Tom Forster resigns

[Doug1233]

Touché!!!

 

[JaJa]

Amy would be great I think. Or maybe Brian Carey. Those 2 get my vote.

 

[JaJa]

He may not have been a superstar in that role, but at the very least he wasn’t a completely abusive jerk.

He wasn’t completely abusive true. But he was an overall jerk. Resigning was the first thing he did which actually showed some good judgment.

 

[Hatsumomo]

What are they going to do when they inevitably run out of people willing to take this job?

 

[makam]

Blockquote
What are they going to do when they inevitably run out of people willing to take this job?

Hire some unqualified, per usual.

(you can always find someone willing to sacrifice their dignity/morals for the sake of ambition. Look at all the people who fell all over themselves to work for a “boss” (to keep it a bit neutral) who had a long documented history of throwing subordinates under whatever bus was available whenever it suited him. And while they might have tanked some future employment opportunities (there being a limit to how many talking heads certain newz networks can hire), well, they had their moment in the sun.)

 

[Starsky]

What are they going to do when they inevitably run out of people willing to take this job?

Frankly, I’m willing to entertain the position is no longer needed and the program can basically be managed through the IEC sans the HPD.

 

[ucrgirl]

(you can always find someone willing to sacrifice their dignity/morals for the sake of ambition. Look at all the people who fell all over themselves to work for a “boss” (to keep it a bit neutral) who had a long documented history of throwing subordinates under whatever bus was available whenever it suited him. And while they might have tanked some future employment opportunities (there being a limit to how many talking heads certain newz networks can hire), well, they had their moment in the sun.)

I think I know who you are hinting at but what is scary to me is that I had about five people in very different spheres pop into my head. There are many, many people who will sacrifice dignity/morals for the sake of ambition (or gold medals).

TSL had a great satirical discussion about the coaches USAG should consider picking to replace Tom.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

He may not have been a superstar in that role, but at the very least he wasn’t a completely abusive jerk. I mean, as a parent, I didn’t get creep vibes from him or feel as if the women and children were not physically safe around him. Which is about 1000% better it was before.

I didn’t get creepy vibes as in predator, and he doesn’t appear to have done anything in the role that would warrant a prison sentence, so I suppose we have to credit him for that. But it was all quite unhealthy as an environment wasn’t it?

Knowing your Olympic chances were in the hands of someone who didn’t actually understand the code or process and also didn’t appear to think he ought to learn. It’s sort of… devaluing. I can imagine it must have been quite exhausting. Obviously having to deal with the realisation that unresolved 25 year old disappointment was potentially going to be a bigger deal than anything you actually did isn’t in the same league as other things USAG have done, but I also see why coming out of that, athletes might feel very bitter and angry, have their mental state impacted. So I do think it was still pretty toxic, but toxic in the way that one might experience in normal organisations rather than toxic like glorified paedo rings.

And singling out Gabby in that interview did give me the heebie jeebies, tbh. It’s one thing to still be unable to get past Atlanta, but the fact that he picked her as the problem over Kocian, who finished lower in the AA, that was pretty fucking suspect. I’d like to hope it wasn’t racism, but other explanations are not immediately obvious.

 

[irichluck21]

He also obviously played favorites. It was kind of discreet but other athletes picked up on it. Namely Shilese Jones.
It was clear he favored Skinner and McCallum as well.

Athletes voiced displeasure in not knowing what they needed to do to make the team for Tokyo. He originally said the highest scoring team, which by default was always going to have Skinner on it due to her advantage on that event compared to the DTY (6.0 vs 5.4) and since Carey was not going to be vaulting for the team, her Cheng score was 90% of the time going to make up the highest scoring team.

I think one mistake was visiting gyms and working with some athletes but not all NT athletes. It just comes across as favoritism especially when its shown on social media.

 

[Stoutness]

From a PR standpoint, it was always a bad move to put a man in charge of an organization navigating a sex abuse scandal. He was predictably disconnected.

 

[irichluck21]

From a PR standpoint, it was always a bad move to put a man in charge of an organization navigating a sex abuse scandal. He was predictably disconnected.

Which is why I didn’t understand him doing interviews, etc. Annie Heffernan WAG VP should have been doing all of those.
I do hope whoever gets hired is specifically coaching/technical aspects.
Leave the social media and interviews to those trained in it.

 

[irichluck21]

Additionally, I hope that whomever comes in next has the cojones to stand up to USAG to ensure that correct judging occurs at national level events.
Execution scores need to be given like we will see at Worlds or Olympics. I doesn’t make sense to select teams on “rank order” if the ranking is based on scores that are not reality. Skinner’s 7.133 execution on beam should not have been a surprise in Tokyo.

 

[Doug1233]

This is exactly right. The fact that Grace bombed prelims and still almost beat Skinner showed that Tom (rightly) knew not to trust the USAG scoring.

Garbage in, garbage out. I’m sure Perskaia said “take Grace”.

 

[rlayt]

I think I’m in agreement about needs to be done The job doesn’t need to be defined as it has been defined in the past. They need to hire someone who knows the code, can give technical advice to coaches and gymnasts, and can oversee the judging.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Yes, everything flows from this. If, as seems likely, there’s going to be more emphasis put on scores and less discretion, then they have to be more reliable. I’d hope the US will also compete internationally a bit more now, so ideally we wouldn’t see a situation arise again where for some gymnasts the domestic numbers are the only data point. But nothing’s going to be fixed if US Nationals scoring continues to be nonsense.

And fwiw I don’t think Skinner was the major issue there. Her 14 on beam was merely the funniest example.

 

[dweiss324]

I’ve been taking this news in and reading all the comments/feedback.

I still would say I’m surprised. Not that it didn’t need to happen, but I’m surprised it did. I can’t believe it’s been 3.5 years with him in the role, it feels like a year or two tops. I literally didn’t believe Spencer when he said 3.5 years, I had to verify it with a search.

I think I’m mostly surprised because, what the hell is the actual plan??? Like, I agree with everyone’s comments about what could/should be done with the position, but there’s no way this gets resolved easily. No way.

Add me to the camp that DID get creepy vibes from him, just in how blatantly oblivious he remained, and his use of social media. Yikes.

 

[RedBirdie]

This is exactly right. The fact that Grace bombed prelims and still almost beat Skinner showed that Tom (rightly) knew not to trust the USAG scoring.

Garbage in, garbage out. I’m sure Perskaia said “take Grace”.

Some of the favoritism of certain gymnasts was certainly coming from Perskaia and not Tom. And while I maintain that McCallum was absolutely the right choice for Tokyo over anyone else, yes, Perskaia really liked her and we saw that play out from the moment she turned senior and got selected for Pac Rims. If there was a coin-toss decision between McCallum and another athlete, it always came up McCallum.

 

[RedBirdie]

Just for shits and giggles, I had done some e-score comparisons of the US olympic team, domestic scoring vs. Tokyo. Went and pulled it and discovered just how awful Skinner’s execution was received in Tokyo:

Across 5 routines, counting no falls, Skinner averaged an execution score of 8.110. Chiles, with 8 routines and 3 major errors, wasn’t that far behind with a 7.758 average.

(Jordan did only fall once on beam in qualification, right? Frustratingly hard to find videos)

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Twice.

 

[RedBirdie]

Okay, FOUR major errors and still wasn’t that far off Skinner’s average execution. Ouch.