated. likewise, my jerk college soccer coach lasted 3/4 of my tenure. other than being good for the next kid, so what. my regret is i didn't report him -- but at the time i wouldn't go after coaches.

anyhow, point being, this is a quixotic quest and one that if you do publicly puts the spotlight on your sibling, who may suffer retaliation. the reason i was suggesting the "effort" response is it practically deals with the issues and the fact he may be your coach whether you like it or not. maturity taught me if a coach overdid it or asked ugly things, engage in self-help. disregard the orders or lower effort to make practice reasonable. within the limit of getting kicked off or left off meet entry lists.

i even get your point. his practices are silly and like 400/800 stuff. coaches don't usually get fired for silly. they get fired for poor performance, abuses, asking the team to do bad things. you need more of a throughline for even your critique. "dumb workouts, that's what neighboring HS coach x says, and then they go finish last every meet, here are the results. and then if you complain or suggest something else, he threatens to kick you off the team." you see how that is different than just crying about training plans.

and meanwhile until anything ever happens, perhaps after you are gone or nearly so (my experience), he's your brother's coach. so you might as well adapt.

I'm going to say it because you really need to hear it. You are the embodiment of ignorance. No one agrees with you. You are a soccer guy who knows nothing about running. And please, learn how to capitalize the first letter of your sentences and the word "I."

BTW maturity is not ignoring the coach. Maturity is having a respectful conversation about the issue to facilitate progress.