An Unsolicited Evaluation of Tom Cushman's Performance as U.S. National Allround Team Coach:
I really wish I'd been able to attend the Long Track Committee meeting at the USSPEEDSKATING board meeting. Apparently, upon hearing that Tom Cushman would be returning to his position as National Allround coach, Catherine Raney stood up and said something like, "So if you don't get enough skaters who want to train with this coach, will you just eliminate that position?"
Later on in the weekend, a special meeting was called by Dan Jansen and a few current national-level skaters, to discuss the coaching situation. I hear that Dan tried to tell the USS administration, "Look, you can't re-hire Tom Cushman, because no one will train with him!" This is totally unexpected, and I would really like to thank Dan Jansen right now for standing up for today's top American speedskaters.
You know, I really thought that after what happened at the Olympics in Torino this past season, that there would be no doubt that Tom Cushman has used up all of his chances to fail as U.S. Allround coach. I thought the results spoke for themselves. I thought it was so obvious, but I guess I was wrong.
Sometimes, I hate to pick on Tom so much, because he really doesn't seem like a bad person. It's just that I am concerned for the next generation of speedskaters, and I feel that something needs to be said and done about the National Team coaching situation.
Though I hate to pick on Tom, I don't understand why he keeps coming back for more abuse! Personally, if I had failed at something as miserably as Tom has failed at coaching the American Allrounders, I would want to crawl into a hole and die. In fact, I'm shocked that Tom even wanted his job back this year! During the Olympics, someone I know got a phone call from Tom, during which he said he just wanted it all to be over and just wanted to go home.
I did not wish poor performances on any of the American skaters, but when Tom's whole training group started to underperform in Torino, I wanted him, as their coach, to feel every twinge of unpleasantness when his skaters failed to meet expectations. I wanted him to face the media's tough questions. And, most of all, by the time all of the results had come in, I was certain that there was no way USSPEEDSKATING would have him back. I was wrong.
In light of the re-hiring of Tom Cushman as Allround coach, I see that USSPEEDSKATING still does not understand the full extent of the harm this coach's performance has done to the federation's goals, individual athletes' careers, team unity, and potential sponsorship. So, even though a lot of what I'm going to say today is a re-hashing of things I have already discussed, I'm going to say it all again. Even though I often feel like I'm beating my own head against a wall, I'm going to say it again. I'm going to try to present this to you in terms that, I hope, are both very simple and very harsh.
When I decided to train with Cushman's Allround group in 2003-04, it was mainly for the free training, other benefits, and the fact that no matter how the coaching was, I'd have fast training partners. Our team was told that we'd have a group of scientific advisors looking over our training data to make sure we weren't getting overtrained. Still, 4 out of the 8 skaters on Tom's team "fell off the edge," got overtrained, and severely underperformed. I was one of those.
Now, this part is very important, because it has to do with something that was discussed at this year's Sports Science and Medicine committee meeting: Some skaters brought up the point that the USS coaches might not be too good at watching the skaters' training data and applying it to the training programs. Then, the counter-attack was made by the coaches, saying that it's up to the skaters to communicate with the coaches better, about how they feel in training. What I never remembered to say at this point was that after the year where half of Tom's team got overtrained, we were not told that we should have communicated better. No, we were told that THE COACHES AND SCIENTISTS COULD SEE THAT WE WERE GETTING OVERTRAINED, BUT THE DECISION WAS MADE TO CONTINUE TO PUSH US, IN THE INTEREST OF COLLECTING DATA FOR THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE GENERATIONS OF SKATERS.
When I told this story on The Protocol, I wrote that not only did I belive it was unethical for a coach to convince a group of National Team athletes that he was trying to help them skate faster, and then to use them in some sort of "overtraining experiment," I also wrote that I DID NOT BELIEVE TOM CUSHMAN HAD THE KNOWLEDGE OR EXPERIENCE THAT WOULD ALLOW HIM TO APPLY ANYTHING HE HAS LEARNED FROM SUCH EXPERIMENTS FOR THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE NATIONAL TEAM SKATERS.
How right or wrong was I?
Well, take a look at how Tom did last season. He was handed a couple of very talented junior skaters. One of them had gone under 1:50 in the 1500 the previous year and was looking to be a serious contender for the 2006 Olympic Team, if he continued in his rate of improvement. One year later, this kid is crawling across the finish line, WAAAAAAAAAAAY off his personal best, like so many skaters who have passed through Cushman's hands.
It's like another point that Catherine Raney made at the Sports Science and Medicine committee meeting -- that younger skaters aren't familiar enough with how hard to push their own bodies, and need more guidance from a coach. Has Tom learned anything from his "overtraining experiments?" Does he even know how to look at a skater in training, and tell when that person has had enough? Can he be trusted to monitor the progress of a talented, up-and-coming neo-senior? It sure doesn't look like it.
Next, take a look at the Olympic Games. Not only were Tom's long distance skaters underperforming relative to themselves, they were also, without exception, beaten out by American skaters from alternative training programs.
Probably the saddest story of all is that of 2005 Sprint Champion Jen Rodriguez. I'll never forget the voice of the announcer before she lined up for one of her races, saying that she HAD PUSHED TOO HARD IN TRAINING DURING THE FALL AND HER LEGS HAD NOT HAD A CHANCE TO RECOVER.
Mistakes happen in every line of work. Some are worse than others. It's possible to learn from one's mistakes, but one must be held accountable for failure, especially if it involves messing up the efforts of human beings who are sacrificing everything to achieve a goal.
If my work in the lab went like Tom's coaching, it would be like this: I'd come in and take a picture of the DNA fragment I was trying to make, it would come out blank, and I'd realize that I had forgotten to add the enzyme to the reaction. I'd paste the picture into my lab notebook and record what happened. Then, I'd come in the next day and do it again. A year later, I'd have 365 pages in my notebook of blank pictures with a note saying, "Oops! I forgot to add the enzyme!" But amazingly, somehow I'd still have my job. It blows your mind, if you think about it that way. It's just not the way the real world works. It's not the way anything should work!!!
Doesn't USSPEEDSKATING realize that when they hire a coach nobody wants to train with, then nobody will want to be a sponsor of USSPEEDSKATING? This is a real problem. This is not just "some disgruntled failure" talking about a coach with whom she had the worst season of her life. I'm not alone! In fact, YOUR TOP ALLROUND SKATERS DO NOT WANT TO TRAIN WITH THIS COACH! Shani Davis and Catherine Raney train in Calgary. Chad Hedrick has been training with Bart Schouten. I really believe that the root of most of your battles with athletes over sponsorship and unequal treatment BEGINS with the fact that YOUR ALLROUND NATIONAL TEAM PROGRAM REPELS THEM!!!
Now here's another problem I need to mention. There was an anonymous "Coach Evaluation" sent around to all the skaters, by one former skater who wanted all the others to know what he thought of the US coaches. In response to this skater's criticism of Tom Cushman, another of Tom's skaters came to Tom's defense, saying that Tom was put in the unfortunate position of having to work with skaters he didn't feel he could work with.
I'm sorry, but it is the responsibility of a National Team coach to be able to work with skaters of all different types of personalities. The person who is National Team coach is handed the fastest skaters in the nation, and there is no guarantee that they will all have personalities that are compatible with the coach's. But if the coach is unable to work with a variety of people, then that is not something for the coach to whine and complain about. THAT IS THE COACH'S PROFESSIONAL DEFECT, and should be dealt with accordingly.
Have you had enough yet, or should I go on? I guess the last thing I want to say is that USSPEEDSKATING has a responsibility to this country to serve THE FASTEST ATHLETES and to help them perform at their best. Unless I've missed something in USSPEEDSKATING's mission statement, it is not their mission "To Provide a Job for Tom Cushman, No Matter How Badly He Screws Up."
Recently, I communicated with someone involved in marketing for USS, who said that his only concern was to sell USSPEEDSKATING by making it look good from the outside -- not to know what goes on internally. But I'd say that keeping Tom Cushman as National Allround coach is a decision that does a lot of damage, not only to the athletes' and federation's performance goals, but also to the image of USSPEEDSKATING and to its potential for seeking sponsorship.
I really wish I'd been able to attend the Long Track Committee meeting at the USSPEEDSKATING board meeting. Apparently, upon hearing that Tom Cushman would be returning to his position as National Allround coach, Catherine Raney stood up and said something like, "So if you don't get enough skaters who want to train with this coach, will you just eliminate that position?"
Later on in the weekend, a special meeting was called by Dan Jansen and a few current national-level skaters, to discuss the coaching situation. I hear that Dan tried to tell the USS administration, "Look, you can't re-hire Tom Cushman, because no one will train with him!" This is totally unexpected, and I would really like to thank Dan Jansen right now for standing up for today's top American speedskaters.
You know, I really thought that after what happened at the Olympics in Torino this past season, that there would be no doubt that Tom Cushman has used up all of his chances to fail as U.S. Allround coach. I thought the results spoke for themselves. I thought it was so obvious, but I guess I was wrong.
Sometimes, I hate to pick on Tom so much, because he really doesn't seem like a bad person. It's just that I am concerned for the next generation of speedskaters, and I feel that something needs to be said and done about the National Team coaching situation.
Though I hate to pick on Tom, I don't understand why he keeps coming back for more abuse! Personally, if I had failed at something as miserably as Tom has failed at coaching the American Allrounders, I would want to crawl into a hole and die. In fact, I'm shocked that Tom even wanted his job back this year! During the Olympics, someone I know got a phone call from Tom, during which he said he just wanted it all to be over and just wanted to go home.
I did not wish poor performances on any of the American skaters, but when Tom's whole training group started to underperform in Torino, I wanted him, as their coach, to feel every twinge of unpleasantness when his skaters failed to meet expectations. I wanted him to face the media's tough questions. And, most of all, by the time all of the results had come in, I was certain that there was no way USSPEEDSKATING would have him back. I was wrong.
In light of the re-hiring of Tom Cushman as Allround coach, I see that USSPEEDSKATING still does not understand the full extent of the harm this coach's performance has done to the federation's goals, individual athletes' careers, team unity, and potential sponsorship. So, even though a lot of what I'm going to say today is a re-hashing of things I have already discussed, I'm going to say it all again. Even though I often feel like I'm beating my own head against a wall, I'm going to say it again. I'm going to try to present this to you in terms that, I hope, are both very simple and very harsh.
When I decided to train with Cushman's Allround group in 2003-04, it was mainly for the free training, other benefits, and the fact that no matter how the coaching was, I'd have fast training partners. Our team was told that we'd have a group of scientific advisors looking over our training data to make sure we weren't getting overtrained. Still, 4 out of the 8 skaters on Tom's team "fell off the edge," got overtrained, and severely underperformed. I was one of those.
Now, this part is very important, because it has to do with something that was discussed at this year's Sports Science and Medicine committee meeting: Some skaters brought up the point that the USS coaches might not be too good at watching the skaters' training data and applying it to the training programs. Then, the counter-attack was made by the coaches, saying that it's up to the skaters to communicate with the coaches better, about how they feel in training. What I never remembered to say at this point was that after the year where half of Tom's team got overtrained, we were not told that we should have communicated better. No, we were told that THE COACHES AND SCIENTISTS COULD SEE THAT WE WERE GETTING OVERTRAINED, BUT THE DECISION WAS MADE TO CONTINUE TO PUSH US, IN THE INTEREST OF COLLECTING DATA FOR THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE GENERATIONS OF SKATERS.
When I told this story on The Protocol, I wrote that not only did I belive it was unethical for a coach to convince a group of National Team athletes that he was trying to help them skate faster, and then to use them in some sort of "overtraining experiment," I also wrote that I DID NOT BELIEVE TOM CUSHMAN HAD THE KNOWLEDGE OR EXPERIENCE THAT WOULD ALLOW HIM TO APPLY ANYTHING HE HAS LEARNED FROM SUCH EXPERIMENTS FOR THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE NATIONAL TEAM SKATERS.
How right or wrong was I?
Well, take a look at how Tom did last season. He was handed a couple of very talented junior skaters. One of them had gone under 1:50 in the 1500 the previous year and was looking to be a serious contender for the 2006 Olympic Team, if he continued in his rate of improvement. One year later, this kid is crawling across the finish line, WAAAAAAAAAAAY off his personal best, like so many skaters who have passed through Cushman's hands.
It's like another point that Catherine Raney made at the Sports Science and Medicine committee meeting -- that younger skaters aren't familiar enough with how hard to push their own bodies, and need more guidance from a coach. Has Tom learned anything from his "overtraining experiments?" Does he even know how to look at a skater in training, and tell when that person has had enough? Can he be trusted to monitor the progress of a talented, up-and-coming neo-senior? It sure doesn't look like it.
Next, take a look at the Olympic Games. Not only were Tom's long distance skaters underperforming relative to themselves, they were also, without exception, beaten out by American skaters from alternative training programs.
Probably the saddest story of all is that of 2005 Sprint Champion Jen Rodriguez. I'll never forget the voice of the announcer before she lined up for one of her races, saying that she HAD PUSHED TOO HARD IN TRAINING DURING THE FALL AND HER LEGS HAD NOT HAD A CHANCE TO RECOVER.
Mistakes happen in every line of work. Some are worse than others. It's possible to learn from one's mistakes, but one must be held accountable for failure, especially if it involves messing up the efforts of human beings who are sacrificing everything to achieve a goal.
If my work in the lab went like Tom's coaching, it would be like this: I'd come in and take a picture of the DNA fragment I was trying to make, it would come out blank, and I'd realize that I had forgotten to add the enzyme to the reaction. I'd paste the picture into my lab notebook and record what happened. Then, I'd come in the next day and do it again. A year later, I'd have 365 pages in my notebook of blank pictures with a note saying, "Oops! I forgot to add the enzyme!" But amazingly, somehow I'd still have my job. It blows your mind, if you think about it that way. It's just not the way the real world works. It's not the way anything should work!!!
Doesn't USSPEEDSKATING realize that when they hire a coach nobody wants to train with, then nobody will want to be a sponsor of USSPEEDSKATING? This is a real problem. This is not just "some disgruntled failure" talking about a coach with whom she had the worst season of her life. I'm not alone! In fact, YOUR TOP ALLROUND SKATERS DO NOT WANT TO TRAIN WITH THIS COACH! Shani Davis and Catherine Raney train in Calgary. Chad Hedrick has been training with Bart Schouten. I really believe that the root of most of your battles with athletes over sponsorship and unequal treatment BEGINS with the fact that YOUR ALLROUND NATIONAL TEAM PROGRAM REPELS THEM!!!
Now here's another problem I need to mention. There was an anonymous "Coach Evaluation" sent around to all the skaters, by one former skater who wanted all the others to know what he thought of the US coaches. In response to this skater's criticism of Tom Cushman, another of Tom's skaters came to Tom's defense, saying that Tom was put in the unfortunate position of having to work with skaters he didn't feel he could work with.
I'm sorry, but it is the responsibility of a National Team coach to be able to work with skaters of all different types of personalities. The person who is National Team coach is handed the fastest skaters in the nation, and there is no guarantee that they will all have personalities that are compatible with the coach's. But if the coach is unable to work with a variety of people, then that is not something for the coach to whine and complain about. THAT IS THE COACH'S PROFESSIONAL DEFECT, and should be dealt with accordingly.
Have you had enough yet, or should I go on? I guess the last thing I want to say is that USSPEEDSKATING has a responsibility to this country to serve THE FASTEST ATHLETES and to help them perform at their best. Unless I've missed something in USSPEEDSKATING's mission statement, it is not their mission "To Provide a Job for Tom Cushman, No Matter How Badly He Screws Up."
Recently, I communicated with someone involved in marketing for USS, who said that his only concern was to sell USSPEEDSKATING by making it look good from the outside -- not to know what goes on internally. But I'd say that keeping Tom Cushman as National Allround coach is a decision that does a lot of damage, not only to the athletes' and federation's performance goals, but also to the image of USSPEEDSKATING and to its potential for seeking sponsorship.
posted by Eva at 8:07 PM
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