Lashawn Merritt training

martn76 · October 27, 2009, 7:15am

There needs to be a perspective here on Miller’s background. He is an age-group coach. Amongst this group there is often an attitude that hard work, often extremely hard work, at early ages is the be all and end all. The fallout from age-group track is frightening. Talented athletes destroyed by greedy, uneducated coaches. The atmosphere in age-group track is toxic with incredible pressure and expectations on some very young (below age 10) kids. In the higher ages it’s all about the scholarship and how much you can get. There is no other standard and VERY few of the athletes who have been in this system for more than a season or two compete well or even at all after age 18. Paging Obea Moore…

The question is how many has Miller developed and how many has he destroyed. By reputation he has produced a number of good athletes, but I have never seen a list. While I do not agree with his methodology, it isn’t nearly has bad as some of the training that i have observed.

Merritt is an extraordinary talent. As long as a coach doesn’t do anything stupid, he will improve. He’s also very driven and likely thrives off of hard training. Miller’s system is a good fit.

At some point the improvement curves flattens. Maybe Merritt would be better with another coach, but this is the one who got him there and who he believes in. That’s enough for me and obviously for him.

LOL what you describe sounds like your typical British coach…