By all appearances in the last few years, the Arcadia High School boys cross country program could have served as a model for the country.
The California team had an energetic, knowledgeable, ambitious and compassionate coach. They produced Division I runners. They also had broad-based participation from the student body and wide-based parental support.
Jim O’Brien coached the Apaches to two California and two national titles in the last three years, in 2010 and 2012. For this fall’s cross country season, the Apaches return eight of their top nine.
The future appeared bright; expectations were high. O’Brien’s fans included competitors because he is generous enough to allow runners from other schools to train with his summer team.
But instead of focusing on another run at state and national titles, the program is now in flux after O’Brien, 60, a former head college coach at Cal Tech and San Diego, was fired on June 17 after 17 cross country seasons at the Los Angeles-area school that has an enrollment of nearly 3,700 in grades 9-12. Runners and parents reacted with outrage at the decision; the world of high school running was shocked.
This is no Jerry Sandusky and Penn State situation. There is no child abuse scandal here. The deciding factor, based on what Superintendent Joel Shawn told O’Brien in a meeting on Tuesday, was that the coach painted yellow “X”s on non-working lockers in the locker room in the spring. The runners, who were encountering thefts because so many lockers were not functioning correctly, now refer to it as Lockergate.
O’Brien, a physical education teacher at Arcadia, said he had urged the school to repair the lockers for a long time. When the repairs weren’t forthcoming, he emailed school officials that he was going to paint “X”s on broken lockers to reduce the incidence of his spring training group losing items to theft and minimize school liability for restitution. He has apologized for his action.
As O’Brien acknowledges, Lockergate was merely the latest in a series of conflicts between the coach and school/district administrators or other coaches. “This goes deep,” he says. “This isn’t about painting lockers.”
The coach, by his own admission, can be headstrong, impatient and abrasive.
“He’s a very passionate man,” says Mike Yamane, a dentist and reserve policeman who has had children run for O’Brien. “So passionate that sometimes people are in his way, and he’s not very tactful. He really insults them. I think that’s basically the whole thing that happened. Usually he’s right, but he’s not very tactful.”
Such as when O’Brien got the news he was fired. First-year principal Brent Forsee told him verbally and by a letter he presented at their meeting that the school wanted to go “in another direction.”
O’Brien’s reply: “What direction would that be? Down?”
When Yamane was told of the exchange, he replied, “See, that’s what gets him in trouble. I’m 100% behind the guy, but he can rub some people the wrong way.”
O’Brien supporters, both athletes and parents, have shown their fervor since the firing became public last week just after the school year ended. They have created a Facebook page that has gotten more than 3,000 likes; they showed up in force at a standing-room-only information session on Monday; they formed the bulk of the crowd at a school board meeting Tuesday.
At the packed information session Monday, many team members showed up in jackets and ties. They told inspiring stories of how O’Brien had positively influenced their lives. One runner credited the running program and O’Brien’s interest in him in preventing his suicide; another said he would have dropped out of school without the influence of O’Brien; a mom told about O’Brien enthusiastically accepting her autistic son into the program and providing him a wonderful experience.
“The kids were so respectful,” Yamane said. “A lot of them couldn’t hold back tears. We were all a big crying, bawling mess to tell the truth. It was us, the parents, that were getting so mad and some were vulgar. The kids never were.”
What frustrated the runners and the parents was that no reason was given for his dismissal. Shawn, the superintendent, declined to specify the reason at the meeting.
O’Brien was left in the dark until his Tuesday meeting with Shawn. There is apparently a history of animosity between the two. A couple of years ago, Shawn wanted O’Brien to receive an official reprimand for taking some girls on a pre-season team trip to Mammoth Lakes, California, for altitude training.
O’Brien filed a grievance and won. It’s not the only conflict he has been part of.
He and track coach Chris Schultz have what can only be described as a dysfunctional relationship. Schultz has twice fired O’Brien.
O’Brien had been track coach in addition to his cross country duties before resigning as head track coach, a job that is time-consuming at Arcadia because it includes running the school’s nationally famous Arcadia Invitational. Schultz took over as head coach, and O’Brien became an assistant in charge of distance runners.
O’Brien was fired as distance coach for the track team by Schultz after last season, his fifth in a row with Schultz. O’Brien got the news in mid-October, as the cross country team was gearing up for important meets, but kept it quiet until after the season ended. According to O’Brien, the two clashed regarding workouts, meet schedules and meet lineups, although O’Brien acceded to Schultz’s wishes in the end.
This spring, without O’Brien as distance coach for track, 80 of the 88 cross country runners elected to run under O’Brien in spring conditioning for cross country instead of competing on the track team. Forsee, the principal, wanted to see more of the cross country team running track. O’Brien maintains that was not possible.
According to O’Brien, about five years ago Schultz imposed unrealistic standards for middle-distance runners seeking to make the team. Freshman and sophomores have to break 5:25 for the mile, juniors and seniors 5:00. Both are pretty stringent.
“I tried to explain to the principal there’s an exclusion clause that’s been here for a long time,” O’Brien says. “[Schultz] was trying to exclude as many distance runners from the team as he possibly could because they’re mine.”
As a result of having so many runners rejected five years ago, O’Brien started an end-of-school-day training group to accommodate those who had been cut but wanted to stay in shape during the spring to better prepare for cross country in the fall.
O’Brien said he told his distance runners this spring that they had his blessing to run track rather than train in the cross country group. The runners voted with their feet. The bulk of them preferred running for O’Brien – who got them entries into all-comers, collegiate and open meets – over going to the track.
O’Brien considers himself an “outside-the- box” thinker. The spring training group is an example. So is O’Brien’s Army, his training group that goes nearly year-round. He circumvented some school regulations regarding training only on campus – satisfactory for other sports but not practical for cross country – by getting the club sanctioned by USA Track & Field.
He pushes the envelope with California regulations that prohibit Sunday practices and require three “dead” weeks where organized practices are banned.
“The rationale is kids shouldn’t overtrain,” says Yamane of the state rules. “Coach has a masters degree in exercise physiology. They have all these macro-cycles and micro-cycles. [O’Brien] teaches the kids all these training things; they become knowledgeable.
“They’re not out there mindlessly running. Do they know what they’re supposed to do on Sundays and do it by themselves? They do. Do they know what they’re supposed to do during the dead period when the coaches aren’t there? They certainly know.”
It’s not only the running knowledge that Maria De La Rosa appreciates from O’Brien for her sons, Estevan, a rising senior who was runner-up in the state and national meets, and Juan, who graduated last year and is now in the Army.
“[O’Brien] is way more than a coach,” she says. “He is a counselor, a father figure to so many kids. He works with their attitude, their character. I’m a single mother. The one teacher Juan carries deep in his heart is coach O’Brien.
“This is an injustice, a travesty. Behind the scenes, he helps all kinds of kids. To my way of thinking, these [administrators] are abusing their power because they have personal issues with him. We parents do not like it. We need to find ways to protest and ask for a change and for them to think wisely, not on a personal level.”
By devoting his professional life for two decades to Arcadia cross country, O’Brien has built an enviable program, while earning less than $3,000 per season. “I don’t do this for the money,” he says. “I’d do it for nothing.”
He’s had runners break 9:00 for two miles; he has runners who can’t break 6:00 for the mile. He values them all the same, by all accounts.
But now he’s out as coach. His protégé for the last six years, Michael Feraco-Eberle, 28, an English teacher at the school, has been named as his replacement. Feraco-Eberle didn’t accept the job until he had spoken with O’Brien, who told him he couldn’t not accept it.
Thanks in part to O’Brien’s lobbying for his former assistant, Feraco-Eberle had been named girls cross country coach for 2013. The two then planned to merge the programs. Now Feraco-Eberle will be a first-year head coach for both teams.
He still consults daily with O’Brien and is helping him coach O’Brien’s Army this summer. “This is the hand that’s been dealt,” Feraco-Eberle says. “It’s a weird position to be in. I’m still in touch with Jim. I still feel close to him. Jim means a lot to me. I’m sort of standing with a foot in every world at this point.”
Arcadia administrators, including superintendent Shawn, declined requests for interviews, but principal Forsee responded via email: “Michael Ferraco [sic] is our new Cross Country coach and we are excited about the direction in which he will guide our program. We believe the reputation of our program, and school, both within and beyond the city of Arcadia, as well as the ability to maintain the opportunity to compete in a playoff atmosphere are of the utmost importance for our students, staff and community. We believe Michael Ferraco [sic] is the right person at the right time to continue a winning tradition and create a positive environment conducive to the high standards we hold for ourselves at Arcadia High and in the District as a whole.”
O’Brien and Feraco-Eberle had looked forward to their collaboration for the 2013 cross country season. Neither expected Feraco-Eberle to become the boys coach in addition to girls coach.
“He’s not me by any stretch of the imagination,” O’Brien says, no doubt irritating those who find him arrogant. “But he has a pretty good idea. He could carry on what I’m doing. Especially if I’m willing to support him. Which I am. I’m 100% willing to support him.”
O’Brien was willing to be Feraco-Eberle’s assistant. Feraco-Eberle was first told that wouldn’t be possible but was then told the possibility would be presented to the Board of Education. O’Brien was told at first that he could not have contact with team members during the season. Later he was told he might be considered as a paid consultant to the team.
O’Brien resents the timing of the decision coming so late that it effectively prevents him from finding another coaching position for next fall. He has a lawyer and is considering legal action.
His ultimate wish would be reinstatement. He addressed that desire when he spoke at Tuesday’s board meeting. The aggressive coach is striking a conciliatory tone. He thinks peace can be made with the superintendent and principal.
“I’m not looking for a fight,” he says. “I’m looking for a resolution. I’m looking for them to value me as an employee and value the job I’ve done over the years. I’ll take whatever directives they give. Let me work.
“Let me work with the kids and continue doing the things we were doing. The kids want it; the community wants it.”
Related:
How to Run Twice a Day Without Injury
