Six former members of the women’s track and field team at the University of Oregon say the program devalued them as individuals and put them at risk for eating disorders. They also say they’re afraid to come forward publicly because of the power the UO wields at the This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We start today with the longtime track and field reporter, Ken Goe. He retired from his staff job at The Oregonian last year, but he is still on the beat. His latest article focuses on the stories of six former members of the women’s track and field team at the University of Oregon. They say the program devalued them as individuals and that its relentless focus on body fat put them at risk for eating disorders. They told their stories to Goe only on the condition that they remain anonymous. A testament to the power the U of O wields in the sport at the national level, Ken Goe joins us once again to talk about what he learned. Welcome back to Think Out Loud.
Ken Goe: Hi, Dave. It’s nice to be here.
Miller: In your article, you outlined a really data driven approach to coaching and conditioning at the track and field and cross country teams at the University of Oregon. But a lot of the athletes focused on one particular test. It’s known as a DEXA Scan. What is this?
Goe: Yeah. It’s a pretty high tech tool. In my understanding, it uses X-ray technology to measure both bone density and body fat. Primarily, I think, it was originally developed to help diagnose and treat osteoporosis in older women. But because it gives such a precise body fat percentage, University of Oregon and probably other Track programs use it to track the body fat percentage of athletes.
Miller: How do they use the information they get? What are they looking for?
Goe: There’s an optimum, in their mind anyway, an optimum body fat percentage for female athletes, male athletes too, actually, and they want their athletes to be in that range, probably closer to the lower range, believing that thinner fitter athletes with less body fat perform better.
Miller: What did you hear from former Ducks about how this test, which is conducted I think four times over the course of the year, how…
Goe: three times...
Miller: ...three times, how it affected them?
Goe: Well in some cases, and I don’t think this is true for every athlete, but in some cases, they began to obsess about whether they were going to meet the goal body fat percentage that the coaches and nutritionists at the school set for them. And in some cases that obsession took some unhealthy turns. One woman was counting calories to the nth degree, another would weigh herself daily and then depending on what the scale showed, would think she was either ridiculously fat or in great shape. And sometimes the difference was only two or three pounds. Another started binge eating.
Miller: You included part of an email written by an athlete who recently graduated to the Deputy Athletic Director about a year ago in October of 2020. This is part of her email: ‘I have seen and experienced an absolutely disgusting amount of disordered eating on the women’s track team, all because the coaches believe body fat percentage is a key performance indicator.’ What came from that email?
Goe: As best I can tell, nothing. I asked to speak to the Deputy Athletic Director, she did not choose to speak to me. She did reply in an email, saying that she had forwarded it to the appropriate authority. I asked, I sent another email back asking who the appropriate authority was, and she didn’t answer that one. So I don’t know what happened to it, if anything. It certainly doesn’t seem to have changed the Oregon Track Team’s approach.
Miller: How have university officials, or the coach, Robert Johnson, defended or explained their reliance on this particular test and their broader focus on body fat?
Goe: Well, I think Robert Johnson’s position is he’s being hired to turn out really good athletes to win meets, to win NCAA Championships. And this is, this DXA Scan technology is a tool that helps him get his athletes in the best position not only to do those things but to realize their own goals. So he sees it as a positive thing.
Miller: You do note that Robert Johnson became the University of Oregon’s Track and Field and Cross Country Head Coach in 2012, that he’s guided different Ducks teams to 14 NCAA Championships in nine years. I mean, is that evidence that broadly, his techniques are leading to team success?
Goe: I think you can make that case. I mean he’s an excellent coach and that’s been proven. That they won their most recent NCAA Title the last academic year. The men won the NCAA Indoor Championship. And the Oregon teams are generally in the top 5 to 10 in the country and often challenging for a national championship. So yeah, he’s an excellent coach.
Miller: It seems like it’s possible to see two things happening at once here. An overall approach that’s highly focused on numbers and bodies, almost like machines, leading to broad team success, but also a team approach that could seemingly be very detrimental to individual athletes. How does the school reckon with both of those at once?
Goe: That’s a really good question and I imagine they’re revisiting it right now. They do have sports psychologists on staff and dietitians and nutritionists to help counsel these athletes. But you’re right -- to focus on the body fat percentage as a goal is a trigger for a lot of women, men probably too, but more often women, according to the sports psychologist I talked to, and they would advocate not doing that... emphasize, instead, here are healthy eating habits, and follow these habits and do the workouts that we ask you to do and you will get in shape to compete; the difference being that we’re gonna give you a process to get there, and not a number or goal, to start.
Miller: Do these tests and this super data driven and body fat focused approach set the U of O apart from other elite track and field programs?
Goe: I’m not sure about that. It’s just self evident that if you’re a runner, if you don’t have as much body fat on you’re gonna be faster in most cases. I mean it’s not strictly a weight issue because lean muscle mass is something you want. But you don’t want to be really heavy. I mean you don’t see many Olympic Track Athletes or NCAA Champions particularly in events like sprints or the jumps or distance running who are heavy. I mean they’re just not. So you can understand why this happens. I think that the people that question what Oregon is doing and maybe other programs are doing, is the methodology for how they’re getting there.
Miller: This gets to such a tricky question. I should remind folks by the way that we’re talking right now with Ken Goe, a freelance journalist who wrote a recent article for The Oregonian with allegations from six former members of the Women’s Track and Field Team at the University of Oregon saying that the programs focus on weight and diet put them at risk for eating disorders. So what you’re getting at is, as I mentioned, is this really tricky thing, this basic physiological fact that if you are carrying around less weight, it takes less energy to propel your body around. And that’s a big reason why you might be able to perform better. At the same time, we live in a society where, especially women, have been for much of their lives, bombarded with all kinds of often unhealthy messages about bodies. And then these two things are colliding at the highest collegiate levels of sports. What did you hear from experts about a healthy way to encourage super high level athletes to be at their best without making their lives much worse?
Goe: Well, you’re right, it’s really a tricky problem and not easily solvable, but the sports psychologist I talked to really emphasized that as important as your body fat percentage is or your technical skill or your muscle mass, all these things, the mental part is important too. And often what separates the champion athlete from the really good athlete is their ability to rise above themselves and perform at a level that no one else, maybe even the athlete himself or herself didn’t think they could. Often, in my career as a sportswriter, you see some athletes who just elevate at the right time because of their mental strength. You think of Michael Jordan or Aaron Rodgers or Allyson Felix or athletes that can just, when it really matters, their strength of mind and will carry them to a high performance. And when you’re dealing just with biology and physics, that doesn’t take those qualities into account.
Miller: That reminds me, I may be getting the quote slightly wrong, but you had a surprising quote from Robert Johnson, the track coach, saying essentially, ‘track and field is about numbers, and a mathematician could become, could be a good Track Coach.’ That seems to go against the mental side. At least, maybe he was stripping this down, and I’m sure he has a broader understanding of what coaching entails, but it was still nevertheless surprising to see anybody who is a high level coach say that a mathematician by virtue of being good at numbers would be good at coaching. I’m curious what you made of that?
Goe: There is some truth in what he says because track is a very numbers driven sport, but I question that too. And part of my methodology as a reporter, I don’t normally do this, but I felt the subject was sensitive enough that any quote I used by Robert Johnson, I sent to him to make sure he was comfortable with it. So he did say that and he did sign off on using it. While there is some truth to it, I do think for a mathematician to be a good track coach, you would also have, or she would have to be able to inspire and lead and motivate. So it’s not just numbers.
Miller: Well let’s stick with the reporting for a second. Now you note in the article that five former U of O Athletes all consented to extensive interviews with you, but only on the condition that they remain anonymous, their names not be used. What were the reasons they gave for wanting to maintain anonymity?
Goe: I think you have to understand their reasoning because if you understand track, I mean the University of Oregon is the pinnacle track program collegiately in the country. It’s the Olympus. The tradition, the money spent on facilities, coaches that they have, the best of everything and it shows. Like I said earlier, they annually contend for NCAA Championships in cross country, indoor and outdoor track. On top of that the University of Oregon has a very close relationship with Nike. Nike was founded by a former Oregon Track Coach, Bill Bowerman, and a former Nike athlete Phil Knight, and has had a close relationship both with the university and with the track program for years. One of the reasons the Oregon Track Program has all these things is because they have money, because Nike and Phil Knight underwrite the program and that extends to the stadium. The University of Oregon Track Stadium, Hayward Field, was rebuilt recently at a cost of somewhere close to $300 million, most of it donated by Phil Knight. It’s the best track and field stadium in North America, one of the best in the world. And because of that, many major competitions are held there, from the Prefontaine Classic, which is arguably the best professional track and field meet in the world, to the NCAA Championships almost annually.
Miller: So, just to connect the dots here, because I want to make sure that we’re being explicit about the fears. Is it that, even though these athletes have left University of Oregon, they fear that if they are seen as going against the U of O or Nike or Track Town USA, that it could jeopardize, in various ways, their chances in American Track and Field. I mean to put it simply,…
Goe: Definitely.
Miller: Is that what they’re saying?
Goe: Yeah. I know it seemed really long winded there, but one other thing that Nike does is they sponsor most professional track and field athletes in the US. There are other companies that do, too. But Nike has the vast majority of them. And Nike also underwrites USA Track and Field, the sanctioning body for track and field in the U. S. So yeah, if they were to criticize the University of Oregon in a way that made the people at Nike, who feel very close to the university, unhappy, then that could certainly jeopardize their professional futures.
Miller: I’m curious how you think about that as a Journalist, as a reporter, that writing articles seen as critical of the University of Oregon or Track Town USA, or Nike, that they could jeopardize your access to the center of the American running establishment?
Goe: Well, that’s just life in the 21st century U.S.; if you’re going to cover track and field, Nike is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. So yeah, it could be a problem. I have a good relationship with most of the Nike sponsored athletes I know, and the Nike Coaches in this area. But it could be difficult if Nike decides that for some reason, I’m a distrusted journalist or not... a journalist that treats Nike fairly if that’s their impression, I mean, that could jeopardize me. I guess one thing going for me is I’m retired. So, I don’t have to cover anything else. And if Nike wants to blackball me, I guess that could happen and I would just happily ride into retirement.
Miller: On Adidas. Okay, Ken Goe, thanks for joining us today.
Goe: Thanks for having me.
Miller: Ken, Goe is a freelance journalist now, whose most recent article was for The Oregonian.national level. Ken Goe reported the story for the Oregonian and joins us to talk about what he discovered.
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