Last night I removed “publish news on Eventing Nation from a borrowed iPhone in Europe” from my bucket list. I want to thank the EN Team for doing a great job holding down the fort while I am traveling. This week is yet another reminder that there’s no way EN would exist without them. Before I head to bed to prepare for tomorrow’s cursing the exchange rate horse shopping, I wanted to share a few thoughts about David’s selection by the Eligible Athletes and the High Performance Committee. Of course, David hasn’t been officially named the coach and the contract needs to be negotiated, but the candidates are already aware of the budget. Aside from something absolutely extraordinary happening, David will be the next US coach, and I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone.
As a rider and someone who has spent many nights wide awake dreaming about riding in red, white, and blue someday, there’s no doubt in my mind that David will help the US Team reach the full potential and elite status that we have been struggling to find for years. As a cliche though it might sound, I have the feeling that David was put on this planet, grew up working under Jimmy and Jack, won the Olympics, and went to coach the Canadians for one reason–to prepare him to be the best coach he can for the United States. I have written several times before on EN that I think David will win more international medals as a coach than he did as a rider and I still think that’s true because he is better at building riders that he was at riding.
David has a very focused, even obsessive personality, and I know that he will spend pretty much every waking moment of his life working to make the US team as good as it can be. If an aspect of his initial approach doesn’t work, he’ll change it and learn from it because he will never be happy unless the US is winning. We all know that success will take a bottom to top transformation of our system and David will make that happen in order to win.
I obviously think that David will do a good job, but you can call me biased–to some extent I am. I have spent time riding with David, but I have spent just as much time riding with Phillip and if you have ever talked with me about coaching, you know how much I like Phillip. We need Phillip and Bobby to be as involved with the team as possible moving forward even though they won’t be leading it. I’m also a big fan of Leslie, Andrew, and of course Jimmy, and I think all of them are good coaches.
I haven’t spoken with a single high performance rider or, frankly, anyone else in eventing, who thinks that David will be a bad coach. Even riders who aren’t the biggest fans of OCET told me that they thought David would do a good job. People who are unhappy with the coaching search are divided into two categories–those who just don’t like David, and those who think the process wasn’t fair.
I think it is very important to distinguish the process from the final choice, and one thing I consistently heard from other riders after the Search Committee’s short list came out was that they didn’t think it would change the result in the end but it would have been good to give Phillip and Bobby a chance to speak publicly at Red Hills. As the process played out, the Eligible Athletes were free to interview and recommend whatever candidates they wanted, and Phillip and Bobby withdrew before the Eligible Athletes privately interviewed the candidates. Because Phillip and Bobby withdrew from the process when they did, both of them had the opportunity to have a big influence on the process as chairs of the respective committees. Fortunately the decision by the Eligible Athletes and High Performance Committee show that Phillip and Bobby support David, which is important for David’s success as a coach.
The Search Committee should have been much more clear immediately after they released the short list about why they made the decisions that they did. I also think the Eligible Athletes should have been able to publicly hear from whatever candidates they wanted to at Red Hills. But, I feel strongly that the Search Committee made their decision based on fair parameters. I don’t believe conspiracy theories or anything else of the sort because I don’t think the members of the Search Committee would take manipulation by anyone. I have said this before, but imagine what George Morris, Kim Severson, or Katie Prudent would do to the poor fool who tried to tell them how to vote. And, even if they weren’t fair, the fact remains that the Eligible Athletes were given free rein to recommend whoever they wanted to, that Phillip and Bobby were chairs of the two committees, and that those committees still picked David. Looking back on the process, I’m trying to figure out why the USEF even used a Search Committee in the first place.
I wish that Andrew could have had the opportunity to come over to the US to meet with the committees in person because I think he would have interviewed very well. But, ultimately Andrew didn’t commit 100% to moving here if he got the job and it seems like no one wanted any part of the possibility of having a long-distance coach again.
Leslie is terrific and had an excellent plan for coaching the team. If he decides to apply for the Canadian position I hope he gets it and in 6 years he will be a top international team coach. The timing for Leslie was just 4 to 6 years too early.
Mr. Jim, as I call him, is a stone cold legend and I thought that the Search Committees cryptic mention that all candidates had to be able to ride the horses was pretty useless. But the Eligible Athletes chose not to interview Jimmy when they interviewed Andrew and it seems like it just wasn’t meant to be.
Unless you don’t like David, it’s hard to make an argument that he wasn’t the best choice because his success with Canada presented experience and success with the specific job he was applying for unlike any of the other applicants. The other candidates all had tons of potential, but David had a proven track record, which is the most important thing when applying for any job. I have heard the frustrations of our Canadian readers that they will be losing David, but Canada has an incredible bunch of talented riders and young superstar horses that will keep Canadian eventing strong for many years.
Today marks the beginning of a new era for US eventing. Between our younger riders looking great at the spring events, and the prospect of David leading them and our veteran riders makes me more optimistic about the US eventing than I have ever been in my lifetime. I’ll bet a trip around the cross-country in hot pink colors that the US wins a gold medal internationally in David’s first 4 years as coach. It’s time to put the frustrations of this long process behind us and stand behind the riders and their new coach. Go eventing.
