Who the True Heroes Are -- The Nike Oregon Project Debacle

Everyone is entitled to their hero.

I think striving to be like our heroes is one of the reasons I love doing what I do; coaching young people, leading an athletic department. Young people love heroes -- especially sports heroes. Young people want to believe that there is something in them that can overcome impossible odds just like their heroes do on the playing fields, courts, and tracks.

But it just seems tougher today to figure out who the true heroes are.

In 2012, I was in the London Olympic Stadium, and I witnessed my hero at the time do something absolutely incredible.

Galen Rupp won the silver medal for the USA at 10,000m. Here is a link to the last 200m of that race. Galen Rupp's Last 200m 10,000m London Olympic Games.

The whole night was one of the most exciting experiences of my life, and I have the last 30 seconds of that race on video from my seats too. You can't see Rupp too well, but undoubtably you will get an idea how exciting this moment was for me. As an aside, I happen to love the outstretched hands in front of me in this video. There was such a sense of relief, joy, and exuberance in the crowd at that moment. When I am down in the dumps, I sometimes look at this 30 seconds of video to remind me how great human accomplishment and life is.



This chart below may clarify to the non-track nuts why Rupp's performance was incredible.  Here are the last 12 Olympics previous to London, and the place the best American man finished.

Beijing 2008 13^th

Athens 2004 12^th

Sydney 2000 10^th

Atlanta 1996 No one made the final

Barcelona 1992 10^th

Seoul 1988 18^th

Los Angeles 1984 15^th

Moscow 1980 boycott

Montreal 1976 13^th

Munich 1972 5^th

Mexico City 1968 11^th

Tokyo 1964 Gold Medal

Before the London Olympics not only had there been a 48 year medal drought for American men, but also the best American male finisher had been no higher than 10th in the 40 years before. Our low point was 1996 when no American had even qualified for the final.

We all want to believe when incredible things happen in sport that this is the victory of the human spirit. But with the publishing of a David Epstein Pro Publica article entitled Former Team Members Accuse Famed Coach of Breaking Drug Rules and a BBC Documentary Catch Me If You Can  Rupp's performance at London has been brought into question as more the victory of chemistry not human spirit.

The most serious accusations have to do with the unethical use of TUE's (Therapeutic Use Exemptions) and what is called Micro-dosing.

Athletes are allowed to use banned substances for prescribed medical purpose. If you have asthma or diabetes there are legitimate reasons why you can get a TUE. But when athletes seem to have a lot of TUE's or use the same doctors to get their TUE's, questions begin to arise. In 2013, the Wall Street Journal wrote about Dr. Jeffrey Brown a Houston physician many in the US track and field community use to get a TUE for thyroid conditions -- US Track's Unconventional Physician.

Micro-dosing is the very small use of banned substances -- rumored usually to be Testosterone -- in levels that will be undetected. The legal range in your blood levels for Testosterone is actually quite generous. The drug testers apparently do not want false positive tests, so they give athletes this large range. Levels of Testosterone in your blood also fluctuate a lot due to all sorts of variables -- hard training being one of them. With close monitoring of your blood levels, it seems to be possible to use Testosterone at micro levels to keep your blood levels legal, but gain some advantage by keeping it in the higher end of the legal range.

Thus athletic performance can clearly be manipulated not just by training methods, but by the quality of your scientists and their manipulation of various qualities like blood markers in athletes. Rupp's training group The Nike Oregon Project (NOP) and their leader Alberto Salazar had access to the best exercise scientists in the world. And the claims of the Pro Publica article are that TUE's and Micro-dosing were used in the NOP camp and likely affected the outcome of the 2012 London Olympic race.

Since the publishing of the Pro Publica piece it has been a week of debate about what is true and what is not.

Salazar apologists like Ken Goe, Tony Reavis and Amby Burfoot have written pieces reminding everyone that the charges are circumstantial and anecdotal. I don't think these journalists have done any favor to the sport. The Lance Armstrong affair revealed that the initial reports from inside the Armstrong camps were anecdotal and circumstantial. It is just too easy to beat the drug tests when you are well resourced. Armstrong's initial accusers were then bullied for years by Armstrong and his supporters because we all wanted to believe the unbelievable. Armstrong used these journalists. The reality is there have been rumors about the NOP for quite a while. One message board has referred to members of the team as "NOPers" -- playing on the words dopers -- for almost 10 years.

And there are many parallels between Armstrong and Salazar. They are both fighters who even their apologists recognize as people willing to do almost anything to win. In the most recent Goe piece, he sights a text he gets from Salazar paraphrasing a liturgical text:
"An evil report he shall not fear
His heart is firm trusting in the LORD
His heart is steadfast, he shall not hear
til he looks down upon his foes."

This is a fairly threatening text to those who came out and revealed what was going on in the Nike Oregon Project camp.

Here is the interesting part to me about the people who have come out.

They will never have a stadium full of people screaming their name like I screamed Rupps. In fact, they are currently having to defend their intentions and may even be second guessing why they came forward. What is always easier in these cases is keeping quiet. Especially when your intentions are initially read as attacking American heroes.

But Steve Magness, Kara and Adam Goucher and John Stiner did come forward publicly to say this is not right. Other un-named former Nike Oregon Project members have also come forward to US Anti-Doping.

Like in the Armstrong affair, we can all expect a backlash from those who support the Nike Oregon Project. It has already started with the articles and posts by Burfoot, Goe and Reavis. Although Magness, the Gouchers, and Stiner no longer work for Nike, the brand has significant power in the sport to make their professional lives difficult for years.

USA Track and Field has signed a deal with Nike as their major sponsor that will last through 2040. Eugene, Oregon, the home state of Goe, and the brithplace of Nike has become the mecca of the sport. Every NCAA championship will be there for the next 10 years. The Olympic Trails were there in 2008 and 2012 and will be there in 2016. Magness works for a University whose athletic department is sponsored by Nike. The history of being a whistleblower is not a good one and when you blow the whistle directly or indirectly against your sports most powerful business, there will be repercussions.

I am sure before Magness, the Gouchers and Stiner made these accusations they had done this math. They may have their own impossible odds to overcome in the next few years due to their principled stands. But despite these possible repercussions, they spoke out.

So who are the real heroes?

Every year in June, I gather with other coaches and one topic comes up all the time. Do you always stand on principle no matter the cost? The amazing thing is that we are not usually talking about things like TUE's and Micro-dosing. We are talking about the athlete, parent or colleague who in some way has challenged our principles. Usually the price for sticking to principles is quite small. So everyone says of course they would.

As I grow older, the people who are heroes to me are people who are willing to speak truth to power. Who are willing to suffer the consequences despite a message that others may not want to hear. I know I would be honored if my children had a coach like Steve Magness.

This past weekend American Pharaoh won the Triple Crown. A horse and jockey had not accomplished that in 37 years. When you see a performance like that, you want to believe that it was legendary like I did in London in 2012. For legendary performances to be truly legendary, they have to be based first and foremost on qualities of the human spirit that are not quantifiable like internal drive and determination.

Regardless of the evidence revealed this week being anecdotal or circumstantial, the principled stands Magness, the Gouchers and Stiner are truly heroic for the sport of track and field. They protect the principles of true accomplishment for us all. If athletic performances are ultimately going to be based on aspects of humanity we can quantify like blood levels, the mystery, the bravery, the boldness of legendary performances evaporates. You definitely won't see any outstretch hands in fan videos like the one I took -- and that reveals some problems for us all.