A little late on those Coach Evaluations, aren't you?

A few days after the USS Sprring Board Meeting ended, I received an email that was sent out from Mike Crowe to all sprinters who had had any coach-athlete involvement with Ryan Shimabukuro in the past season, requesting an evaluation of Ryan's performance. I sent back a scathing reply to Crowe, asking him how he can go on pretending like what USSPEEDSKATING did to me last season was not the equivalent of "career genocide;" how he can just sit next to me in a meeting and keep me on his emailing list like nothing ever happened. I mean, come on! Do what you have to do, but at least call it what it is.

I did, however, give a few words of input on Ryan's coaching, repeating what I'd said on The Protocol several times about thinking that Ryan is an excellent technique coach. I also included a brief assessment of Tom Cushman's coaching performance, and referred Crowe to recent posts on The Protocol regarding who I believe is to blame for most of the failures of USSPEEDSKATING in Torino, especially in the men's and women's team pursuit and women's individual events.

Anyway, my main point in this post is to ask WHY CROWE WAITED UNTIL AFTER THE BOARD MEETING TO ASK THE ATHLETES FOR COACH EVALUATIONS. This is something that should have been done immediately after the season ended, so that plans could be made accordingly for the upcoming season. If the Board Meeting is held at the end of April, and teams officially start training together in the beginning of May, you can't wait until the board meeting to make a decision on a team coach -- much less just get started on evaluating coaching performance!!! What a shocking lapse of responsibility.

I'm saying this because I know that there was a major revolt among the athletes when they heard that Tom Cushman was re-hired as USSPEEDSKATING Allround National Team Coach. Cushman has made way too many mistakes, and should no longer have this position, and the fact that most athletes refuse to train with him should be a big indication that this is the wrong decision.

In fact, there was a big debate over this issue at the Board Meeting, and I'll talk about that in more detail in a later post. For the purpose of this post, I'd like to say that I know of several Allround skaters in Salt Lake City whose season plans are completely up in the air right now, in between not knowing who the National Team coach will be, and not having the FAST Program in existence at the Oval any more -- these skaters are waking up each morning and saying, "Well, what kind of training do I feel like doing today?"

Ladies and gentlemen, meet your illustrious US Speedskating Team, and their pathetic and disorganized leadership.