Coaches whatta situation!!!

[iwannacoach]

Some months ago a friend who's dd was just moving up to L8 when he found out he'd have to relocate to follow his corporate career. I kept in touch with him and discovered that they did a gym search in their future home town, and had "narrowed their search to 3 choices.

Being the helpfull type, I checked each club to see if any they'd picked were all "show" and no "go", and to see if any of them were near an old friend's gym. What I found was that two of the gyms were claiming to have level 10 capability, and checking them out at MyMeetScores at least proved that to be the case as the both had a history of a handfull of 10's with 36.00 or better AA.

The third gym also had a history of level 10's, and to "sweeten the pot" so to speak, the H/C had a bio that listed past accomplishments in the sport, including having trained a girl by the name of ****** and help her make it onto the National team.

Something about the dates and age didn't agree with my sense of logistics, so I looked up the "National" team member at USAG. Those records go back as far as 1983, well beyond the date this coach started training athletes, but the name I was looking for wasn't on any of the lists for juniors, seniors, or any of the JO "national" teams.

My friend's dd ended up at one of the other two gyms, so any immediate concerns over this coach's credentials found there way to the back burner, but I just can't get over the notion that somebody would "gloss up" their credentials to the extent of blatantly lying.....and it ticks me off.

I did nothing at the time since my friend's dd was not affected by this coach, and because I'm not 1000% sure USAG keeps their records completely in order.

Just wondering....what would some of you coaches do.........and how does anybody else feel about this situation

 

[Deleted member D3987]

pm me the name and i'll let you know if the coach is a poser or not.

 

[flipflopcrystal]

maybe they're just playing "six degrees of separation with kevin bacon" or in this case.... "i coached with a coach who knows a coach that coached nastia liukin. therefore i am an elite coach"

 

[iwannacoach]

I once watched Steve Nunno coaching and overheard every word between him and Shannon Miller..........

 

[Deleted member D3987]

well then...i once picked up the wire brush and handed it up to Nastia while up on the podium...

 

[iwannacoach]

^^^^^I give up!!! You're always one step ahead of me....or is that a lap, and a step?^^^^^ Maybe you can't top this one....I used to host an invitational four years running that included 4, yup countem, 4 girls who went on to become olympians, for which I take all the credit!! Just in case you don't speak "Iconese", those two together stand for Too cool, you know, 'cuz there's two of them........

 

[Deleted member D3987]

you got me there.^^^

 

[chalkbowl]

We had a former coach at our gym who claimed to be all that and a bag of chips. Made the National Team, trained for the Olympics, had coached elites. Through some digging NONE of it was true and I doubt he was much more then a recreational student at one point! We contacted USAG to see if there was anything that could be done about the situation to make sure that other clubs wouldn't be blind sided by this person, but last I heard he still has a USAG # and is coaching. So yes, it does happen!

 

[iwannacoach]

I seems as though my "team" of consultants, advisors, and gym club industry leaders have looked into this matter with the utmost discretion and found it to be a situation of putting a glorious spin on a "nearly there" case of a coach who had more than a casual conversation with a Junior Team member. The coach in question worked with this kid for a period of time after she'd made the Nation team.

The program headed up by this coach seems to be doing well, and has had a number of L10 success stories......But still a case for invoking a "minor" poser alert. My advice is to look further than skin deep when asking for credentials, you'll usually find the claims made in a resume' to be accurate, but there's always that one itty bitty exception.......

Ok, now back to having fun with those we do know of who've "stretched" their bios to the point they could hide every CGM in the world behind their "veil of spin"........