LIKE IT IS : Coach deserves Texas-sized blame for Games
Posted on Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Considering what happened before the Olympics, maybe it shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was still disappointing.
The U. S. track and field team, usually a dominating force during the Olympics, had more mental mistakes than a 24-hour cab driver in New York.
The hard-core truth, bottom line, is it should have and could have done better.
The day Bubba Thornton, the University of Texas and Olympic head coach, called John McDonnell and cited a neverused rule about U. S. coaches not coaching foreign athletes might be the day the track team headed to hades in a handbasket.
McDonnell, who had been coaching foreign athletes who previously competed at Arkansas or who at the time were competing for the Razorbacks, was forced to resign from the U. S. staff.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that if McDonnell had been there batons wouldn’t have been dropped and runners wouldn’t have stepped out of their lanes, but we darn sure know that without him, those things happened.
No one, absolutely no one, was more disappointed in the performance of the track team than McDonnell, but he wouldn’t say spit with a mouthful of it.
He’s a class act.
Thornton got exactly what he wanted: McDonnell did not get any credit for the track team; but now, he doesn’t have to share the blame.
That falls squarely on the Longhorn.
Thornton didn’t want to take a chance on sharing any of the highs with his nemesis, McDonnell, who happens to be about the best track coach in the entire world, so now Thornton gets the lows all to himself.
McDonnell coached his final track meet for the University of Arkansas at the NCAA Outdoor in June, but until the day he got that call from Thornton, he was excited about being part of the Olympic coaching team.
The Olympic Games are a pinnacle for track and field, and McDonnell deserved to be part of it. If Thornton was worried there would be some kind of farewell, goodwill, unofficial ceremony for McDonnell in China, then the tea-sipper should be ashamed of himself. In fact, Thornton owes McDonnell, the U. S. Olympic Committee and the United States an apology. Under Thornton’s guidance, the U. S. track performances were not up to par.
Everyone knows the Olympic Games have become political, but Thornton forcing McDonnell from the coaching team weeks before they were to report was worse. It was just poor sportsmanship. If USA Track and Field, the Olympic committee and anyone else involved with representing this great country in the world’s greatest track meet have any guts, John McDonnell will be named the head coach for the 2012 Olympics. And they’ll ask Thornton to stay home.
That said, McDonnell will never campaign for the job, and some will claim that because he’s Irish by birth, he shouldn’t be coaching the U. S. team.
McDonnell might have his Irish brogue, but he’s an American icon when it comes to coaching track.
In fact, he’s a simple cattle rancher now, and it doesn’t get any more American than that.
McDonnell is the most respected man in the world when it comes to track, and the U. S. could have had him there coaching, encouraging and teaching its athletes, but because of what appears to be petty jealousy, McDonnell watched and suffered from home.
Yes, absolutely yes, if an athlete from another country had asked him something about technique, he would have helped, but not at the risk of costing his adopted homeland the gold medal.
McDonnell could live anywhere in the world — and he would be a treasure to most countries — but he picked the USA over all others.
The man who does not have one trophy in his home because he believes the athletes earn the hardware, not the coaches, is a track and field institution.
Again, maybe if he were there, the mental mistakes still would have happened. But those who know him doubt it.
Besides, without him, the world knows what happened.
The U. S. track team was a disappointment thanks in part to the head coach, Bubba Thornton, and it started the day he told John McDonnell he wasn’t needed.
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