Program destroyed

The other shoe has finally dropped for the beleaguered Carlmont long-distance running team. First, Ben Heck, who won the Peninsula Athletic League championship and finished second at Central Coast Section, quit the cross country team before the state championship race and did not go out for the track team Now, Jessie Petersen, a cross country standout in her own right and two-time defending CCS 3,200-meter champion, departed the track squad. All over the heavy-handed and unbending way they -- and the other long distance runners -- have been treated by a new coaching staff and the school administration which apparently supports it. It appears all those runners who trained under former coach Jeff Gilkey -- who was fired late in the 2008 cross country season -- are being systematically eliminated from the squad, either through ridiculous contract requests or what is deemed sub-par coaching. I understand the firing of Gilkey. What he did -- entering a runner under the name of another -- was wrong. He deserved to be fired. While he may no longer coach the Carlmont school team, a number of Carlmont runners continue to train with Gilkey for his club running team. The Carlmont administration and coaching staff don't like that, so they tried to foist on the runners a contract which forbids them any kind of outside training or advice. Doing so would result in being kicked off the team. It appears the coaching staff -- and by extension, the school administration -- has a vendetta against Gilkey and are taking it out on the kids who just want to run and train to be the best they can be. How refreshing. In a day and age when many student-athletes are looking for ways to jake it during practice, here is a group that wants to work harder and they are being denied, in the name of keeping them from hurting themselves. There have been rumblings over the years the Carlmont runners put on too much mileage in high school and they have nothing left and break down in college. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but is it possible, in this vast country of ours, that there are cross country and track runners who are far and away better than the kids coming out of Carlmont? Hard to fault those kids for quitting considering how they are being treated by the coaching staff and school administration. I've seen coaches fired for far less after complaints from parents, but here is a case in which parents -- and the athletes -- have complained loud and long, and those complaints are falling on deaf ears. The message coming from the Carlmont administration and coaches are: If you don't like it, leave. Which the runners are doing. In droves. Petersen told Daily Journal uber-reporter Emanuel Lee nearly two dozen boys and girls have quit the track team -- or refused to even go out for the squad. I know of one athlete who is playing another spring sport because of all the turmoil surrounding the track team. That's a healthy environment. Petersen said the last straw for her was the coaching staff not allowing her to train the way she normally does. She wants to put in more work and be the best she can be. She had her sights set on a state title. She was denied. She was told she is allowed to run only a certain amount of miles a week. She didn't agree with that training regime so she quit. There was also the fact Petersen said she was asked to do a workout that sprinters use. Anyone who knows anything about running track should know that workouts for sprinters and long-distance runners are vastly different. One is all about building explosive power, the other to build stamina and endurance. I understand the feelings many have regarding this issue that the coach is the coach and what he or she says, goes. But what if that coach is wrong? What if they are not qualified to know what the best training regime is? What if they can't do their job, should they be allowed to continue coaching? I'm not saying any of this is happening in this case. I don't know all the facts, but I do know that coaches and athletes are at their wit's end. Given the uproar from parents, is it at all possible something is wrong? It's too bad because Carlmont had developed into one of the premiere cross country and long-distance programs in the state. Carlmont is taking its once-proud long-distance running program and running it into the ground. Nathan Mollat can be reached by e-mail: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 117.