USA Triathlon Sport Performance Director Scott Schnitzspahn announced that widely acclaimed National Team Coach Cliff English was let go April 30, as his position was being eliminated in a surprise shakeup three months before the Beijing Olympics.

In a circumspect statement, Schnitzspahn paid tribute to English’s rapport with many of the elite athletes under his supervision, his great tactical advice and his success in shepherding many young athletes to the limelight. “We see no fault of the coach,” said Schnitzspahn. “It was a difficult role to coach athletes personally and also coach a national team and Cliff did a great job at it. Unfortunately other circumstances made us make a decision now rather than after the Olympics.”

Schnitzspahn said English had a big impact on the program. “Definitely many of our athletes are going to miss Cliff’s daily contact with them,” said Schnitzspahn. “He has had a very positive emotional impact and he is a great tactician. Cliff brought a constant voice to lead the program and facilitate very diverse athletes to work together. Obviously, the quality of coaching he brought to the program was humongous. And many athletes will continue to work with Cliff as a personal coach and we encourage that.”

Schnitzspahn said the move was “a structural one,” and the broad outlines had been discussed with English over the last few weeks. “Basically, we didn’t think the national team coach concept worked very well for our federation,” said Schnitzspahn. “We have seen other Olympic sports governing bodies try it and eventually backed away from it. We have also looked at other countries engaging in a similar struggle that went in this direction.”

Schnitzspahn said that “the position will be reformulated to become more of a resident coordinator.” Schnitzspahn said that former Canadian Olympian Sharon Donnelly, who now serves as Resident Coach at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, will take over the program and organize the facilities and USOC resources needed for athletes. “Instead of having groups of people live here year after year,” said Schnitzspahn, “we will have regular camps and have younger athletes in the mix. Still, we always have a program for athletes with Olympic potential in our resident program. Most of the athletes even now have personal coaches and only take part in some workouts we do on a day to day basis.”

Schnitzspahn said that part of the reorganization will be to offer subsidies to personal coaches of top triathletes.

Underlining his appreciation for English, Schnitzspahn said he strong supports a request by several U.S. Olympic triathletes to include English on the support staff at Beijing. Matt Reed, Laura Bennett and Julie Ertel all lobbied to have English included in the US Olympic effort. “I think Cliff is definitely a very good coach and has been very beneficial to the US National team the past two years,” said Laura Bennett. “While my primary coach is my husband Greg Bennett, I have found Cliff's input to be very valuable and I’ve told USA Triathlon I want him in Beijing.”

Schnitzspahn cited the highly successful USA Swimming program as a prime example of his planmned reorganization. “You can’t argue with their success,” said Schnitzspahn. “They went away from a resident program with a head coach years ago. They made the switch a while back for similar reasons and they’ve been very successful.

“It’s a tough one,” said English. “But I take away the thought there were many successes along the way. I was very proud of what we were able to do with the national coach position. In 2006 at Chula Vista and in 2007 at Noosa, we held camps that made us able to reach a much wider base of athletes around the country. In 2007, we had Julie Ertel, Becky Lavelle, Rebeccah Wassner and Jarrod Shoemaker and they all made great strides. I think USA Triathlon will want to continue on that route, serving more athletes than we are able to with our resident program.”

Both Schnitzspahn and English said that the position of National Team Coach was a tough one that pulled its occupant in many directions at once. “There are many organizational things you have to do which are not part of the job performance for which you are evaluated,” said Schnitzspahn. “There are many administrative tasks and staff meetings – things which are very important to the organization but do not affect athletes’ performance. Cliff had additional responsibilities to set up USOC camps and daily training for all athletes residing in and visiting in Colorado Springs. All of that takes time from working with individual athletes.”

English simply said, “It’s definitely a tough position and you have to wear many hats.”

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the job required English to have the trust of all the athletes and secret-keeping tact of a parish priest. “”It is hard,” he said. “You receive a lot of confidences from great people like Matty Reed, Hunter Kemper, Julie Ertel, and Laura Bennett and you keep it private. You offer them all the best individual advice. Ultimately, when you deal with athletes at this level, all you have is trust. Without that, you have nothing.”

While USA Triathlon officials offered no negative comments, the abrupt removal retains an aura of mystery. Some speculation centered on English’s parallel role as coach of Ironman 70.3 world champion and Ironman Hawaii 2007 runner-up Samantha McGlone - and concerns by a few that English’s focus might have been marginally diverted at times.

All in all, the history of the position has been one beset by turnover and inevitable intramural politics.

The first National Teams Coach was George Dallam, who served from January 1996 to August 1997. Dallam, a distinguished, much-published and honored exercise physiologist, went on to become - and remains to this day - the personal coach for America’s most distinguished male Olympic-distance triathlete, Hunter Kemper.

Matt Haugen replaced Dallam and served from September 1997 to October 27, 2000. During the 2000 Olympic Trials, several U.S. triathletes requested that their personal coach, Michelle Blessing, serve as the official U.S. Olympic Triathlon coach and she, not Haugen, served in that capacity.

After Haugen, USA Triathlon reformulated the job to that of National Teams Director and hired South African Libby Burrell. Burrell had been personal coach to South African Conrad Stoltz, but gave up one-on-one coaching when she took up the job in February 2001 and energized and revolutionized the U.S. approach to international racing. By raising standards for support and urging U.S. men and women to compete more on the international ITU stage, U.S. men like Hunter Kemper and Andy Potts rose to new heights and the women became an international powerhouse, winning two world titles and dominating the rankings and turning in the first Olympic medal for U.S. triathlon with Susan Williams’ bronze in Athens.

When Burrell resigned in January 2006, USA Triathlon divided the position into two parts, with Scott Schnitzspahn taking the top bureaucratic role of Sport Performance Director and English as National Team Coach with responsibilities split between one on one coaching and an onsite tactical advisory role in major championships – as well as managing the OTC resident program.

On a slightly lower level, there is an yet another example how serving under the national governing body is not the ultimate measure of success. Ironically, USAT swim training coach Mike Doane was let go from the program when English, a top swim coach himself, took over. But Doane, following in George Dallam's honorable footsteps, was immediately snapped up by rising men's star Andy Potts to serve as his personal coach through a spectacular rise to become one of the top rated triathletes in the world.