I have no connection to the coach, or Stanford, or any of the individuals involved. You can thus count my opinion as unbiased or uninformed.
The article in the Stanford Daily and the comments afterward were very interesting. It seems that no one is arguing about the poor judgement about the deleting of the record times. But everyone is scrambling to either buff up or rationalize the motivation behind this action.
It seems to me that this is a situation where some have become too enamored with a fabled coach. His record speaks for itself- successful motivator, successful competitor, successful communicator. You'd have to ask what price his success has come at. The claims that he was always motivated for the benefit of the team and to no one individual to me seems disingenious. He was the team. His swimmers were the ones who made that sacrifice. It seems that Michael Maclean had certainly sacrificied for the team in acheiving his times in the 500 and throughout his first three years at Stanford.
Yet when Maclean made a decision that his personal goals outside of swimming countered team workouts, he was made a pariah. It strikes me as sad when one is castigated for any chinks in the armor of total dedication to the sport, even after 3 full seasons and much acheivment.
I have no connection to the coach, or Stanford, or any of the individuals involved. You can thus count my opinion as unbiased or uninformed.
The article in the Stanford Daily and the comments afterward were very interesting. It seems that no one is arguing about the poor judgement about the deleting of the record times. But everyone is scrambling to either buff up or rationalize the motivation behind this action.
It seems to me that this is a situation where some have become too enamored with a fabled coach. His record speaks for itself- successful motivator, successful competitor, successful communicator. You'd have to ask what price his success has come at. The claims that he was always motivated for the benefit of the team and to no one individual to me seems disingenious. He was the team. His swimmers were the ones who made that sacrifice. It seems that Michael Maclean had certainly sacrificied for the team in acheiving his times in the 500 and throughout his first three years at Stanford.
Yet when Maclean made a decision that his personal goals outside of swimming countered team workouts, he was made a pariah. It strikes me as sad when one is castigated for any chinks in the armor of total dedication to the sport, even after 3 full seasons and much acheivment.
