Jerry S. certainly can coach mid-d - Elliott Cook beats UW's NCAA champs and takes home 1500 and 800 at Pac 12s

Jerry Seinfeld? He gives a great commencement speech, but I didn't know he could coach, too.

He might be able to coach middle distance, but he is a disaster for marathon runners.

I assume the OP is talking about Jerry Sandusky.

OP, if anything this shows how talented Cook is. He is likely successful despite Jerry, not because of him. One incredibly talented athlete doing well at conference does not mean Jerry is a good middle distance coach. Let’s look at the mediocre performances of the rest of the team. You know who is a great middle distance coach? Andy Powell, whose athletes went 2-5 in the 1500, and has coached the last four NCAA champions in the 1500/mile with three different athletes. That’s a good coach.

Cook had pbs in high school of 1:51.5 and 4:13. On this board, he'd be told to go D3, rather than risk walking on at a bad d1 school.

Talent? Sure, and it was quite a double holding off all those kickers in the 1500. He'll always remember last PAC, and beating 3 national champs.

Somebody had to bring on this recruit and coach him up, though.

He beat Leo too 🤪

U of Washington had a couple of 3:34.xx guys in the race. Said U of WA guys allowed the pace to be so slow it was a race of 1:46.xx 800m men. E Cook raced the shortest distance compared to U of WA guys. No U of Oregon coach forced U of Washington guys to race so slowly.

I agree with this. I like to look at results primarily as something that is accomplished by the ATHLETE, not their coach or their shoes.

Maybe Jerry can coach middle distance, and maybe he can't. But it was Elliott Cook who won those races.

Nice handle 😀

Jerry did have to let him race...twice. Cook had his yearly allotment of races in one day.

Cook did the best Centro-in-Rio impersonation I've seen.

Add him to the list of college guys contending for an Olympic spot.

Also, quite interesting and entertaining to see a slow, unpaced distance race. Almost forgot how chaotic it looks.

Good stuff!!

Centro lead the entire race in Rio. Cook sat in 2nd and kicked to the win.

Let me get this straight, are you saying that a kid who ran 1:51 in high school isn’t talented? GTFO of here. Was that pre-super shoes, too? Even with super shoes 1:51 in high school is talent.

Good race

Hoser tried to cut Cook off with 200 to go, but despite cheating, came up short. Should have been a DQ.

Rheinhardt Harrison - who ran 3:59 in HS two years ago - hasn't done anything at Oregon. A weak, meek underperformer, a non-entity. Connor Burns and Simeon Birnbaum have been AWOL. Ditto for Larry Josh Edwards. So the one-off of Elliott Cook winning a sit-and-kick aside, no, I don't think Jerry S. is doing a good job. I'm sure there are other names who went AWOL under the secretive Schumacher regime. Their families don't even know what happened.

That's the type of race you will get when all the coaches are thinking the same an tell their runners to race this way rather than having one run like pre.. The best guy almost always never wins.

Good for Elliott Cook - I mean that. He ran a good race, and beat some quality competition.

However, let's pump the brakes on the whole, "This proves/disproves x, y, z about his coach."

It is one race for one athlete. In the context of his season, it is very likely that this is not THE race for this athlete. I'm sure everyone on the start line wanted to win, but outside of race time, the top half of the field views this race as a chance to test themselves AND as part of their preparation for NCAA's and/or the Olympic Trials.

As for the coach, this is just a small part of a very large body of work that includes NCAA champions, Olympians, medalists, etc. It also includes the last year+ of largely underwhelming results and (to our outside LRC eyes) development at U of O. No one race on its own is definitive of this coach, or any coach.

I wouldn't call 1:48 and 3:41 underperforming for a college freshman. Matter of fact is the level of competition in the NCAA is a lot higher than high school.

What are you expecting?

UO also only had a total of 5 men compete in the 5k/10k/Steeple. Results below -

5k: 19th (out of 24). Finished nearly a minute behind the winner.
10k: 12th/15th (out of 20). Finished almost a minute and a 1:45 off the winner, respectively.
Steeple 8th/DNF (out of 12). The runner who finished was 28 seconds off the winner.

None of them finished in the top half and 80% (if you include the DNF) finished in the bottom quarter of the field. None of them doubled, either.

So much for a "legacy distance powerhouse" lead by "one of the best distance coaches in the world."

Harrison ran 3:59/1:48 in high school. He's a sophomore now and had a good race after track season ended last year, 3:38.9. He's had mono twice while with Jerry. That's a debilitating illness usually prompted by overtiredness--it would make sense to blame Jerry's high volume and intensity workouts for making him susceptible to it and to getting it again.

Cook was already a Pac-12 champ two years ago, before Jerry, so his fine performance really can't be attributed to Jerry either. There are signs of life with Cook healthy again this year, Hardin good, Harrison at least racing. But injuring both Conner and Simeon and getting nothing good out of them all year was a sign of incompetence and inflexibility.