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CALGARY, Alberta - Mike Crowe's studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis did not equip him to become the U.S. speed skating coach.
He would have needed a background in law and human behavioral science, not to mention communications and diplomacy. Is anyone qualified to take on the all-encompassing task of coaching a team that prepares four years for the Olympics and when the Games arrive, can't agree on when to agree?
A time of triumph and anguish is how Crowe will remember his first Winter Games as head coach of the U.S. squad.
"I got to see myself in a good light," Crowe said. "I stayed strong, and I learned a lot about myself. Overall, I'm pleased even though there was heartbreak about some things that happened."
Crowe, 34, was an assistant under former gold medal sprinter Dianne Holum at the 1984 Olympics. The next year Holum stepped down and Crowe, a Vianney High graduate, was elevated.
"It was a good team in 1984," Crowe said. "Nobody won any medals, but they were young kids and looking for direction. There was team unity. We made good progress right up to these Olympics."
Then it came apart. The governing bodies for U.S. speed skating and bobsledding are classic examples of what happens when leadership at the top is weak and politics is allowed to intrude. At Calgary, the bobsledders feuded openly. The speed skaters feuded behind closed doors.
"The progress we had made stalemated this year because the teamwork wasn't there," Crowe said. "It was a managerial problem."
Internal dissension and sparring between athletes and coaches with the U.S. International Speedskating Association over policy has been going on for six years. U.S. skaters have thrived without proper facilities and without enough financial support that was blamed, in part, to a lack of fund-raising by the USISA.
Yet, speed skating has accounted for the largest...