Other Side of the Breakup Story

Recently, Shalane Flanagan and Erin Donohue dropped their coach John Cook. It was public and not particularly nice. Flanagan said "Overall we didn't see eye to eye on many levels, personally and professionally", and I can only assume the story was in USA Today because she (or her husband) personally called Dick Patrick to get the story written.

Now Cook has talked about it as well. (Of all newspapers to pick up the story, it fell to the Washington Times, a right-wing rag owned by the leader of the Moonies.) Donohue says she took off because Cook told her she'd never break 4:00 (in the 1500m), and he pointedly blamed Flanagan's husband for her departure:"

[Edwards] has always had insidious intent to coach," Cook said. "I was warned by a North Carolina coach to keep an eye on him. Of course, it is hard to hide workouts when you are intimately involved with athletes. [Edwards] has made his job his wife — period. He even films [workouts]. I was too trusting and they had a plan - learn, copy, use all my training system and then take over.

You know, Yuriy Syedikh's coach once told a group of US coaches that "there are no secrets", and he coached behind the Iron Curtain. Cook has to be pretty damn arrogant to think he was the only man Flanagan and her husband could learn from. That's not enough for her to say tey never saw eye-to-eye, though.

Do you remember that 90s band, Extreme? They had an album titled "3 Sides to Every Story", which they said were yours, mine, and the truth. I suspect there's more to this and we'll never really know what it all is.