“Psychological warfare”: Over 14-year career, red volleyball coaches “operated on a platform of fear”

The Centerpiece May 2, 2017

Courtesy of Delaware Athletics Former head coach Bonnie Kenny (left) and associate head coach Cindy Gregory (right) instruct their team at the Bob Carpenter Center.

BY TEDDY GELMAN, MANAGING SPORTS EDITOR AND BRANDON HOLVECK , ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

Former Delaware volleyball players feared Wednesdays.

That’s when Bonnie Kenny, the former Delaware head coach, and Cindy Gregory, the former associate head coach, met with players for weekly meetings. “We’d talk about it like, ‘Good luck, I’m praying for you to come out of it alive,’” Mackenzie Olsen, who quit the team in 2013 after two seasons, said. “If you were with Cindy, you were going to come out of that meeting crying.”

Kenny and Gregory were fired on Oct. 16 following a week­long suspension mid­ season.

At the time of the firings, athletic director Chrissi Rawak and the Delaware athletic department did not comment on the situation. When approached by The Review in April, the department again declined to comment.

A seven­game losing streak preceded the suspension of the two coaches. Players, however, do not believe that this losing streak contributed to the suspension.

Olsen was one of 15 former players to share her experience playing under Kenny and Gregory with The Review. She was one of 34 players to leave the team for non­ graduation reasons during Kenny and Gregory’s tenure at Delaware.

“I think the more further removed I am from that whole situation, it’s a laugh or cry situation,” Olsen said. “You’re going to laugh or you’re going to say, ‘what the hell?’ Still to this day, I can’t believe that I would even let myself stay there for two years, because it was just wrong. As a professional, that’s not how things should ever go and I can’t believe that things were ignored like that.”

After speaking with former players, The Review attempted to contact Kenny and Gregory in April. According to former Delaware players, the two women are in an intimate relationship.

Messages to the home they shared in Elkton, Md., according to public state records, were not returned. The Review learned that this property was recently sold. The coaches’ cell phone numbers, provided by former players, were out of service. Messages delivered to their university email addresses were not returned. Inquiries for comment directed toward properties under Kenny’s name in Rehoboth Beach, Del., Belchertown, Mass. and Meridan, Conn. were not returned.

After their firings, Director of Operations Brian Toron and Assistant Dana Griskowitz served as the team’s interim coaches. Under their leadership, the team won 10 of their final 14 matches, reaching the CAA championship for the first time since 2012.

“I was very angry for a very long time at this program and everything that happened and the way that we were all treated,” a senior on this year’s team said. “I really wanted to do something about it, there was a lot that we were all very angry about. And then Dana and Brian stepped up and it opened my eyes to see that volleyball was just a game, it wasn’t my life anymore… I do think that Chrissi [Rawak], our new athletic director, is very invested in players, whereas past athletic directors were more interested in money and status and so on.”

Kenny and Gregory were hired in 2002 by longtime Delaware athletic director Edgar Johnson. They had previously coached together at the University of Massachusetts from 1995 to 2001.

When UMass cut their women’s volleyball program in 2002, UMass athletic director Bob Marcum, a friend of Johnson, recommended the coaches. They were also endorsed by former Delaware head coach Barbara Viera, who had led the team since 1973.

“I thought that one, they were good coaches and two, they were good people,” Johnson said. “I was stunned. I was surprised,” he said in reference to the firings.

“Lack of Commitment”

In another 2012 meeting, Gregory told freshman Liz Brock that Brock “had made the biggest mistake of her life.”

Brock had just broke up with her high school boyfriend. Gregory told Brock that she had a psychic dream: Brock was going to marry him. Brock was then instructed to call, apologize to her ex­ Courtesy of Delaware Athletics boyfriend and tell him that he needed to Associate head coach Cindy Gregory. drive 10 hours to Delaware to make up.

“I kept telling her ‘no,’” Brock said. “I ended up leaving her office crying that day. She [Gregory] would manipulate me to cry, like as a control thing, and then once I was crying, she’d want to make up.”

The same year, Kenny held “transparent meetings” –– an attempt to eliminate cliques on the team. In one meeting, Kenny ordered Brock to stand in the middle of the room while Kenny divided the team into groups.

“She made some kind of comment like, ‘Liz, why don’t you just go stand in the middle of the room by yourself because you don’t really fit in anywhere,’” Brock said. “She was ostracizing me to make me feel like I had no friends. So I’m looking around the room and there’s groups of four, five, two and then here I am, by myself, the only one in the room who didn’t have a group of friends. She literally would try to pull me apart from even my best friends and didn’t want me to have any personal life at Delaware whatsoever, trying to get me to leave.”

Kenny succeeded. Brock, who said she dealt with kidney stones, ovarian cysts and staph infections from the stress induced by her volleyball experience, quit the team in the spring of 2014.

Three years prior, freshman Alyssa Walton broke her wrist in an Aug. 27 match against Stanford. She wore a cast for two months. As she recovered, the coaches designed separate workouts for her as she could not participate in normal volleyball activities.

According to Walton, one day Gregory asked her to do a conditioning exercise, running 300 meters all­out. She said the team had not done this exercise since before preseason. In the locker room after practice, when Walton ran slower than instructed to, Kenny ordered her to meet with Gregory.

“Obviously I knew they were pissed at me, because she was acting mad about my time,” Walton said. “So I walk in and they sit me down and Cindy is yelling at me — she’s right next to me, really close to my face — and Bonnie is just in her head coach chair behind the desk, just watching this all happen. I’m being yelled at, and Cindy’s like, ‘You’re the most disappointment we’ve ever had in a scholarship athlete.’”

Walton went home for winter break and followed a team­issued program of weight and conditioning exercises. Working with her dad for the winter months, she “really committed” herself, knowing that she would be tested when she returned.

One of the first days she was back, the team participated in another running drill. Walton felt like she outperformed expectations.

“So everything was good, I felt great, whatever, and I didn’t have any inkling in my head that my coaches were mad at me,” Walton said.

When she returned to her dorm room after practice, Walton received an email from Kenny.

The subject line read “Lack of Commitment.” In the email, which was obtained by The Review, Kenny said “I cannot imagine your lack of strength and fitness being a DI player. You have so many clubs and beaches to play volleyball on and your choices to not play for over six weeks and not stay in shape and lift is not the type of student athlete we want in our program. Either make your mind up to be a DI s/a (on the court and in the classroom) or you need to go somewhere else.”

This was Walton’s breaking point. “I was so done feeling like, depressed. I have never had such a low point in my life, being there,” Walton said. “And I’m like, finally, I work my ass off over winter, my wrist was healed and then they say I didn’t work hard, that I didn’t look like I worked out a single day over winter break. Like, are you f—ing kidding me, this is a joke.”

Walton’s father put her on a plane back home to California the next day. She was done.

Two days after Walton left, Mackenzie Olsen joined the team after graduating high school a semester early.

While playing as the starting setter in fall 2012, Olsen said she was diagnosed with a concussion. She said she never received a baseline concussion test and believed she returned to play too soon, causing the symptoms to persist.

Olsen said the coaches doubted the validity of her injury and accused her of lying.

“I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t read, I ended up not being able to go to class,” Olsen said. “They thought I had a chemical imbalance in my brain, which, you’re not a doctor so you can’t say that about a kid.”

Olsen was the first of four players to leave the team in a four­month span.

Wednesday meetings

Lexie Duch was recruited in what turned out to be Kenny’s second­to­last recruiting class in 2015. After one season, she transferred to St. Cloud University in Minnesota.

“Whenever I was meeting with Bonnie and Cindy, it would make me nervous for days,” Duch said. “You walk into the STOCK/THE REVIEW Head coach Bonnie Kenny. room and I just felt like I was two inches tall.”

When she met with her new coach at St. Cloud, she was shaking, terrified.

“He asked why I was so nervous and I just said that every time I had to meet with my Delaware coach, it was always something bad,” Duch said. “I just feel like whenever I met with Coach Kenny or Cindy [Gregory]… that any opinion I had was irrelevant if it didn’t match theirs.” According to former players, these one­on­one Wednesday meetings, like those described by Duch, Brock and Olsen, stopped as the result of an NCAA investigation in 2014.

Details of the meetings had been relayed to Joe Shirley, Delaware’s senior associate athletic director for facilities, operations and capital projects. The athletic director at the time was Eric Ziady, who resigned Dec. 31, 2015.

Olsen left the team after finals in Dec. 2013. Kali Funk, a freshman on the team that season, approached Shirley after Olsen left.

“I just said, ‘listen Joe [Shirley], this is what has been going on, these are the facts. You’ve already lost one player, I know there’s a couple more, me included, that are talking about leaving after this spring. Unless things change we will walk away and you’re going to lose your starting lineup and your starting program,’” Funk said.

According to Brock and other players, Shirley then set up a phone call between the NCAA and Brock where she shared her experiences in the university’s program.

Brock and Funk said that as a result of a subsequent investigation by the NCAA, the athletic department barred any physical contact between players and coaches. The coaches were also not allowed to hold individual meetings with players.

That wasn’t enough for Funk –– she left in the spring of 2014. Brock left shortly after.

“I thought to myself, ‘I will not understand if they do not get fired,’ because what I told [the NCAA], I thought they would legally have to fire them from those accounts of what happened to me,” Brock said. “But they didn’t, so when they didn’t fire them at the end of sophomore year in that spring, I went to him [Shirley] and I told him ‘I told you, it was me or them. They’re still here, I would like to let you know that I’m quitting tomorrow,’” Brock said.

Shirley declined to comment on the matter. Ziady could not be reached for comment.

Katie Hank, a four­year player in the program from 2010­2013, never felt attacked by the coaches.

“The people that left, I don’t know, weren’t willing to work hard,” Hank said. “I feel like some of the people that left probably left because they felt like they were being attacked by Coach [Kenny] and Cindy [Gregory] but I don’t think Coach and Cindy ever, I don’t know, tried to attack them.”

According to another four­year member of the team, who wished to remain anonymous, the coaches chose an aggressive way to “weed out” those that did not buy into the program.

“I think that happens in other programs and it happens in professional sports,” she said. “They really have a high expectation for our team to be good on the court, and in the classroom, and if you weren’t 100 percent in with what Delaware volleyball was doing, they didn’t want you.”

“I’m going to fix it for you”

Before Ziady, Bernard Muir held the position of athletic director. Muir left Delaware for Stanford University on July 27, 2012. Samantha Huge, the deputy director of athletics and recreation services, served as interim athletic director from that point until Ziady took office a few months later. STOCK/THE REVIEW Soon after Huge began her tenure as interim athletic director, she met with Karina Evans and another player who wished to remain anonymous. Evans, who had knee surgery as a sophomore in 2011, battled through the injury the following season –– her knee was drained six times, but Kenny continued to play her.

“Samantha [Huge], we told her, we cried to her for months, told her everything that was going on,” Evans said. “She told us that she was a safe space, that we could go talk to her. We let her know everything they were saying to us, half of us were in therapy, we’d cry and tell her and she would say ‘I’m going to fix it for you.’”

Evans said Huge did not keep these concerns confidential, sharing them with Kenny and Gregory.

Huge, who began her tenure as athletic director of the College of William & Mary yesterday, declined to comment.

Evans intended to leave the team in the fall of 2012 after doctors voiced concerns for her long­term physical health. She expected to remain on scholarship the following year; the NCAA mandates that a school can only remove a scholarship from a player if that player “becomes ineligible,” “commits fraud,” engages in “misconduct” or “quits the team for personal reasons.”

Evans argued she quit due to an injury out of her control, but the coaches contended it was for personal reasons –– or as Evans put it, “they said I had a ‘psychotic breakdown.’”

To resolve the issue, a hearing was set up with Evans, the unnamed player, Huge, Kenny, Gregory and members of the athletic department.

“We were not supposed to have Bonnie and Cindy in our meeting, it was supposed to be a personal meeting between the board members and the AD where we plead our case and could bring witnesses and we had to draw up a whole case about why we deserved our scholarship,” Evans said. “We went up there and it wasn’t like that — it was like we were on trial.”

“We…had to defend our case as to why, and Bonnie and Cindy were asking us questions on the other side of the table, and we basically had to read our statement as to why we disliked them so much with them sitting in front of us,” Evans said.

Twenty­four hours later, Evans said she had to sign a paper saying she quit on her own volition.

Evans said the coaches used “psychological warfare,” in an attempt to break down the players. “They said nasty, horrible things.”

Routine discomfort

Jocelyn Greenwald was a member of Kenny’s first recruiting class at Delaware in 2003. She left after just one season with the team — one of four (of six) players in that class to do so.

“They said and did things that routinely made me and others uncomfortable, but you felt more uncomfortable expressing your discomfort,” Greenwald said.

Greenwald left the program after one STOCK/THE REVIEW season and transferred to Rutgers University, where she played three years and became captain.

“Now, in my early 30s, I realized that while I wouldn’t say they took away my full passion of the sport, I think a piece of my competitive spirit died under their administration,” Greenwald said.

Since the time of Greenwald’s departure, former players said they sent letters to Johnson, Muir and Ziady expressing their concerns with the program. Five months into her tenure as athletic director, Rawak pulled the plug for reasons still unknown.

“She did something that people were scared to do for a long time,” Evans said. “Bonnie and Cindy are some scary people.”

Rawak hired Sara Matthews as the new head coach of the program in January –– one of seven coaching changes that she will make in her first year.

Since their firings, Kenny and Gregory have not been seen or heard from publicly and have yet to be hired elsewhere.

“I think that there was just this theme of secrecy, and stemming from secrecy comes control, so they were able to really control every situation because nothing was talked out in the open,” an anonymous player said. “That just breeds fear. Right, so they kind of operated on a platform of fear with their team and that’s why they were able to control. I feared them, I really did, so that’s why they were able to control.”

Courtesy of Delaware Athletics

Please contact Teddy Gelman at [email protected] and Brandon Holveck at [email protected] for comments or requests for further inquiries.

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Delawareans dominate esports scene, earn thousands playing 'Injustice 2' professionally

Brandon Holveck, Delaware News Journal Published 4:54 p.m. ET July 6, 2018 | Updated 12:09 a.m. ET July 7, 2018

His eyes are forward, his controller rests in his lap and headphones cover his ears to muffle the crowd noise. Ryan "Dragon" Walker is completely stoic before the biggest match of his life — the nerves that bubble on the inside can't be spotted.

A massive screen covering the wall of a Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, event hall, projects his battle, the grand finale of the "Injustice 2" tournament at the 2017 EVO Championships, to a live crowd of hundreds. Thousands more around the world are watching the online stream.

After relinquishing a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series, Walker forks his opponent with his character's triton and slams him onto the ground to take the deciding game in a tournament he describes as "a fighting game player’s Buy Photo dream."

(Photo: Jason Minto, The News He drops his controller and launches his fists into the air triumphantly. He's a champion. Journal)

The win was the start of a hot streak for Walker, a 19-year-old Lewes native. He went on to win the E-League championship for the same game,Fullscr eenwhich netted him $150,000 — the most prize money he's ever earned in a single competition and the most money ever awarded for an "Injustice 2" tournament. Delaware esports gamer

Walker's wins at EVO and E-League vaulted him into the conversation for the best fighting game player in the world. His main challenger? Another Delawarean, Townsend's Dominique "SonicFox" McLean.

"The commentators that watch the game are like, 'What is in Delaware to have two of the game's best players in the world?'" Walker said. "It’s so true."

Esports defined

The Delawareans are two of the biggest stars in the burgeoning world of esports, an international phenomenon in which players compete in video game tournaments for lucrative cash payouts.

In major competitions, players are positioned on a stage with the game projected on large screens behind them. The scene and the accompanying fervor resemble large watch parties like those on the lawn at Wimbledon or in the home countries of World Cup teams. In this case, the action is happening right in front of them. Ryan "Dragon" Walker faces off against Christian "ForeverKing" Quiles at E-League 2017. (Photo: E-LEAGUE/Turner Sports)

Through live in-person competitions and online streaming, esports has quickly grown into a $906 million industry, according to Newzoo, the self- proclaimed leader in esports research. Newzoo projects that the total audience will rise to 380 million viewers this year.

Activate, a technology consulting firm, estimates that by 2020, 70 million people will watch an esports final. In comparison, baseball, America's pastime, drew 19 million viewers on average for each of the seven games of last year's World Series between the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

McLean's rise

McLean has made over $450,000 in tournaments, according to esportsearnings.com (https://www.esportsearnings.com/players/4603-sonicfox- dominique-mclean), since the first time he entered a competition at 13.

Now 20, the Townsend native is a student at New York Institute of Technology, where he is majoring in computer science with dreams of becoming a video game designer.

On weekends, McLean competes in tournaments across the country as SonicFox, a character he created for himself that identifies as a furry and is part of a community of fans of anthropomorphic fictional characters. He sports a neon blue fox hat while playing and a full mascotlike helmet while roaming competition venues.

"That’s just always been sonic’s style," Walker said. "That’s great; I don’t say anything bad about it. If that’s what he wants to do, then that’s what he wants to do. I do what I want to do; he does what he wants to do as far as his brand and persona and people love that." Dominique "SonicFox" McLean competes at the 2017 E-League tournament in his customary blue fox hat. (Photo: E-LEAGUE/Turner Sports)

Persona aside, McLean earns plenty of notice for his play.

He went undefeated for over a year between 2015 and 2016. At EVO 2017, he was upset by Tim "Honeybee" Commandeur, who lost to Walker in the final. Before that loss, he had won three consecutive EVO championships.

"SonicFox has a calculated-maniac play style in my opinion," Commandeur said. "He does things you won't expect, but he always seems to do them at the right times. It's hard to prepare for a player like him."

"He’s honestly just a prodigy," Walker said. "He does well in literally every single fighting game he touches. He can process them and learn them faster than everyone else. Everyone else is playing catch up."

Walker's beginnings

In his sophomore year at Cape Henlopen High School, Walker entered his first "Mortal Kombat" tournament in Philadelphia. In a field of about 200, Walker placed 13th.

"I realized I might be pretty good at this," he said.

As he continued to enter tournaments, his play naturally improved. He became hooked.

With every close defeat, his appetite for winning grew. He didn't win a tournament outright until EVO 2017, arguably the highest profile "Injustice 2" competition worldwide.

The $35,000 payout doubled his career earnings at the time. Walker, who describes his play style as "professional," rose to the occasion under the game's brightest spotlight.

"Anything that happens I can just look past it and move on," Walker said. "That’s why I’m usually emotionless while I play up there.

"For the longest time, I tried to stop my nerves. I asked people who have been doing this for a while, and I never really got a sufficient answer that helped me. After a while, I learned that nerves are a good thing. Nerves actually help you; they help you make better decisions."

Like SonicFox and most other professional gamers, Walker adopted a nickname to compete under. When he signed up for XBOX Live, Microsoft's online gaming interface, around the age of 12, he named himself "Dragon Warrior" after the main character in the movie Kung Fu Panda.

"Eventually as I got older, I was like, 'God, that’s really corny,' so I shortened it to Dragon," Walker said.

As he placed in tournaments, the esports team Critical Reaction offered Walker his first sponsorship. The deal was made over Twitter. Since then, Walker has been on multiple other teams, most recently representing Allegiance. Sponsors, like Allegiance and Critical Reaction, cover gamer's travel expenses and competition entry fees and pay gamers a monthly salary (Walker makes $2,700 a month).

In games that require multiple players, such as "Overwatch" and "NBA2K," gamers are paid a salary to join a team that practices and competes together. First round picks in the inaugural season of the 2K League, run by 17 of the NBA's individual organizations, earn $35,000 for the 12-week season, plus housing, insurance and a retirement plan. "Overwatch" players have earned contracts up to $150,000 per year (http://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/20564135/nrg-signs-17-year-old-overwatch-pro-sinatraa-150k).

In fighting games, like the ones Walker and McLean play, practice and competition are done alone. Their "team" is purely a sponsor, and the individual players take home all of their prize winnings. The system can be likened to professional tennis or golf.

The sponsorship allows gaming to be Walker's full-time job. His gaming office is at his family's house in Lewes. In a typical day, he'll practice anywhere between six and 12 hours.

A session consists of playing other top players online, then rewatching the tape of the match to pick up on his mistakes and his opponent's tendencies. Walker will then launch the game's practice mode and re-create many of the situations from his earlier matches. It's all in an effort to learn everything he can about the game's 28 characters. Buy Photo

Ryan "Dragon" Walker of Lewes is one of the best fighting video game players in the world. After graduating from Cape Henlopen High School he became a full-time gamer. He's earned a little over $250,000 playing the games Injustice 2 and Mortal Kombat X. (Photo: Jason Minto, The News Journal)

"Dragon is a very fundamentally strong player, and he labs a lot so you can count on him knowing the ins and outs of a match," Commandeur said.

"Injustice 2" is simple. It's a one-on-one fighting game like "Mortal Kombat." Each character has an array of moves that Walker studies to no end, in the way a quarterback studies defenses.

"People will say, 'You gamers, you guys don’t go outside' and stuff like that," Walker said. "To be honest, it’s pretty true; we don’t go outside."

Esports history

The growth of esports may be the sports industry's worst-kept secret. Sports luminaries such as Alex Rodriguez, Shaquille O'Neal, Dallas Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban and New England Patriots' owner Robert Kraft have invested in various forms of the sport, including a new "Overwatch" league headed by Kraft that will try to establish regional connections through teams like the Philadelphia Fusion and the Boston Uprising.

While leagues like the MLB face a pace-of-action problem (https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2018/06/20/mlb-bad- baseball-attendance-strikeouts/718162002/), an "Injustice 2" match can be over in 10 minutes.

The players often double as online content creators and social influencers through online gameplay streams and social media. Players can leverage the connections they forge with fans to market products and draw advertising revenue. All that is needed to follow esports is a phone or laptop and an internet connection. It fits neatly into an entertainment culture that now centers on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. Esports matches occasionally show up on cable television.

Instead, they're housed on Twitch, an online video game streaming platform, or other individualized competition streams.

In 2014, Amazon purchased Twitch for nearly $1 billion, demonstrating the immense value of the online video gamer's platform of choice. On the platform, the audience can interact with other viewers and the streamer in real time.

There has also been a movement toward in-stream betting following the Supreme Court decision that legalized sports betting outside of Las Vegas.

"This is a sport; people are making money off of this," said David Chen, an associate with the Electronic Gaming Federation, an organization focused on developing high school and collegiate esports. "It’s a difference of culture; we grew up as children with these.

"You think back 30, 40, 50 years ago, and computers were buildings."

As the popularity soars, so do the prize earnings for players like Walker and McLean.

The sport still has a long way to go until it is even close to the viewership and popularity of major sports leagues (the Super Bowl itself drew about a third of esports' yearly global audience), but Walker and McLean agree that it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Walker vs. McLean

"I've played against [McLean] more than anyone in the scene," Walker said.

Walker considers McLean a friend. He says they've played at least 40 times in various tournaments across the world.

McLean long held the upper hand. At one point he won 16 straight matches against Walker. Walker pulled off the upset in their final game of "Mortal Kombat 10" to break the streak.

Last year, Walker won the sport's biggest two competitions: EVO and E-League. In both, McLean was eliminated in earlier rounds.

So the debate goes, which is more impressive? McLean's breadth of wins or Walker's quality of wins?

"Not much can change my mind that SonicFox is the best," Commandeur said.

"I would definitely put my vote on SonicFox," Chen said. "Consistency and legacy is clearly important, but I would be excited to see what Dragon can do since he is a such a new and emerging player."

The two are not likely to compete against one another again until next year. Walker is sitting out the rest of the "Injustice 2" season to prepare for the release of "Mortal Kombat 11" next year.

McLean will compete in next month's EVO Championships and multiple other tournaments throughout 2018. The competition season tends to pick up in the fall. He will likely play "Mortal Kombat" next year in addition to a few other games. In his most recent tournament, CEO 2018, he took fifth in Dragon Ball Fighter Z. He has no designs to stop.

Walker's short-term goal is to "keep playing, keep making money," though he realizes his playing days won't last forever. When he's done, he might become a full-time streamer or work on video game design. He's earned over $250,000 between his sponsorship deals and prize money, most of which he says is in the bank.

"There is nothing that I really need or want right now," Walker said.

"I joke about getting insurance on my hands."

Contact Brandon Holveck at [email protected].

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Three Lewes homes caught fire after being struck by lightning (https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/delaware/2018/07/06/lighting-strikes-fire- damage-lewes-homes/763978002/) 6/25/2018 Tatnall graduate Sam Parsons to compete at track national championships

Tatnall graduate Sam Parsons to compete at the U.S.A Track and Field Championships

Brandon Holveck, Delaware News Journal Published 6:14 p.m. ET June 19, 2018 | Updated 4:18 p.m. ET June 20, 2018

It's June 2017 and Sam Parsons is taking a late-night stroll with his parents on Pre's Trail in Eugene, Oregon.

The path is named after famed Oregon distance runner Steve Prefontaine and is just a mile from another legendary piece of track and field lure, the University of Oregon's Hayward Field.

At Hayward Field earlier that night, Parsons raced the 10,000 meters as part of the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

(Photo: Courtesy of Ben Crawford) NCAAs at Hayward Field? The place nicknamed "Tracktown, U.S.A." It was the pinnacle of the collegiate running universe.

But on this night, Parsons is breaking down.

"Just kind of losing my marbles," he said.

As he walks down the trail, Parsons is confronting the inevitable realization that this chapter of his career, and of his life, is over. He'd be back on a track at this time next year, but the thought crosses his mind that he may never spike up again. It hits him like a freight train out of a storm, as his immediate racing plan and goals for that night clouded his long-term view.

Without his teammates and the pride of representing his school, North Carolina State, Parsons thinks he won't be able to compete at the same level.

At his current times, Parsons wasn't fast enough for shoe companies, like Nike and Adidas that sponsor professional track athletes by paying their living expenses and providing gear, to be interested.

"I can't believe it's over," he said to his parents.

Parsons began his running career at Tatnall School in Greenville, where he set the high school state record in the 3,200 meters as a senior in 2012 and led the Hornets to multiple state championships in cross country, indoor track and field and outdoor track and field across his four years. He then led the Wolfpack to ACC prominence at N.C. State from 2012-2017.

"When I ran that last NCAA race, I was done," Parsons said in retrospect. "I was so spent, the sport asks so much of you.

"You never know when it’s going to be your last day. When your heart stops having that drive to wake up and get it done or when your body doesn’t let you do it anymore."

It turns out, for Parsons that day hasn't come yet.

Back on the track

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/sports/2018/06/19/tatnall-graduate-sam-parsons-compete-track-national-championships/714202002/ 1/5 6/25/2018 Tatnall graduate Sam Parsons to compete at track national championships

Sam Parsons racing at the Portland Track Festival. (Photo: Courtesy of Benjamin Weingart)

One year later, Parsons is preparing to step on an even larger stage. He'll compete Sunday, June 24, in the 5,000 meters at the U.S.A. Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

At the Portland Track Festival June 10, Parsons ran 13:29.53 in the 5,000 meters, an improvement of over 20 seconds from his collegiate best. The time is the eleventh-fastest by an American this year and the seventh-fastest among entrants in this weekend's championships.

After nearly saying goodbye to the sport for good, Parsons now fronts one of the country's emerging professional training groups in Boulder, Colorado (Tinman Elite, led by coach Tom "Tinman" Schwartz) and represents the global brand, Adidas.

Europe and 20 pounds

His bags were packed. Three days after the 2017 race in Eugene, he was heading to Europe. Parsons planned on spending time with his German mother's family and exploring as many other countries as possible. It was a one-way ticket. The best parties have no end times.

"With 600 (meters) to go, I had the mindset that, this is it," Parsons said of his final NCAA race. "Everyone around me knew I was done after this race."

Parsons uncorked a kick and moved up to 15th place, good enough to earn second-team All-American honors.

Then he didn't run for three months.

Parsons spent four months abroad, much of it alone, and traveled to 17 different countries. He described his way

Sam Parsons abroad after of life as "ballin' on a budget," a practice in which grocery store bread and German and Belgian beer is a competing in the 2017 NCAA customary meal. Track and Field Championships. (Photo: Courtesy of Sam Parsons) On nights, he couldn't manage to sleep in a hostel or get taken in by a new acquaintance, he slept in a tent. He gained 20 pounds.

Parsons eventually made it to Germany, where he stayed with his uncle and worked on windows. Three months into the trip, he went for a run.

"I didn’t have a watch on, I had no idea where I was or anything," Parsons said, his words accelerating as his excitement built while recalling the run. "I just went out and started running. During the run I ran faster and faster and I just pushed myself so hard for no reason and I was just smiling ear to ear the whole time. It was running for the pure essence of running, for what it can do for your mind and your body."

At the end of the run he sprawled out in the middle of the street like a kid making snow angels — still with a grin plastered on his face. https://www.delawareonline.com/story/sports/2018/06/19/tatnall-graduate-sam-parsons-compete-track-national-championships/714202002/ 2/5 6/25/2018 Tatnall graduate Sam Parsons to compete at track national championships "Sure all the girls and the parties and the mountaintops that I experienced previous to that, that brought me a whole different type of happiness. But this type of happiness, giving back to my body, was just something that I knew I wanted to keep doing."

He took a train to Brussels to watch a meet at which some of his friends were racing. It's customary for professional and leading collegiate runners to compete in a circuit of summer races across Europe.

It was there that Parsons connected with Drew Hunter, the national high school indoor mile record-holder, who turned down the University of Oregon to turn pro with Adidas in 2016.

While watching runners warm up, many of them former collegiate competitors who now represented brands like Nike, Adidas and Hoka One One, Parsons got the itch to return to the track. He told Hunter he wanted to train together in Boulder, Colorado.

"I didn’t really take it seriously, because this guy was in Europe for a few months partying," Hunter said.

A month later, Parsons returned to the U.S. He had promised a college friend that he would be at his wedding. Otherwise, Parsons said, he might have stayed.

Upon his return, he met with his high school coach, Patrick Castagno, for lunch.

"I was ready to hear from him, 'thanks coach for everything but I’m deciding to hang it up,'" Castagno said. "He came back more fired up than I’ve ever seen him."

His plan was to find a place in Boulder to train with Hunter and Coach Tom "Tinman" Schwartz.

"I'll believe it when I see it was kind of my mindset," Hunter said.

Parsons pleaded with every contact he had at Adidas, where he had spent the summer as an intern before his final year at N.C. State, to give him a chance.

"I basically poured my heart out and told them, 'Guys, I know I’m not worth any money, I’m not going to be beating anyone next year or doing anything special right now, but I promise you that if you guys give me a chance that I’ll work my ass off and do whatever it takes to get to that next level,' " Parsons said.

Adidas agreed to cover his expenses for one year, in what Parsons described as a "handshake agreement." In return, Parsons exclusively sports Adidas gear.

"When I have my mind made up on something I will get it done and I will fulfill that promise," Parsons said.

With his performances this spring, he's almost assured to get professional offers.

Giving back to the sport

The first time Parsons made a big promise was when he decided to run at Tatnall. He told his mother that he was going to be the greatest Delaware runner ever.

"I don’t know if I quite did that, but I came pretty close," he said with a chuckle.

Parsons set and still holds the 3,200 meter state record with a time of 9:00.61 and ranks fifth all-time in the 1,600 meter with a time of 4:12.67. He was the Gatorade Delaware Athlete of the Year in 2011.

As Parsons begins his professional career, a priority of his is giving back to the sport in his home state. He wants to be the first Delawarean to break four minutes in the mile (he ran 4:03 this Spring), though he suspects Harvard and former Wilmington Charter runner Kieran Tuntivate might get there first. He also wants to bring a sub-four race to Delaware soil, which has also never been done.

Sam Parsons (left) and Drew Hunter (right) compete at the He still keeps tabs on high school running in the state through Castagno, including Connor Nisbet's historic run at B.A.A. Invitational Mile in Boston, this May's New Castle County Championships (https://www.delawareonline.com/story/sports/high- Massachusetts. (Photo: Courtesy of Sam Parsons) school/2018/05/12/wilmington-friends-connor-nisbet-wins-two-new-castle-county-track/591468002/). Nisbet missed Parsons' state record by .14 seconds. https://www.delawareonline.com/story/sports/2018/06/19/tatnall-graduate-sam-parsons-compete-track-national-championships/714202002/ 3/5 6/25/2018 Tatnall graduate Sam Parsons to compete at track national championships "He’s a smooth runner man," Parsons said. "I can’t wait to see him flip the Delaware running scene on its head and run 8:50, 8:48 next year."

"I definitely wouldn't count out (turning pro)," Nisbet said. "It definitely would be something that I would consider. Sam Parsons would be a good role model for that.”

Nisbet will be a senior at Wilmington Friends this coming school year. He wants to break the Delaware cross country 5k state record (15:06.8 by Wilmington Charter's Kevin Murray) and Parsons' 9:00 3200 meter mark. If he does, Nisbet would arguably become the greatest Delaware distance runner ever.

"You set the bar and people realize that guy did it, I can do it," Castagno said. "There is a record to shoot for. That’s what Sam put out there for Connor and next year I think Connor is going set the bar for the guys behind him."

'Not afraid to push'

At this weekend's national championships, Parsons' plan is to race aggressively for the win. Championship races tend to start at a conservative pace, before ratcheting to a sprint to the finish. It's considered harder to lead than to follow.

Parsons is a long-distance 10,000 meter runner, which would typically put him at a disadvantage if the pace is slow, but his speed has developed mightily through training with Hunter, a true middle distance runner.

"When the gun goes off, all bets are off," Parsons said. "I don’t care who it is next to me, who their face is, what they ran before. Our whole mindset as a team is that we’re tough, gritty, passionate runners. We’re not afraid to push the pace and take the lead and get after it."

Beyond this weekend, Parsons' sights are set on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. On the way, he will attempt to break four minutes indoors, make a U.S. team in cross country and make a worlds team in the 10,000 outdoors. In 2024 he has left the door open to competing under the German flag, as he holds dual citizenship.

"I think he has three of four years of work, of training, to get himself at the world level," Castagno said. "The times he’s running right now indicate to me that he’s in the right place, he’s training with the right people, he’s doing the right thing and he’s making the most of his opportunity as a professional.

"He's just at the beginning of this."

Times, qualifiers and podiums aside, Parsons has discovered why he runs.

"For us it’s just like, 'oh well it’s ... brilliant, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s what I do, it’s a part of me. This where your best friends are, for the culture, for the community. There is so many ways to answer it.'

"I go back to that moment lying down on the street, I was smiling ear to ear and that sort of happiness, the happiness that running that night brought me. I think that the most important thing about life is to maximize your happiness for as many days as possible when you’re here and running does that for me. It maximizes my happiness."

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Contact Brandon Holveck at [email protected].

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