NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

[sprintdoc]

Any athlete with eligibility remaining unless the coach is an official national team coach. Seems a few SEC compliance officers have at last minute told their coaches not to coach in any way! Hearing punishments will be severe to tose who do not abide by rule. This isn't just track and I'm left wondering WHY? the rule exists and why it's just now being an issue. I've spoken to several coaches in London who had colleges fund thir travel just to coach such athletes! Those cases apparently going to result in more severe punishment.

Typical NCAA bs but only the athlete loses out!

[gh]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

I must say, I'm shocked at the lack of commentary on this one... where do collegiate fans go in the summer?

[polevaultpower]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

I must say, I'm shocked at the lack of commentary on this one... where do collegiate fans go in the summer?

Probably because it doesn't surprise anyone?

Sounds really stupid to me. I guess the rationale would be that smaller colleges can't afford for their coaches to make the trip, and it could be used in recruiting somehow.

[18.99s]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

Isn't this restriction just a part of the broader rule that prohibits coaching during the period from the end of the college season until some sport-specific date in the fall or late summer? It's not as if they're singling out Olympic collegians for this exclusion. The restriction applies to all NCAA athletes, Olympians or not.

[Randy Treadway]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

Coach K gets a waiver. The NCAA knows better than to bite the hand that feeds them.
I assume there's no problem with a college coach coaching a post-collegiate athlete at the Olympics.

There IS a problem with the university paying the air fare, hotel, etc.

Hmmm... okay I'm guessing this has to do with out-of-season workouts, which team sport coaches have abused in the past. To extend it to Olympic sports- particularly ones like track where everybody KNOWS we're actually in the MIDDLE of the international season, not outside the silly American college season, is dumb. And there's not anything mandatory about a workout anyway... although coaches have abused THAT in other sports too, with a wink and a nod.

Here's a quirk. I'll bet it would be okay for the Florida coach to coach a Florida State athlete at the Olympics, a USC coach to coach a UCLA athlete at the Olympics, and so on. As long as no money changes hands, and it's not their "own" recruited athlete. And as long as the universities don't reimburse the coaches for any costs.

What they want to do on their "summer vacation" should be their own business.

The rest of the world has plenty of reason to laugh at the U.S.

[Daisy]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

The rest of the world has plenty of reason to laugh at the U.S.

Or just feel sorry for you having the NCAA in charge. They remind me of the old rugby union and cricket boards that used to enforce amateurism.

[Randy Treadway]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

I've noted the last few weeks how many university sports information directors have sent out press releases bragging on how many athletes "they" are sending to the Olympics. Many of those press releases were duly carried on the T&FN home page.
I guess the NCAA thinks it's okay to take credit for something where the coaching ended two months earlier by their own definition.

Since college athletes are not allowed to PAY anybody to coach them, and national coaching doesn't begin until after they qualify for the team at the Trials meet... just what are athletes supposed to do in the meantime to get coaching help? Write Dear Abby and ask for advice?

Yep Daisy, it's Avery Brundage all over again. The old fart will just never go away.

[Blues]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

This was quoted from the original LetsRun article:

"We've received an update from a collegiate coach who was trying to coach in the Olympics. He writes: "I am now told if a letter says you are working with the ngb that comes specifically from the ngb, that will suffice and that's how Arizona is getting around it."

To confirm the part about Arizona, our local Tucson newspaper stated in a recent story that high jumper Brigetta Barrett was leaving for London on July 24th, and that her coach, Arizona jumps coach Sheldon Blockburger, would be joining her in London on the 29th.. I wonder how difficult it is to get the aforementioned letter from the national governing body, and what a coach has to commit to in order to obtain it...

[Randy Treadway]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

A heck of a lot of college coaches have athletes competing at the Olympics for other countries- particularly Caribbean islands.
Maybe it's easy to get an NGB letter from one of those federations.

[polevaultpower]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

Isn't this restriction just a part of the broader rule that prohibits coaching during the period from the end of the college season until some sport-specific date in the fall or late summer? It's not as if they're singling out Olympic collegians for this exclusion. The restriction applies to all NCAA athletes, Olympians or not.

I don't think that is a rule? All of the college coaches coach at USAs and the Olympic Trials...

[NormZylstra]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

Was it legal for the NCAA coaches to coach their collegiates at the various Olympic Trials?

[Tuariki]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

Not so long ago (well maybe it was closer to "once upon a time") I was a lucky and privileged beneficiary of an American athletic scholarship. I was also a foreigner. My education and sporting opportunities were paid for by Americans.

While I remain of the opinion that the NCAA is still operated along the outdated and discredited principles of Brundage-ism I am not so sure that it is right for NCAA coaches to be funded and/or sponsored to London to be providing support for those same athletes at the Olympics when they are there representing their own countries and dedicated to beating Americans; and when their funding is from the American public and the American taxpayer.

I don't see China, Russia, Germany and Great Britain, for example, funding their coaches to go to London to coach American athletes.

And while I am on the subject of the NCAA I think the punishment meted out to Penn State was wrong and in fact outrageously wrong. To take away the wins earned by those players, not one of whom did anything wrong, is just immoral. I guess a parallel would be say punishing all USA TnF athletes who won medals at the Olympics or WCs from 1987 to whenever it was discovered that US TnF authorities had covered up the positive drug tests of certain athletes in 19897/1988.

[jazzcyclist]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

While I remain of the opinion that the NCAA is still operated along the outdated and discredited principles of Brundage-ism I am not so sure that it is right for NCAA coaches to be funded and/or sponsored to London to be providing support for those same athletes at the Olympics when they are there representing their own countries and dedicated to beating Americans; and when their funding is from the American public and the American taxpayer.

I don't see China, Russia, Germany and Great Britain, for example, funding their coaches to go to London to coach American athletes.

I don't think schools see it this is way. For example, don't you that the University of Alabama would take some pride and derive some PR benefit if Harvey Glance was able to coach Kirani James to an Olympic gold medal?

[Conor Dary]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

And while I am on the subject of the NCAA I think the punishment meted out to Penn State was wrong and in fact outrageously wrong. To take away the wins earned by those players, not one of whom did anything wrong, is just immoral. I guess a parallel would be say punishing all USA TnF athletes who won medals at the Olympics or WCs from 1987 to whenever it was discovered that US TnF authorities had covered up the positive drug tests of certain athletes in 19897/1988.

That is a silly analogy. We are talking about a TEAM sport.

Frankly, I think Penn State got off easy. But that is for that other thread.

[polevaultpower]

Re: NCAA says no college coaches can coach at Olympics

Was it legal for the NCAA coaches to coach their collegiates at the various Olympic Trials?

The coaches I know follow the rules. There's no way they would all be at the Trials, credentialed, coaching their athletes if it was illegal.