text:
Well, hello Grigor Dmitrov.
The rising 17-year old, who won the 2008 junior boys' titles at Wimbledon + US Open, pushed top baller Rafael Nadal in the Rotterdam second round going the distance before succumbing 7-5, 3-6, 6-2.
Obvs Grigor, who works a sweet one-handed backhand, is one to watch and in more ways than one. I mean, cute much?
*hides from authorities*
PS - This one's for you Tessa!
(images via Getty)
Thursday, February 12, 2009
PHOTO OP: Grigor pushes Rafa in Rotterdam, debuts cuteness to the world
Labels: Grigor Dmitrov, photo op, Rotterdam, tennis
26 comments:
whoawhoawhoawhoa - he's only 17?!?!ReplyDelete
If 40 is the new 20, then 17 is the new...errr...regardless, he's a hottie!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFebruary 12, 2009 at 6:35 PM
He's a Safin-lite with OHBH: heavy bones, clonky gait and Youzhny-like backhand.ReplyDelete
Wonky serve motion, might get him shoulder injury soon. Cocky. Raw looking.
The only reason he took one set off Nadal is the ridiculously fast indoor surface in Rotterdam, which is also totally dead (ball stays low, almost no bounce, impossible to impart spin), the worst possible surface for Rafa. He lost there last year to Seppi of all people! Anybody with half decent serve can beat anybody there.
OMG! total hottie!!!!!!! he reminds me of Marat! omg!!!! lol.... just in time for marat's retirement!ReplyDelete
haha.... another comment!ReplyDelete
I can't stop staring at this kid! well, I'm only 21, so he's not that young! ahahahaha........ he is sooooooo charismatic!!! talk about a new prospect......... ahahaha..
- AllisonFebruary 12, 2009 at 7:53 PM
Word to Verdasco - that's how you wear a faux hawk.ReplyDelete
omg young Federer much?? :)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFebruary 12, 2009 at 9:39 PM
I don't think he looks like Roger and he doesn't seem to be temperamental like Roger was. However, I love that, like Roger, he plays with a one handed backhand and, more importantly, he's quite attractive. Luckily I'm only a few months younger than him.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFebruary 12, 2009 at 10:03 PM
Don't see the attraction, much less cuteness. The guy looks like a 30 year old redneck and moves with no grace at all.ReplyDelete
Safin he ain't.
And that backhand is nothing like Federer's. More like Youzhny's or Kohlschreiber's.
I like his play, and only prob I have with his looks is the fuzz. Shave. The fuzz. Please. Why does (straight) men thinks uneven patches of fuzz is attractive?ReplyDelete
Speaking of cute youngsters, Rich, did you see Jesse Huta Galung? Preeeettyyyyyyy.
Good morning to me!:)ReplyDelete
Thank you Rich!!I love this kid!He definetly has adittute, and watch out for him in next years!I flove how he isn't affaid of big star players, you go Dimtri!
And Babz, I heard of Huta 2 years ago, when his picture was on some tennis site saying it's Korolev,I searched him then,and I must say Huta beats them all in looks department!To bad he sucks at tennis though:(
adittude ehReplyDelete
- tennisfan76February 13, 2009 at 3:32 AM
No, I remember "young Marat" and this guy's not even close imo. Er, not that Marat's old now (backtracks hastily). Still, he acquitted himself well against the world number 1. Nadal won't get past Tsonga if he plays like that. Still, not so long ago he would probably lost a match like that on HC. Well, he'd probably have lost in the first round.ReplyDelete
I did see Galung! I was weirded out by his hair...not quite a hairy situation but he has that severe part.ReplyDelete
but def eye candy!
the kid has potenital...but safin is still the hottest russian on tour; well the hottest dude on tour period and will be until he retires.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFebruary 13, 2009 at 7:06 AM
I thought Grigor was bulgarian. Either way, he's hot and I hate his name.ReplyDelete
Yeah, Grigor is Bulgarian, I also don't like his name cause that was the name of one characther in Kafka's book, if you've read it, that bug in his book was named Grigor Samsa.Although Dimitrov's nick name is Grisha, and that I like!ReplyDelete
And the longer I look at him I realize the kid is really gorgeous!A bit cocky also.Just the one we need!
Nice to see that you also know about Huta ;) his eyes are great! But the hair is definitily not great.ReplyDelete
Here's a short summary of the match of Dimitrov en Rafa:
>>Well, hello Grigor Dmitrov.<<ReplyDelete
Exactly my thoughts.
>>The rising 17-year old,<<
*feels like child predator*
- AnonymousFebruary 13, 2009 at 8:52 AM
- Uvijek ArgenFebruary 13, 2009 at 9:26 AM
He does have that Youzhny style for sure.ReplyDelete
Whoo hoo! I love a one handed backhand - but am going to wait until he's of age to say anything else ;)ReplyDelete
Why didn't the boys look like that when I was 17??ReplyDelete
Sonja - let's face it, our generation is so... lacking.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFebruary 13, 2009 at 1:29 PM
Hey Rich, I love your blog :)ReplyDelete
Could you please write Grigor's surname correctly - his surname is DIMITROV
did some research, he'll be 18 in a few months....lolReplyDelete


text:
Joomla CodeSniffer
From Joomla! Documentation
- 1 A Nose For Joomla
- 2 Why?
- 3 1. Installation of PHP Code Sniffer (phpcs)
- 4 2. Clone Joomla Codestyle
- 5 Usage
- 6 3. IDE integration
A Nose For Joomla
This is a custom coding standard for the PHP CodeSniffer that attempts to codify and enforce the Joomla coding standards. This article covers how to set the automatic code style checker. It consist's of three parts:
- Install PHP CodeSniffer (phpcs)
- Clone Joomla Code Style (for use with for phpcs)
- Configure your IDE to work with PHP CodeSniffer + Joomla Code Style
- Coherent and consisting coding practice makes the files look more professional. Conflicting styles in the same project (or worse, the same file) not only look sloppy, they encourage further sloppiness.
- When all code complies with the same standard, bad code is easier for everyone to spot.
- It makes it easier for someone new to a particular file in the project to find and fix errors, or extend functionality.
- If there is no consistent standard maintained, the sometimes developers will reformat the code to suit themselves. This causes a wide range of changes in the code repository, and if there is a later problem, a significant change could be lost in the chaff produced by a diff.
1. Installation of PHP Code Sniffer (phpcs)
First of all you have to install the PHP CodeSniffer. This set of files is intended to work with phpcs version 1.4, so behavior with any other version is undefined. One way to do this is to start the console (cmd.exe in windows environments) and type:
pear install PHP_CodeSniffer
To specify a specific version of the PHP CodeSniffer, type:
pear install PHP_CodeSniffer-1.5.x (specify a number for x, in August 2015 was 1.5.6)
Important note: currently the latest PHPcs is the 2.x series. But they are under development so Joomla Sniffers are not yet compatible with this 2.x version. PEAR gives you the option to install it by default but since Joomla sniffers will not work remind to always install PHPCS 1.5. version not 2.0.
Pear will handle the whole installation by itself.
A note for windows users: If you are using XAMPP, while installing the PHPCS make sure in cmd.exe the path is set to <path-to-xampp>xampp/php. After that use codeː
pear install PHP_CodeSniffer-1.5.x to install PHPCS. Sometimes while running the command
pear install PHP_CodeSniffer-1.5.x in cmd.exe user may get these 2 error like:
C:\xampp\php>pear install PHP_CodeSniffer-1.5.6 No releases available for package "pear.php.net/PHP_CodeSniffer"install failed
Just clear the cache using the command:
pear clear-cache
After that you are good to go.
ERROR: failed to mkdir C:\php\pear\tests\PHP_CodeSniffer\CodeSniffer\Core\File
This error arises because config values set for different pear related directories are wrong.
Use the following command one by oneː
pear config-set doc_dir <PATH-TO-XAMPP>\xampp\php\pear(e.g.pear config-set doc_dir C:\xampp\php\pear)
pear config-set cfg_dir <PATH-TO-XAMPP>\xampp\php\pear
pear config-set data_dir <PATH-TO-XAMPP>\xampp\php\pear
pear config-set test_dir <PATH-TO-XAMPP>\xampp\php\pear
pear config-set www_dir <PATH-TO-XAMPP>\xampp\php\pear
End of Note
Then download and unzip the Joomla! CodeSniffer and copy the contents of it into /path/to/PHP_CodeSniffer/Standards/Joomla.
In Unix systems this path is usually /usr/lib/php/PHP/PHP_CodeSniffer/Standards/Joomla but this varies from system to system. In Xubuntu 12.04, the path is /usr/share/php/PHP/CodeSniffer/Standards/Joomla. Windows based system with XAMPP have the following path: PATH_TO_XAMMP\php\PEAR\PHP\CodeSniffer\Standards (for example: C:\xampp\php\PEAR\PHP\CodeSniffer\Standards)
pear config-get php_dir
to find out where the PEAR directory is on your system, then add "/PHP/PHP_CodeSniffer/Standards" to it.
PHP Code Sniffer is available via Composer. It can be installed system-wide with the following command:
composer global require 'squizlabs/php_codesniffer=1.*'
On Linux PHP Code Sniffer (phpcs) will be installed under your user folder:
- Symbolic Link: ~/.composer/vendor/bin/phpcs
- The file: ~/.composer/vendor/squizlabs/php_codesniffer/scripts/phpcs
2. Clone Joomla Codestyle
In order to have PHP Code Sniffer (phpcs) sniffing your Joomla projects for the right code style, you've to clone the Joomla Codestyle into the /Standards/ folder of Code Sniffer. That folder already has other folders for styles like PSR1, PSR2, Squiz & Zend.
On Linux, goto the Standards folder of CodeSniffer & git clone from https://github.com/joomla/coding-standards :
$ cd ~/.composer/vendor/squizlabs/php_codesniffer/CodeSniffer/Standards/ $ git clone https://github.com/joomla/coding-standards.git Joomla
You'll end up with a folder like ~/.composer/vendor/squizlabs/php_codesniffer/CodeSniffer/Standards/Joomla/
You invoke the custom standard by
phpcs --standard=Joomla file/to/sniff
To test a platform file using the provided platform coding standards use
phpcs --standard=build/phpcs/Joomla path/to/file/or/folder
Further documentation on the use of phpcs can be found at: [1]
3. IDE integration
While everybody loves the console as it is with no doubt the most effective way to do whatever you need to do.. sometimes even Linux gurus need a little bit of comfort.
Fortunately there is a plugin available for Eclipse, Netbeans and PHPStorm that integrates the CodeSniffer into your favourite IDE, so any coding standard violations are shown like "normal" errors.
Netbeans has the sniffer functionality integrated into the core system
- Start your netbeans IDE
- Open Tools => Options => PHP => Code Analysis => Code Sniffer
- You have to set the path to the phpcs.bat from the installed PHP_CodeSniffer PEAR package
- for Unix based systems the path is something like /usr/bin/phpcs
- in XAMPP (windows) you can find the file in the php root folder (e.g. C:\xampp\php\phpcs.bat)
- As "Default Standard" choose "Joomla" to use the Joomla! standard
- now you can click Ok to start sniffing
- Open from the top menu Source => Inspect...
- Enjoy
Installation is a breeze and follows the usual pattern:
- Help => Install new Software...
- Work with: Fill in one of the update site URLs found here: http://www.phpsrc.org/eclipse/pti/
- Select the desired tools
- Restart Eclipse.
You are now able to sniff for code violations against common standards like PEAR or Zend etc.
To sniff against your own standards, all you have to do is specify their location and activate them (see screen shot 2)
- Window => Preferences
- PHP Tools => PHP CodeSniffer
Happy sniffing
PHP Tools compatibility issue
PHP Tools does not directly support PHP_CodeSniffer-1.5.x. It reports this error:
PHP Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'PHP_CodeSniffer_Exception' with message 'Class PHP_CodeSniffer_CommentParser_ClassCommentParser not found' in /usr/share/php5/PEAR/PHP/CodeSniffer/Standards/Joomla/Sniffs/Commenting/FileCommentSniff.php:18
It comes with a pre-packaged CodeSniffer version located in eclipse/plugins/org.phpsrc.eclipse.pti.library.pear_.../php/library/PEAR/PHP. To fix the issue, you can just remove the pre-packaged CodeSniffer version and link the local version. For example, /usr/share/php/PHP.
ln -s /usr/share/php/PHP /home/.../eclipse/plugins/org.phpsrc.eclipse.pti.library.pear_.../php/library/PEAR/PHP
In any case, you can also debug a PHP Tools issue, enabling the debug mode to show the internal commands in Eclipse console:
- Window => Preferences
- PHP Tools => PHP CodeSniffer
- Debug: print PHP output to console
Command example:
/usr/bin/php -c /tmp/zend_debug/session8314597725413224814.tmp -d asp_tags=off -d short_open_tag=on /home/.../eclipse/plugins/org.phpsrc.eclipse.pti.tools.codesniffer_1.3.0.R20111119000000/php/tools/phpcs.php --report=xml --standard=/home/.../Joomla /home/..../myphpfile.php
CodeSniffer is supported out of the box in PHPStorm, just go to settings, and under "Inspections" you will see the list of Sniff you have installed.
See: the JetBrains documentation page for setting the Code Sniffer and also phpStorm Blog)
For users on ubuntu using phpStorm. Don't listen instructions at http://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/webhelp/using-php-code-sniffer-tool.html#d59626e1126 because there is no working bat (windows file) on linux system. To validate your CodeSniffer choose /usr/bin/phpcs launcher.
Under Settings->Inspections when you choose joomla profile, in the tree below, search for PHP and open it and than make sure that PHP Code Sniffer validation checkbox is checked. Otherwise PHP Code Sniffer won't sniff your code.
On ubuntu you install code standards with: cd /usr/share/php/PHP/CodeSniffer/Standards sudo git clone http://github.com/joomla/coding-standards.git Joomla
Installing Joomla Sniff
- get the sniffers from the coding standards repo
- unpack Joomla CodeSniffer rules under:
- If you are using XAMPP \xampp\php\PEAR\PHP\CodeSniffer\Standards\Joomla
- If not maybe you should check here: /usr/share/php/PHP/CodeSniffer/Standards
- Go to Settings (CTRL-ALT-S) and search for "PHP Code Sniffer Validation" under inspection option, click the button Validate to force reload of rules from disk
- Make sure to go through this path Settings->Languages & Framework->PHP->Code Sniffer->Select 3 dot option in right pane and make the PHP Code Sniffer(PHPCS) Path to the phpcs.bat (e.g C:\xampp\php\phpcs.bat)
- Joomla should be now available in the list. See following image:
Installing Joomla Code style
It's nice to be able to check that the standards are respected, but it's even nicer if phpstorm helps you formatting properly too as you are coding. To add joomla code style to phpstorm
- first get the xml scheme file from here: https://github.com/betweenbrain/phpstorm-joomla-code-style
- Then save the file in phpstorm home directory: <phpstorm home directory>/config/codestyles/Joomla.xml
- restart phpstorm, and you should be able to select Joomla from the Code Style > Scheme select box
PHP PSR-0, PSR-1 and PSR-2
- https://github.com/php-fig/fig-standards/blob/master/accepted/PSR-0.md
- https://github.com/pmjones/fig-standards/blob/psr-1-style-guide/proposed/PSR-1-basic.md
- https://github.com/pmjones/fig-standards/blob/psr-1-style-guide/proposed/PSR-2-advanced.md
Installing PHP PSR-0, PSR-1 and PSR-2 Sniff
A CodeSniffer sniff to check against the PSR-x Coding Standard
Download files at
if you are using Xampp,
- unpack PSR-1 CodeSniffer rules under \xampp\php\PEAR\PHP\CodeSniffer\Standards\PSR (SPR or any directory will work)
- Go to Settings (CTRL-ALT-S) and search for "PHP Code Sniffer Validation", click the button Validate to force reload of rules from disk
- PSR is available in the list
PHPStorm / Alternative method
NOTE: This method is outdated, but it might be useful if you are looking for a different integration. It also demonstrates the use of external tools in PHPStorm - so it shouldn't be deleted.
The CodeSniffer can also be integrated easily as an external tool. PHPStorm will display the output in the console, including clickable links containing line and column numbers to the files that contain errors.
- Click on "Settings" and search for "External tools"
- Click "Add..."
- Choose a "name", "Group" and "Description".
- Click "Output Filters"
- Click "Add...", Choose a name and enter under "Regular expression to match output" the value: $FILE_PATH$:$LINE$:$COLUMN$
- "Program": Search for the phpcs executable on your system. You have to set the path to the phpcs.bat from the installed PHP_CodeSniffer PEAR package
- for Unix based systems the path is something like /usr/bin/phpcs
- in XAMPP (windows) you can find the file in the php root folder (e.g. C:\xampp\php\phpcs.bat)
- "Parameters":
- --standard=<path/to/joomla-platform>/build/phpcs/Joomla The path to the Joomla! coding standards.
- --report=emacs The will generate a simple list containing links to the error files
- Optional you may want to specify -p for "progress" or -n for "errors only".
- The last parameter has to be $FilePath$ specifying the file or folder you want to sniff.
A typical "Parameters" line on a Linux system might look like this:
-np --standard=/home/elkuku/libs/joomla/build/phpcs/Joomla --report=emacs $FilePath$
You may now right click any file or folder and choose the sniffer from the context menu or add a new toolbar button with a nice Joomla! logo .
- http://www.phpsrc.org/ PTI - PHP tools integration for Eclipse
- http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmdnb/ Netbeans plugin
- http://hakre.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/php-code-sniffer-eclipse-and-wordpress/ - Excellent article. Just change "Wordpress" for "Joomla!" ;)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
June 1, 2016
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says a Louisiana-based meat packing company has expanded a recall of meat products because of possible bacterial contamination. No illnesses have been reported
The Manda Packing Company recall announced this past week now includes 468,000 pounds of roast beef, ham, turkey breast, tasso (TAH'-soh) pork, ham shanks, hog headcheese, corned beef, and pastrami.
The agriculture department said Friday the products were recalled because of possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes.
The products were shipped to retailers in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.
A statement on the company's website says the recalled meats were produced at Manda's Baker facility between Feb. 27 and April 9.
Click Here to access the online Public Inspection File
Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
See All Contributors »
ISUFan22's College Playoff system
- Shorten the season by one game
- Everyone begins the season on the same weekend, each team gets only one bye week
- All conferences must have a title game, scheduled for the same week
- Every conference winner is automatically in
- 3 at-large teams get in determined by current/similar-to-current BCS rules
- All teams are seeded based on BCS rules, voting and/or records.
- Top 2 seeded teams receive a bye.
- Other bowls would exist, but there damn well would not be 32 of them.
Teams in Proposed Playoff for 2006
Big 10: Ohio State
SEC: Florida
ACC: Wake Forest
Big 12: Oklahoma
Big East: Louisville
Pac-10: USC
WAC: Boise State
CUSA: Houston
MAC: Central Michigan
Mountain West: BYU
Sun Belt: Troy
At-Large: Michigan
At-Large: Notre Dame
At-Large: LSU
Ohio State
Proposed 2006 Bracket
Houston (winner to play Ohio State)
Notre Dame
Boise State
Wake Forest
Central Michigan
Troy (winner to play Florida)
Proposed 2006 Schedule
Round 1 – Dec. 9th
Round 2 – Dec. 16th
Round 3 – Dec. 23
Round 4 – Jan 6th
Of course, that propose bracket is very hypothetical, as I did not go through any sort of real seeding process. I just guesstemated where teams should fall just to get a format established.
For the teams that lose in the early rounds getting a bowl game - good question. Since everyone else is playing in their own bowl game - my thought is the playoffs are single elimination (of course) and once you lose, you're done for the season.
However, it would not be hard to implement some sort of bowl game for all the teams that failed to reach the title game, matching them up based on when the lost and having them play someone new. I could get on board with that too - being the bowl games are just as much for the fans getting to travel south as they are for the teams.
This system could easily be tweaked by adding 2 more at-large teams and eliminating the byes for Ohio State and Florida. Therefore adding 2 more teams and eliminating the "who gets a bye" controversy.
Last edited by ISUFan22; 12-04-2006 at 01:42 PM.
good system except for who determines the two teams that get byes? That is going to lead to controversy also, say there are a lot of teams that are close to even, how do you say you determine who gets bye?
Thats great and everything, but rich get richer. Another month of TV exposure for the big time programs. I know everyone hates the number of bowl games, but its more money for the entire conference and it has helped to create parity. A playoff system also takes so much class time away from the athletes who already are missing class. It would take the student out of the STUDENT-athlete. I wouldn't mind it, but its only good for the fans.
Easy, the top two teams the BCS.
Go Sssssssssyclones!
So does this system now eliminate bowls? What about all the other teams who had successful seasons but were not a member of the elite class? If there are still going to be bowl games then what about the teams that lose out in the playoff's? Is their season over or do they then get to play in a bowl game on top of their playoff games?
Sorry for all the questions, just trying to get puzzle pieced together in my head.
I don't buy into the "missing class" thing, not for a second. All other levels of college football can make their way through a playoff system without falling apart scholastically - why can't the big boys?
The bye stuff will have to be determined by the current BCS rankings. Sure, there will be controversy there - just as there is controversy in the MBB tourney for who gets the #1 spots. But after the initial seeds come out, you don't here of it anymore. Once you're in, you're in - and that's all that really matters.
The rest - is up to the teams.
Other bowls would still exist similar to what takes place today - just not as many of them.
For the teams that lose in the early round getting a bowl game - good question. Since everyone else is playing in their own bowl game - my thought is the playoffs are single elimination (of course) and once you lose, you're done for the season.
However, it would not be hard to implement some sort of bowl game for all the teams that failed to reach the title game, matching them up based on when the lost and having them play someone new. I could get on board with that too - being the bowl games are just as much for the fans getting to travel south as they are for the teams.
Last edited by ISUFan22; 12-04-2006 at 01:20 PM.
WAC: Boise State
CUSA: Houston
MAC: Central Michigan
Mountain West: BYU
Sun Belt: Troy
No of these conferences need automatic bids. That is total crap to let BYU, CMU, and Troy in over teams like Califonia, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Auburn, Nebraska, Wisconson, Texas, and Rutgers.
hmmm, an idea to decide a champion ON the field...you're crazy
what's wrong with computers and pollsters telling us who should play for the championship? oh wait...
Originally Posted by acrozier22
WAC: Boise State
CUSA: Houston
MAC: Central Michigan
Mountain West: BYU
Sun Belt: Troy
No of these conferences need automatic bids. That is total crap to let BYU, CMU, and Troy in over teams like Califonia, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Auburn, Nebraska, Wisconson, Texas, and Rutgers.
Crap or not, they won their conference and deserve to be rewarded for it.
If you do a wholesale top x teams in the play-offs - you lose a little bit of what's great about college football - that each and every week is do-or-die.
With this system, you still get that. Troy & CMU don't have a great record - yet they won their conference. Like the MBB tourney - these teams get rewarded for such.
Interesting concept. I'm sure there are a thousand different takes on how a playoff system would work.
But in my opinion they all result in too many games.
It would also be difficult to tell smaller teams and bowls that they no longer exist. Schools like the money and recognition of the bowl system. I agree there are too many bowls but now it is status quo. It would be hard to reduce that number now.
I don't recall who, but some broadcaster this weekend made a good point about bowl games being an event. With a playoff system, he pointed out that it would just be a game at some location and then off to the next location. There isn't time to spend at the city and make it a total event weekend like they do with the bowl system
As much as I dislike the BCS, I think the playoff system just might be worse.
ISU Grad 1997.
ISU Fan for Life.
Not in CO anymore but I'm not changing my name :)
Where would these playoff games be played at?
One option is home field advantage for the higher seeded team. But then what do you do with all the higher tier bowl games?
Another option is to hold the playoff games at the current BCS bowl sites. Although this is one way to keep the high tier bowls in a playoff system, I always wondered how the traveling logistics would work out for fans and teams. Imagine one weekend traveling to Miami, the next to new Orleans and finally to Pasadena. That would get tough on both the fans and the team.
What other ways could you do it? Ideas?
As I added to the original post, you'll still have the bowl games and if you allowed the teams in the playoffs that don't reach the title game to play in a bowl game....
You still get a playoff while at the same time getting a bowl game for every team.
Locations could be either way - higher seed at home or at neutral fields. I see the benefits to both sides of that one.
I like it, but why not go with 5 at large teams so its a field of 16 and there are no byes during the playoffs. Also, take away that rule that only 2 teams from each conference can go, that way you would have Michigan, Wisconsin, Auburn, Notre Dame, and Arkansas all getting playoff bids.
I also dont think you would have to get rid of Bowl games, you would just have to get rid of some of the "non-traditional" bowl game (i.e. the Papajohns.com bowl).
I think we need to find a way to incorporate the bowl system into a playoff and I think we need to do away with championship games, the best team in the conference goes, the football championship is much better than basketball, basketball has to be done away with! I think bowls should remain for the other teams that aren't in the playoffs and that the championship game would be played in glendale this year, the two semi-finals would be in Miami and Pasadena, and the quarterfinals would be played in Tempe, New Orleans, Dallas, and Tampa and the other six would be played on campus
Big Shawn, Super Clone!
Why does Notre Dame get in above Auburn? They're ahead of them in the final BCS poll.....
That's the problem I have with people (not you in particular) screaming about a playoff in favor of the BCS. How do you decide the teams?
When you have two undefeateds, it's simple and nobody really complains. But how do you decide when you get to a number of 1 loss and moreso when you have a whole slew of 2 loss teams?
FWIW, I think you're on to something with conf champsionship being an automatic. How many independents are left besides the Irish?
And there's no reason to get rid of the bowls. You'd just "tier" them, not unlike the big 4 BCS bowls right now, but involve a few more. If you lose in week 1 of the playoffs, you go to tier 4 bowls, quarterfinals losers go to tier 3, semis to tier 2. And the top bowls would trade off on priority, even which tier, much like they do currently.
Maybe you don't have a sponsor for the championship game (it'll pay for itself, I'd think). Just have the NCAA national championship game that everybody can get their name on ever year, through the tv package.
Last edited by DaddyMac; 12-04-2006 at 01:39 PM.
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text: To the Editor:As a former Henry Waldinger Library trustee, I must commend you on your editorial "Village should commit more to library" (Aug. 22-28).No matter how one slices it, juggling around hours and staff will not cut it. To save pennies now is futile in view of the fact that for a few dollars we may achieve a better working library.Let's not follow the path of some of the last village administrations, where the library budget we presented to them was always rejected in favor of any other department. The word for it was frustration.Fran ManciniValley Stream


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An Interdisciplinary Approach for Academic Excellence:
Essential Skills for 21st Century Life
"The greatest problem we face in today's world is conflict, but the quality of our life depends not on conflicts, but our response to them."
The Conflict Resolution Institute (CRI) at the University of Denver bridges nine academic units and five professional schools to create truly multidisciplinary offerings in the theory, research, and practice of conflict resolution. The Academic Program offers an M.A. degree, while the Center for Conflict Engagement coordinates conferences, visiting scholars, joint projects, and community partnerships. CRI focuses on reflective practice, conflict analysis and assessment, conflict resolution capacity building, and restoring the community fabric in ongoing intractable conflict and post-conflict settings. Institute start-up and development was generously supported by a gift from the Henry R. Luce Foundation.
An Interdisciplinary Approach for Academic Excellence:
Essential Skills for 21st Century Life
Integrating Theory & Practice:
Creating Impact Across Boundaries for Conflict Resolution & Peacebuilding


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Video: Press Conference: Capitol Shooting Incident
Video: WUSA9 Gets Answers On AlHurra
Video: Car Chase Ends in Shooting At US Capitol
Video: Al Hurra took this video of the Car Chase in DC
Video: Car Chase Ends With Deadly Shooting At U.S. Capitol
WASHINGTON -- (WUSA9/USA Today/AP) -- A woman tried to drive through the barricade near the White House and the Capitol, before she was shot and killed by law enforcement, police said. A child was in the car when the woman tried to ram into a gate of the White House.
The chaotic events began at 2:12 p.m. when the driver rammed a temporary barrier at 15th and E Streets NW, hitting a Secret Service officer, said Secret Service chief Ed Donovan. Other Secret Service officers chased the woman east on Pennsylvania Avenue but did not shoot.
Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier said Capitol Police officers pursued the speeding car eastbound and tried to stop it in Garfield Circle, just west of the Capitol lawn. A 23-year-veteran officer suffered non-life-threatening injuries when he crashed into a barrier.
Police had the woman's car surrounded but she escaped, ramming a Secret Service vehicle as she fled. Lanier said police then fired their first shots at the suspect.
The driver made her way onto Constitution Avenue before eventually stopping in the 100 blocks of Maryland Avenue NE, near the Hart Senate Office Building. Police killed the driver after she got out of her vehicle and tried to flee.
Ten gun shots were reported near the U.S. Capitol building.
Larry Murr, a former Louisville resident living in Jacksonville, Fla., was visiting the Capitol building when he heard the gunfire, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.
"We were standing there, looking at the building, and all of a sudden we heard a pop-pop-pop-pop," he said, saying he thought he heard four to five shots fired in rapid succession.
Two federal officials told USA TODAY that all shots were fired by law enforcement officers. One official said no gun was recovered from the Infiniti.
Terrance Gainer, the Sergeant at Arms of the U.S. Senate, said the woman's vehicle could not have reached the Capitol itself because "there are barricades up all the time."
As the chase unfolded, members of Congress and staff were told by Capitol police to "immediately shelter in place." Less than an hour later, a TV screen in the Senate press gallery flashed an "all clear" message.
Security was heightened at the White House as a precaution and President Obama was briefed on the incident, according to White House officials.
VIDEO: Carey's apartment searched http://newyork.cbslocal.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=9377763
A 23-year veteran of the Capitol Police and a Secret Service Officer were injured, according to the Capitol Police chief. The Capitol Police officer has since been released from the Hospital after being treated, officials said.
"This does not appear to be in any way an accident," Lanier said, noting that the woman twice tried to breach security barriers and struck a uniformed Secret Service officer near the White House.
U.S. Capitol Police chief Kim Dine said the incident "appears to be an isolated, singular matter, with, at this point, no nexus to terrorism."
Carey's mother, Idella Carey, told ABC News that her daughter started suffering from post-partum depression after giving birth to her daughter, Erica, last August.
"She was depressed. ... She was hospitalized," said Idella Carey.
Idella Carey said Miriam Carey had "no history of violence" and she didn't know why she was in D.C. She said she thought Carey was taking Erica to a doctor's appointment in Connecticut.
ABC News reported that Miriam Carey was a dental hygienist. Her boss, Dr. Steven Oken, described Carey as a person who was "always happy."
"I would never in a million years believe that she would do something like this," he said. "It's the furthest thing from anything I would think she would do, especially with her child in the car. I am floored that it would be her."
The Associated Press reported that a former employer, periodontist Brian Evans of Hamden, Conn., said she was fired from her job about a year ago. He said Carey leftafter she was hospitalized for a head injury she suffered in a fall down a staircase. Evans said there was nothing unusual about her exit, but didn't go into detail.


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Part 1 of a very banter heavy battle report.
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|Check out this easy to make trench terrain for 40k, or whatever other miniature war game you can think of!
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The Confessions of Eddy Hellebuyck
An American marathon champion, suspended six years ago from the sport for doping, finally reveals the truth behind the charges—and why he now hopes to redeem himself.
"I find it interesting that some celebrities are big heroes because of their love life," he says, watching a TV replay of Woods apologizing. A native of Belgium who became a U.S. citizen in 1999, Hellebuyck speaks English with a charming accent and an awkward yet apposite syntax. "But other big stars," he continues in a wondering tone, "they get crucified."
Hellebuyck leans back in the booth. His blue eyes are clear, his face is handsomely seamed and tanned, and at age 49 his 5-foot-4-inch frame remains as lithe as a teenager's. No man could seem more at ease. And yet, despite all appearances, Eddy Hellebuyck is living in exile.
In 2004, when he was 43 and his 25-year running career was enjoying a sudden, blazing renaissance, Hellebuyck failed an out-of-competition drug test administered by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). He vehemently contested the results, which showed that he had used the banned substance erythropoietin (EPO), which enhances endurance, while preparing for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. Hellebuyck fought the case all the way to an arbitration court in Switzerland, but there the results were upheld. In December 2004 he was issued a two-year suspension retroactive to January 31, the date when he was given the test. To this day Eddy Hellebuyck is the only Olympic-caliber American marathoner to have been found guilty of a major doping violation.
Although he continued to claim his innocence after his suspension ended, Hellebuyck became a pariah within the international running community. In 2005, he and his wife, Shawn, and their young son, Jordan, left their longtime home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to start a new life here in Tucson. That new life has taken deep root. "There are so many good things happening for us now," Hellebuyck tells me over lunch. The cross-country and track teams he helps coach at nearby Ironwood Ridge High School both won state titles in 2009. Steve Magnuson, a senior at the school whom Hellebuyck has been mentoring for the last five years, has developed into one of the top prep runners in the nation, earning a scholarship to the University of North Carolina in the process. Hellebuyck plays golf several times a week, Shawn's insurance business is prospering, and Jordan, who is now 15, is starting a promising running career under his father's guidance.
Midway through our meal, Shawn joins us. A brisk, voluble woman of 46, she was part of her husband's management team during his competitive days and continues to advocate fiercely for his innocence. Hellebuyck explains to her that I am thinking of writing a story about him, a story about what happened to her husband after his suspension. Shawn eyes me, then says, "I'll tell you straight out that I'm against Eddy giving you an interview. Why stir up mud that's taken so long to settle?"
And then Shawn begins chanting the mantra of denial that she and Eddy have maintained for the last six years. "Everyone knows that the drug tests are inaccurate and unfair," she says. "Why would Eddy risk doping at the end of his career when he had no chance of making any big money? Do you know what kind of story I'd love to read? Not some tired old story about what happened 10 years ago, but one about an honest athlete trying to redeem himself after a false doping violation." Then Shawn changes subjects, and starts talking about Jordan. "Who knows, Jordan might be the third generation in his family to make it to the Olympics. Did you know that Eddy's father boxed in the '56 Melbourne Games for Belgium?"
After about a half-hour, Shawn stands to leave. She shoots her husband a glance, and then heads out of the restaurant and back to her insurance office. For a few minutes, Eddy and I work at our pizza. On the TV above the bar, ESPN keeps showing Tiger Woods apologizing. I'm thinking that, given Hellebuyck's continued denial, there is no real story here, and that I'll soon be driving to the airport to catch my flight home. But suddenly the conversation shifts when I finally ask Eddy if, in fact, he doped.
"Do you think I did?" he asks me.
"I don't know," I reply. "I don't know you. All I know is what I've read and heard."
Hellebuyck hesitates. He no longer looks like a man at home in the world.
"Yeah," he says, "I did it."
FOR THE NEXT 25 MINUTES, Eddy Hellebuyck continues to confess. On that bright winter afternoon, out of the blue of the desert sky, he singlehandedly begins to break the code of silence shrouding the use of performance-enhancing drugs in distance running. Over the ensuing weeks and months, in a series of interviews conducted over the phone, at his home, and during breaks while training his high school athletes, Hellebuyck would lay out his story in detail. During our initial interviews, Shawn knew that Eddy was talking to me, he says, but she assumed that it was business as usual with a journalist: Eddy persisting with his story of denial. It wouldn't be until early April, six weeks after our surprising lunch, that he would tell his wife the extent of our conversations. From that point forward, Eddy would no longer meet with me one-on-one, and almost five months would pass before the couple granted me another in-person interview. Eddy, clearly, was willing to risk a great deal, including straining his marriage, in order to assuage his guilt. "Shawn doesn't know how I lie awake at night, worrying about what people think of me," Eddy would tell me at one point. Chief among his worries was his son's opinion; as Jordan progresses in his running career, Eddy assumed he would eventually hear the troubling stories about his father. "Jordan deserves the truth," Hellebuyck would say, "and he needs to hear it from me. But how can I tell Jordan the truth while I keep up the denial in public? What am I teaching my son then?"So many denials: For six years they blanketed his family; now, for Eddy Hellebuyck, they form a bed of nails.
ONE MORNING LAST MARCH, a few weeks after our first conversation, Hellebuyck and I meet at his home in Oro Valley. Jordan is at school and Shawn is at her office. He explains that his decision to start using a performance-enhancing drug began after a series of conversations he had with his wife in the summer of 2001 at their home in a quiet upper-middle-class neighborhood of Albuquerque. With its singular blend of sunny weather, 5,300-foot elevation, and accessible network of mountain trails and other training venues, Albuquerque had drawn visiting runners since the 1960s, when the University of New Mexico started recruiting foreign athletes. Since 1994, when they began renting out rooms to runners from around the world, Shawn and Eddy had helped boost the city's reputation as a center of the sport. Shawn would find races for the athletes and arrange their travel, while Eddy would train and often race with them.
The enterprise prospered due to Shawn's business acumen and Eddy's extensive contacts in the sport. During the 1980s and 1990s, he was among the most prolific and consistent professional road racers in the world. He completed most of his marathons in under 2:30, logging more than 20 victories and a 2:11:50 PR. "Eddy was an extremely tenacious competitor," says Mark Plaatjes, the 1993 marathon world champion, who often competed against Hellebuyck. "He did well in races that were a grind, and no one could run quality races more frequently. He had an incredible ability to recover."
In 1996, Hellebuyck realized a lifelong dream, running the Olympic Marathon for his native Belgium. He prepared for the race in Albuquerque, training in a group that included Peter Whitehead from Great Britain, Gert Thys and Josiah Thugwane from South Africa, Khalid Skah from Morocco, and Leonid Shvetsov from Russia. The group would hammer tempo runs in the foothills of 11,000-foot Sandia Crest and log speedwork on the track of a nearby prep school. After workouts the men would relax at the Hellebuycks' spacious stucco house on Seligman Avenue. One evening they were sitting around the kitchen table—Thys, Thugwane, Skah, Shvetsov, Hellebuyck—and decided that the Olympic Marathon champion was sitting among them. "We took a vote, and nobody was allowed to vote for themselves," Hellebuyck says. "I came in second." At the Games, however, Hellebuyck faded after a promising start. "I finished 67th," he says wistfully. "Thugwane, of course, won the gold."
Hellebuyck later ran the marathon for the United States at the 1999 World Track and Field Championships (placing 26th, in 2:20:18), but in 2000, at his first U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, he finished fifth, failing to make the team. His Olympic-level career seemed all but over, or so he indicated to Shawn when they talked one summer night in 2001. "My motivation was gone," Hellebuyck remembers telling her. "I was 40 years old and had been running since I was 14."
Eddy Hellebuyck was born and raised in Deinze, Belgium, a town in the Flanders region. His father, Danny Hellebuyck, was a bantamweight boxer. In 1956, as a member of the Belgian Olympic team, Danny had been eliminated from medal competition in the preliminary rounds in Melbourne. Back in Belgium he turned pro, but an eye injury ended his career. He opened a tavern that became one of the most popular in Flanders. A physically precocious child who began walking at nine months, Eddy entertained patrons by toddling around on top of the bar. "I think in the United States you could never grow up this way," he says. Such an upbringing also proved untenable in Belgium. His mother, Helena, later told Eddy that Danny cheated on her. By the time her son was one, his parents had divorced.
Eddy and his mother went to live with her father, and the Dickensian saga intensified. "My grandfather was terrible to me," Hellebuyck says. "I remember climbing up on the dinner table like I used to climb on my dad's bar. My grandfather hit me so hard I fell off the table and nearly got a concussion. Another time, I did something he didn't like and my grandfather grabbed me and went outside with me and held me by both ankles over the top of a well. 'If you do that one more time, I will drop you in,' he said."
Eddy's turbulent childhood continued when he started school. He tried playing soccer, but due to his diminutive size, he'd be fouled frequently and the refs grew tired of blowing their whistles. The other kids, meanwhile, bullied Eddy mercilessly. "They put me in a trash can and evil stuff like that," he says. "But luckily I could run fast and escape." As a freshman in high school, Hellebuyck joined a club cross-country team, and his quickness and size began to work to his advantage. "I didn't have to worry about refs blowing their whistles or teammates refusing to pass me the ball," he says. "With running, if I train really hard and do my best and live right, I could be somebody."
By his senior year, Hellebuyck had developed into a nationally ranked junior cross-country runner and had resolved to build a career in the sport. In the early 1980s, aspiring Belgian runners often joined the army, which provided training opportunities in exchange for top finishes in the military cross-country meets. The minimum weight for recruits, however, was 100 pounds; when he graduated from high school Hellebuyck weighed just 89 pounds. He received a special exception and was assigned to the tank corps, serving on the NATO front line on the border with East Germany. He squeezed in workouts between drills and maneuvers. "I would run around and around the parade grounds, 50 or 60 laps," he says. "Guys would come out from the enlisted-men's club with their beers and laugh at me."
Hellebuyck persevered, becoming one of the top runners in the Belgian army. In 1982, when he was 21 and married to his first wife, Nicole, Hellebuyck entered his first marathon to prove to various family members that he was a distance runner. (He divorced Nicole, with whom he had two children, in 1992.) Hellebuyck ran a 2:17 that day on scant training. The distance came naturally to the light-boned runner. By 1984, he'd whittled his PR to 2:13 and nearly earned a berth in the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Meanwhile, he happily continued his military career. "I was working hard as a sports instructor," he says. "And I was in the best shape of my life."
Barracks life also taught Hellebuyck how to walk on the wild side. In 1986, he was offered a trip to a marathon in the Philippines. He won the race in 2:19, he recalls, and got drunk at the after-party. "I go home with a Filipino girl, and the next morning I don't know where I am," Hellebuyck says. "I have to sneak out of her house to get back to my hotel. The race organizers give me the prize money in cash, $10,000. But you can't take that much through customs in Europe. So I make a plan with a Philippines Airlines flight attendant, who I'd been dating during my stay there. I get off the plane and go through customs and there is the flight attendant waiting for me in the terminal with the cash."
Hellebuyck would race almost every weekend. African athletes were not yet dominating the marathon, cities around the world were establishing races, and organizers liberally offered airline tickets, hotel rooms, and prize money to elite European and American runners. Hellebuyck found a niche in hot-weather races in exotic locales—Hawaii, Egypt, Nigeria—and in second-tier races in American cities. As was the case in the Philippines, Hellebuyck made a point of enjoying the local color as much as the competition. A few nights before the 1989 Cleveland Marathon, Hellebuyck says, he got so drunk at a bar that he was nearly hospitalized with alcohol poisoning. He was still feeling the effects at the start of the marathon, but to his own amazement, he eventually won the race.
EDDY HELLEBUYCK LOVED THE MONEY, travel, and partying that came with racing, but he also wanted to be taken seriously as a world-class athlete. He dreamed of following in his father's footsteps and representing Belgium in the Olympics. After failing to earn a spot in the marathon at the 1992 Games at age 31, however, it seemed that his fate as a journeyman road racer was sealed. In the fall of '92, he accepted an offer to rabbit the Chicago Marathon. Still feeling strong at the 14-mile mark, he ran the entire distance, finishing third, one of his five top-10 finishes at Chicago. At the postrace party Hellebuyck began dancing with Shawn Kavanaugh, a tall, blond 10-K and 5-K road runner who'd graduated from DePaul University and was now starting out as an athlete's agent. "Right away there is energy between us," Hellebuyck remembers. Between dances, he told Shawn his troubles.
"This is at the height of my rambling days," he says. "I have four girls in love with me in different parts of the world. Four women I am stringing along. I am hurting these girls and know it's wrong. I want to get out, I want to lift above my past life and start over in America. I have been running okay, but I have hit a ceiling. My agent is having trouble getting me good races."
Soon thereafter, and once she had her management business in place, Shawn said to Eddy, "You should come run for me." Hellebuyck jumped at the offer. Within a few months, he resigned from the Belgian army and started the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. Shawn and Eddy, who would marry in January 1995, soon began their life together in Albuquerque, the Shangri-La of distance running. Eddy loved the city because he could hammer the trails with his pals and then go out for cheap margaritas and Mexican food. Shawn, by contrast, recognized Albuquerque as a business opportunity. By the mid-'90s, they had bought several properties and were renting rooms to visiting runners. The rate was a bargain: $10 a day. Eddy knew everybody on the circuit and word got around quickly.
"Teams from A to Z came to train. Angolans to Zambians and everything in between," Shawn wrote in an e-mail she sent in May after learning that Eddy had decided to tell the full story of his involvement with performance-enhancing drugs. "You name it, they trained here. Seventeen Olympians from seven nations trained together in Albuquerque for the 1996 Olympics. Boy, did we learn. We saw athletes drink liver-and-beet milkshakes and Eastern European females do hill repeats pushing a car."
Andrew Letherby, a former elite distance runner for his native Australia, lived with the couple on and off for two years during the late '90s and had Shawn serve as his agent. "My experience with Shawn and Eddy was quite positive," he says. "As an agent, Shawn was great for me. She got me into good races and started me on the path to being a professional runner. And training on a daily basis with world-class athletes was inspiring."
Others in the running community, however, took a dimmer view of the Hellebuyck enterprise. John DeHart, a coach in the Albuquerque area who worked with three-time Boston Marathon champion Cosmas Ndeti and other Kenyan runners, says that Hellebuyck "would crowd six or eight guys into a room that should hold only two or three. I'm a former Marine, and it was worse than I saw in any garrison barracks. The Kenyans tended to be very docile, trusting people. They didn't like it, but they didn't feel like they had the right to complain."
Ryan Board, an American runner who was a tenant of the Hellebuycks intermittently from 1994 to 1996, says that Eddy was known to "nickel and dime you," going so far as to "charge you a dollar for drinking half of a soda" and "renting out my car without asking me." Others sources say Eddy committed more egregious offenses as well, with several saying he would resell running shoes he took from African runners who were his tenants.
Eddy and Shawn deny all of these charges. In reference to Board's car-rental claims, Eddy says, "Maybe we used his car, but we did not rent it out." As for the taking of running shoes, Shawn says, "That is absurd. Eddy always had a shoe sponsorship and didn't need their shoes."
One issue, though, between the Hellebuycks and a tenant actually did lead to a lawsuit. Jose Moreira, a Brazilian distance runner who stayed at the couple's house for two years, sued them in June 1999, charging that they'd withheld payment for his labor. "I cooked for them, I cleaned for them, I took care of their little boy, and they didn't want to give me a penny," Moreira says of the Hellebuycks. "They could get away with this with most of their foreign runners, but not with me. I played dumb, like I didn't understand English, but all the time I kept my eyes and ears open."
While the Hellebuycks claim the suit was unfounded—"I was a stay-at-home mom," says Shawn, "so no one watched our son"—they ended up paying Moreira $11,000, according to Eddy.
Today, Eddy denies that he mistreated Moreira or other tenants. Indeed, from the Hellebuycks' perspective, some of their tenants and other visiting runners started the trouble. "The more prominent the athlete, the more unusual the habit they brought with them," Shawn remembers. "Since it was our town, it was often our problem to resolve. I bailed famous people's spouses out of jail and negotiated for foreign athletes who totaled their car rentals in accidents. We saw a few DUIs and a public urination arrest of a female Kenyan Olympian. I have been asked to accompany mistresses to terminate unwanted pregnancies. I needed to coordinate the housing for a certain athlete's wife and mistress at separate properties. Then there was stuff like malaria and sexually-transmitted-disease relief."
Such was the scene throughout much of Albuquerque's elite running community in the 1990s and early 2000s—a scene that, according to a number of sources, also involved the use of performance-enhancing drugs by many of the visiting runners. "Starting in 1999, we noticed a trend," Shawn says. "Athletes had new sorts of requests. Where to get a syringe, more privacy, leases not in their names. Athletes started traveling with an additional coach who knew nothing about running. A prominent distributor resided in Albuquerque. He was a great athlete who, when drunk, rattled off the list of performance-enhancing users. Most of these athletes were winning major marathons."
The principal substance was EPO. A hormone produced by the kidneys that stimulates the production of oxygen-bearing red blood cells, EPO appears naturally in the body. The pharmaceutical version was developed in the late '80s to boost the red-blood-cell counts of patients suffering from anemia associated with kidney disease. An increased level of EPO in the body can enhance the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood and, hence, a runner's endurance. Its benefits to a distance runner accrue during training; a juiced runner can ring up repeated high-quality workouts, with the payoff coming on race day. Shortly after its introduction, EPO was used illicitly by endurance athletes in Europe, especially cyclists; the drug stood at the center of the scandal that rocked the Tour de France bicycle race in 1998. But in distance-running circles, no prominent American or foreign-born marathoner had been implicated through the first decade of its existence. Still, according to sources, EPO was easy to come by in Albuquerque.
"Several of the French guys would arrive at the airport, and when I helped them with their luggage, I felt the ice packs in their backpacks," Hellebuyck says. "This was their EPO. The stuff had to be refrigerated. When it was time to fly home, the guys would offer their leftover EPO to me, free of charge, but I always say no. In fact, I don't want to even know about it. I'm no prude, far from it, but I never doped [back then], even in the days in Belgium."
Years earlier, before he moved to the United States, Hellebuyck says he attended a training camp in Belgium for athletes from a variety of endurance sports. "One day at the breakfast table, the guys were asking me, because I was the only distance runner there, 'What are you taking?' I'm like, what? This was just normal for the triathletes and cyclists to talk about at breakfast. 'Honestly,' I tell them, 'I'm not taking anything; I'm not doing that.' But they were saying everybody is on something. They tried to convince me that I couldn't do it without it. But it's true. I don't need to dope because I'm a freak of nature in terms of recovery powers. My joints don't take the pounding like bigger runners."
Despite his bitter feelings toward Hellebuyck, Moreira supports his claim of performance-enhancement innocence. "I lived with Eddy and trained with him," Moreira says. "I saw him in all sorts of situations, and I looked into every corner of the house. A lot of other people were doping around town, but Eddy didn't want to have anything to do with it. The whole time I was around him, he was 100 percent clean."
And clean Hellebuyck apparently remained—until, that is, after the last of several conversations he had with Shawn about his career in the summer of 2001. Eddy had concluded that his running had hit a wall-, even though at age 40 and now classified as a masters runner, he was racking up wins and records. Shawn pointed out his recent victories, including American record performances at the Azalea Trail Run 10-K and the Gate River Run 15-K, and assured him that there were more wins to come.
Eddy decided that Shawn was right. He didn't want to give up traveling to races in exotic locations, and he realized that he could win sizable purses in the masters division, especially in the marathon. But he also had determined that his 104-pound body could no longer keep his career going on its own.
It was time to take a new approach to competing.EDDY HELLEBUYCK SAYS that Leonid Shvetsov, the star Russian marathoner who was part of Hellebuyck's training group for the 1996 Olympics, became his EPO supplier. A medical doctor by training, Shvetsov was a two-time Olympian and the Russian national record holder in the marathon who would go on to win the 56-mile Comrades Marathon in South Africa two times, setting the course record (6:10:11) in 2007. According to multiple sources, Shvetsov was also the "prominent distributor" of EPO in Albuquerque to whom Shawn had referred. Eddy says he had met Shvetsov at the Disney World Marathon in Orlando in 1995. In 1996, Shvetsov began training in Albuquerque, staying for weeks at a time with Eddy and Shawn. Later the Russian bought a house in the same neighborhood as the Hellebuycks.
Standing 6'1" and weighing 160 pounds, Shvetsov would impress Hellebuyck with his encyclopedic knowledge of the human body and confound him with an ability to run fast marathons. "I had this perfect frame for a distance runner, and here was this huge dude just blowing me away in the long races," Hellebuyck says.
In addition to Hellebuyck, several athletes who trained in Albuquerque at the time say Shvetsov was using and distributing EPO—though none of these runners, except for Hellebuyck, ever claim they saw the Russian inject himself or anyone else with the drug. They also say they never used performance-enhancing drugs. Bruce Raymer, an elite Canadian runner who finished eighth at the 2005 Los Angeles Marathon, says that Shvetsov repeatedly tried to sell him EPO and other drugs in March 2003 when Raymer was living in the same Albuquerque house as Shvetsov and training for the 2003 Boston Marathon.
"Leonid quite openly kept a stockpile of EPO in his refrigerator, behind the milk and orange juice," Raymer says. "He approached me with the offer to sell me some EPO. He told me how easy it was to inject. He quoted me a price for one cycle—$400. I told him no thanks, and he came back to me with an offer of $350. He came back to me several times, reducing the price to $300. It was kind of bizarre. Leonid is a big, menacing guy. I almost wanted to buy some EPO just to get him off my back."
When Raymer continued to decline Shvetsov's sales pitch for EPO, he says, the Russian then offered to sell him the anabolic agent clenbuterol, which is also on the list of banned substances put forth by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Raymer, who last year won Canada's masters cross-country championships, refused this offer as well. "Leonid was pretty brash about drugs," Raymer continues. "His room was like a pharmacy full of banned drugs. Besides the EPO and clenbuterol, I also saw Winstrol [the brand name for the anabolic steroid stanozolol] and Anavar [the brand name for the steroid oxandrolone]."
When Shvetsov was still living in one of the Hellebuyck houses, Jose Moreira says he would come upon him boiling syringes on the stove at one or two in the morning. "Leonid was the rumored supplier of EPO in Albuquerque. He was the master of the whole thing," says Moreira.
"Everybody in the sport knew about Leonid," says Mark Plaatjes. "On the circuit, he always had the reputation as a doper. That's what Leonid did."
"Leonid wasn't clean, and never had been in my book," says Peter Whitehead. "His times in training didn't come close to matching up with his times in races."
"It was common knowledge. If you wanted juice, Leonid was the guy to see," says Ryan Board. "It was a no-brainer."
"Friend of Leonid," in fact, became shorthand around Albuquerque for any runner on the juice.
Two days after his last conversation with Shawn about his career, Hellebuyck and Shvetsov went for a run together. "It's the route we took all the time, leading up from the house and going to the mountains and coming back," Hellebuyck says. "It happened that just the two of us were running that day. I asked Leonid about the stuff. I think he called it a hormone. He said it was undetectable. I said, 'I'm not going to die from cancer? I'm not going to lose my manhood or whatever?' And he is saying, 'No, I've been using it for a long time.'
"He was surprised, I think, that I brought up the subject," Hellebuyck says. "Let me state again that the idea was mine and not his. Leonid didn't try to sell me on it. I don't know what his part of the deal was, why he would be providing. I got a feeling later on, he was thinking that I was like a guinea pig. He got excited about experimenting on a runner with my talent. He wanted to see what he could do with me. I asked him when we could start, and he said tomorrow. My goal was the 2001 New York City Marathon [in three months], and Leonid is saying for the stuff to work you have to get in a six-week cycle before your event."
The next day, Hellebuyck says, Shvetsov came to his house with EPO. (While confirming that Shvetsov gave her husband EPO, Shawn disputes her husband's contention that the drug was ever in the couple's home.) The two men went into a bathroom. "I'm nervous, I'm scared, I'm shaking," Hellebuyck says. "I'm scared to death of needles. Leonid actually put it into my arm the first couple of times. My right arm, underneath the bicep. He said you had to be sure you were giving the right dose at first because you adjust it to your weight. Leonid is a doctor and he knows all this. He puts the needle right here under my arm; there's a lot of skin there. And then, after he was done with me, he did it to himself. Leonid did it in his leg.
"You have to inject just barely under your skin," Hellebuyck continues. "You have to go really, really slow and it makes that bubble, and then slowly that dissolves. It is not in your vein at all. There is no deep penetration. It's really just under your skin. Leonid wanted to give me confidence, I guess. I was so scared—not only the fact that we were going to start cheating, but also the fact that I have to get over my fear of working with the needle. But Leonid said it was totally undetectable, so I went along."
Shvetsov retired from competition in 2009. Contacted at his home in Saratov, Russia, where he now operates a car-service business and coaches Russian distance runners, Shvetsov denies ever taking any performance-enhancing drugs—or providing them to athletes (including Hellebuyck) in Albuquerque. Shvetsov says he occasionally advised Hellebuyck on how to deal with pain issues Hellebuyck was suffering from. "I was buying some supplements and bringing some of them from Russia," Shvetsov says. "I tried to explain to him which [supplement] is for which problem. But Eddy is a somewhat illiterate person...I really don't know why [Hellebuyck would say that I gave him EPO]. Eddy didn't have the best personal relations with me...Eddy is a very greedy person and thinks only about money. Personally, human relationships for him is nothing."
As for the charges made by Raymer and other athletes, Shvetsov said he was surprised that he had such a reputation, and again denied any involvement with performance-enhancing drugs. He attributed the allegations to other athletes' "envy" of his success, general suspicion of Russian athletes, and the fact that he is a medical doctor by training. "It's a Russian thing in the world sport," he said. "Because I have a doctor's education, to many it's a direct confirmation that, 'Oh, he is a source, he is a such and such.' No one caught me on anything." As for the needles Moreira saw boiling on the stove, Shvetsov says, "They were for B12 injections."
EPO's primary benefits are said to accrue during workouts before competition, but for a long time, Hellebuyck says, he didn't feel any effect. Generally, it takes a while for the hematocrit level (the percentage of red blood cells in plasma) to build, and according to Hellebuyck, Shvetsov wanted to make sure that Eddy's level didn't go over 50 percent. You go over that and the authorities flag you, Shvetsov warned him. The Russian provided everything, Hellebuyck says: the drug, needles, and syringes, free of charge (the market rate, according to sources, ranged from $1,000 to $1,500 for one six-week cycle). Hellebuyck says he felt a little guilty; he was his benefactor's guinea pig, and it seemed like the experiment was nothing but a flop. He was showing some improvement in the 5-K and 10-K, but not the marathon, which was Hellebuyck's specialty, and which offered the major financial paydays. "I had a problem in my hip. It started hurting after an hour, and I couldn't run any farther," he says. "I started to feel depressed, like I wasn't getting any benefit from the injections."
The sore hip forced Hellebuyck to drop out of the 2001 New York City Marathon at the 20-mile mark. He went home to Albuquerque, he says, and did not take EPO again until the following March. "It's the same routine: Leonid gives me the stuff and the needles, every three days I inject it up in our bathroom where nobody can see me. I store the stuff in a refrigerator in our bedroom where I keep my private supply of beer." Still, while Hellebuyck turned in quality wins in several shorter distance races in 2002, he continued to have pain in his hip; at June's Kona Marathon in Hawaii, he ran a pedestrian 2:40:18.
Finally, that summer, Hellebuyck visited Plaatjes, who was now a physical therapist practicing in Boulder, Colorado (a native of South Africa, Plaatjes says he has never taken performance-enhancing drugs and did not know at the time that Hellebuyck was using EPO). "Mark gave me this deep-tissue massage that made me cry, that hurt like it must hurt a woman in childbirth. But that broke down the scar tissue, and like a miracle, it cured me in one session. Now I'm able to run pain-free again."
He set his sights on the Twin Cities Marathon that September, when he'd be 41. His goal was to run under 2:20 and notch the A standard for the 2004 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. Hellebuyck ran pain-free throughout the race, but as he approached the final mile, he saw that he still might not meet his goal. The experiment in which he'd invested and risked so much still seemed like a failure. And then, suddenly, he says, all of the years of training and all the injections of EPO kicked in. Hellebuyck felt like he was soaring. "I don't know where it came from. I got that extra boost, and I finished unbelievably fast. How can you possibly kick that fast at the end of a marathon? I say, You know what? That's the first time I was believing in EPO. It was not natural. I mean seriously, the way I kicked down that last 400 yards and ran [to 2:19:59] was just unnatural."
Hellebuyck got his qualifying time, and later the press asked him how he did it. "I told the reporters that I finally figured out how to run a marathon," Hellebuyck says. "I told them that I'd started training with high school runners, doing the strides and drills, becoming a lot quicker. That was somewhat true, but the real reason was I was having extra good blood. So then I was absolutely, totally believing that the EPO really works for me."
He continued his doping routine, and in April 2003, at the Boston Marathon, Hellebuyck finished 10th overall, and first among Americans, in 2:17:18. "All the reporters want to talk to me. I'm now 42 years old, and where are all the other Americans? How did I do it at my age? I tell the reporters that I'm small, I'm efficient, and I'm motivated."
What he didn't tell the media, of course, was that he was juiced. Moreover, he'd passed a number of USADA-administered drug tests. "With my race schedule, I was constantly tested, and I was also tested out of competition many times," Hellebuyck says. "All of these tests were negative, and they came after I was using EPO. You would do a cycle for about six weeks, and you inject every three days, and then it clears your system in 48 hours. So if you have a Sunday race, Thursday morning would be your last injection. Then you travel on Friday and by the time you got to the race and got tested, it's totally out of your system. This plan always worked for me. I was tested at Twin Cities. I was tested in Boston. I was tested pretty much every time I set an American masters record. The Providence 5-K, I was tested there. I'm not sure if I was tested after I won [the masters title] at the Carlsbad 5-K [in 2003], but I'd say that year I was tested a lot."
TAKING A BREAK during our interview in March, Hellebuyck shows me his trophy wall, which is as heavily decorated as any runner's on earth. The mementos provoke Hellebuyck to repeat his motives for making these confessions: the sleepless nights, the haunted obsessing about his reputation and legacy. "I don't care if it's going to cost me all my money and make me homeless," he says, alluding to the possibility that directors of races where he won prize money while on EPO might now seek recompense. "I want to tell the truth and convince maybe two or three people that 99 percent of the time, I was clean. Then I'll feel okay. Then I'll be able to sleep again."
Later we drive to nearby Ironwood Ridge High School for track practice. A year earlier the school's head coach, Gary Forrest, had given him a new assignment: coaching the hurdlers. Hellebuyck spent much of the previous winter studying the event. At practice this afternoon, he'll be trying out a new drill. "You set the hurdles a notch below race height, but you place them closer together," he says excitedly. "In this way the athlete develops a quick rhythm and proper form."
Dark clouds have gathered over the desert, and a cold rain pelts the track. Hellebuyck had started coaching when he lived in Albuquerque. Now he works for modest pay, and without seeking the limelight. "I love to see the kids develop," he says. "I am able to make running fun for everybody but still demand the best from the ones who have the best to give. This is something I can understand. I think I am a good role model for the kids."
Most of the athletes stay inside the school building to lift weights or run the hallways, but Hellebuyck convinces his hurdlers, a group of eight kids evenly split between girls and boys, to endure the rain in order to perform the drill he'd worked up. Hellebuyck spends a long time setting up the hurdles and adjusting the heights. It seems odd that this former Olympic marathoner isn't working with the distance runners, but Forrest prides himself on coaching distance runners, and Hellebuyck is careful not to impinge on his turf. This even holds true for the training of Steve Magnuson, the team's star, who also braves the rain, trotting warmup laps around the all-weather track.
Hellebuyck had discovered Magnuson four years earlier. Magnuson was talented but unmotivated. He didn't enjoy running and wanted to play soccer instead. Hellebuyck huddled with the boy's father, and they came up with a plan. His father convinced Steve to try running with Hellebuyck for one month, after which he could quit running and play soccer with everyone's blessing. Steve agreed, signing on with Hellebuyck, who infused the boy with the joy of running and racing. Magnuson fell in love with the sport, becoming a state champion in both track and cross-country. The subject of doping, Hellebuyck says, has never come up with the family.
Now the hurdlers splash doggedly through Hellebuyck's drill, knocking over more hurdles than they clear, proceeding on blind faith in their coach that these awkward efforts will somehow bear fruit.
Practice ends, but there are still a few hours before Shawn is due home. Eddy returns to the house, towels off, and sits down at the table with my tape recorder running and continues with his doping narrative.
BY THE END OF 2003, Eddy Hellebuyck's old scruples concerning needles and doping seemed laughable. His introduction to EPO had now proved a roaring success, and everything Leonid Shvetsov had promised turned out to be true. EPO appeared to be undetectable and seemed to have no side effects. Injecting the stuff no longer seemed an ordeal. Hellebuyck was convinced that doping was the rule among elite distance runners. Besides Shvetsov, Hellebuyck accepted the open invitation from French runners to sample their EPO. Gradually, he says, "I came to the conclusion that if I had used EPO in my prime, I could have run low 27 for the 10-K and 2:06 for the marathon. Because I've got the leg speed and everything else. I just didn't have the endurance. That's what EPO gives you, endurance."
Meanwhile, if the sport's establishment was suspicious about Hellebuyck's spectacular late-career bloom, they weren't showing it. "The races really wanted me," Hellebuyck says. "I was making some decent money [his 2003 prize winnings totaled $55,300, making him the year's top-earning male American road runner of any age], and it was fun to win. It was a hard thing for me to say no, because race directors were calling me. 'Hey, if you want to come to our race, I'll pay your airfare. I'll get you a room. I'll take you out to a nice dinner.'"
Hellebuyck also benefited from a lack of high-quality competition; American elite distance running was just starting to emerge from its '90s-era doldrums. "Even at my age, I could compete with the best Americans," he says. "I would be the first non-African finisher, the first American, in all these huge road races. I was the man. I just couldn't say no to these people. I was in an airplane all the time, and it was a lot of fun. I didn't really think about EPO too much. It had become a part of my life. I started to think, You know what, I probably can get this all the way to the Olympic Trials in early '04. I bet I can make the U.S. Olympic team."
His confidence got another huge boost in October 2003 at the Twin Cities Marathon, where he won not only the masters championship but also won the overall title. "I ran 2:12:47 on that course, at age 42, and I totally destroyed the field. I took the lead at the 23-mile mark, and I won by a minute and a half. There were six Africans with me, it was an uphill course at that point, there were three miles to go, and I just powered away from them. I felt like anything was possible with EPO. I felt like Superman."
That win delivered Hellebuyck a payday of $30,500: $20,000 for winning overall; $4,000 for winning the masters division; $3,000 for winning the U.S. masters championship; $2,500 for being the first American finisher; and $1,000 for winning his age group. Hellebuyck received an invitation to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California, and by the start of 2004, he was at the center preparing for the Marathon Trials scheduled for early February in Birmingham, Alabama. And feeling invincible.
"I thought I'd never get caught, that EPO was undetectable, that nobody would ever know my secret," he says. "So I kept popping EPO even at the Olympic Training Center. I thought it was the perfect place to get away with it; nobody would ever expect someone would be crazy enough to do it there. Like I say, it was just part of my life, and at the same time I thought I was Superman.
"I got this big plastic jug of Folgers coffee. I take the packets of EPO, syringes and all, and I bury them deep in the coffee crystals. Then I put the whole thing in the refrigerator in the lunch room, and nobody thinks about it because coffee keeps better that way. My roommate goes to work out, and I go get the coffee jug out of the refrigerator and take it into the bathroom and do my business. I just did my normal thing, like every three days.
"Then one morning, all of a sudden, just before breakfast, the guy from USADA was knocking on the door. He said he had missed me when he came by the week before. I had been away from the center working out at Balboa Park, and he wanted to test me now. He had his credentials and everything. He was from the UCLA lab, I think. He took my urine sample. I think I had put down a unit of EPO two days before. I was probably just inside the 48 hours. I didn't really think about it. Probably since 2001 when I started EPO, I must have passed 10 or more tests. I wasn't too worried. I was just focused on my workout that day."
Hellebuyck shakes his head. "When you're on the juice," he says, "you feel like everything is going your way."
AFTER OUR MARCH INTERVIEW, I didn't see Hellebuyck again until August. During that time, he and Shawn tried to adjust to moving out from underneath their six-year blanket of denials, and it wasn't a smooth passage. Shawn's worries over possible fall-out from Eddy's confessions ranged from a renewed investigation by USADA to angry reactions from old running friends who still abide by the doping code of silence. Shawn's anxiety eventually spread to Eddy, and for weeks-long stretches, he failed to respond to my numerous phone calls and e-mails. Finally, Shawn and Eddy agreed to meet with me in Oro Valley at the start of high-school cross-country season.
On the afternoon we meet, the defending 5-A-II state-champion cross-country team of Ironwood Ridge gathers for an early-season workout. The runners have just logged their first day of school and are buzzing about teachers and room assignments. They meet at Canada Del Oro Riverfront Park for a tough run near the Santa Catalina Mountains. A few drops of rain had fallen earlier, but the usual late-summer monsoon failed to materialize, so the 105-degree heat is juiced by a stifling streak of humidity. Mosquitoes attack savagely. Parents driving late-model SUVs deliver their children to practice and to Coach Forrest and Coach Eddy, who has come to be seen as a role model for the kids. Last May, Hellebuyck delivered three Ironwood hurdlers to the state championship meet, a first for the school. During the summer, he has been supervising the summer training program in preparation for the cross-country season, his fourth with the school. It just so happens that Coach Eddy is also a liar and drug cheat. The man's contradictions abound.
"After all the bad blood between him and me, I still like Eddy," Ryan Board acknowledges. "If I ran into him today, I would offer to buy him a beer."
"I wouldn't trust that guy any farther than I could throw him," says John DeHart. "What he did, cheating honest runners out of the prize money that was rightfully theirs, is no different than breaking into their houses and stealing their property. He has no business being around high school kids."
"The man is diabolical," says Jose Moreira. "Eddy draws you in with his charm, and then he screws you."
Today, Hellebuyck is delivering his own child to practice; Jordan, a freshman at Ironwood Ridge, has already earned a slot in the varsity lineup. They arrive in Eddy's red Hummer. Eddy has come to run, wearing a black T-shirt and shorts, and a white University of Arizona cap turned backward. He makes a quiet entrance to the practice, and the kids and parents brighten when they see him.
After some announcements from Forrest, the girls take off on a separate workout with their coach. Then the boys go, Hellebuyck running with them, moving with that beautiful, light stride that took him through so many marathons, and absorbing a fraction of the pounding attendant to even the great African runners. "In his prime, Eddy's efficient stride and competitive drive gave him all the edge he needed," says Mark Plaatjes. "There was no reason for him to dope."
Running easily, Hellebuyck leads the boys over a soccer field toward a ravine and through a dry-wash river plain. They run over the wash to the sere, steep hills beyond.
Once they are out of sight, Forrest jumps in his car and drives down Lambert Lane to meet his team. "The days of my running with these kids are long over," he says. Forrest is a genial, white-haired man of 68 who turned to coaching a decade ago upon retiring to Arizona after a 33-year career with Dow Chemical. "I leave that to Eddy, who is so good at it, and not because he's a former Olympian. He's good at it because he communicates joy and fun to the kids. Eddy has been 100 percent supportive of what we do here. He helps with the summer training that is the key to our success. I'm pretty skeptical about people and think I have a good sense of them. I've looked hard for any hidden agenda with Eddy, and I've never found a trace of one."
Forrest pulls onto a dirt road at the base of a steep half-mile-long hill. The afternoon heat seems more intense, and quail flit across the landscape. All of Tucson is visible in the valley below, and the Santa Catalina mountains rise craggy and massive in the foreground. It is classic country for new beginnings, and you can see how a man such as Hellebuyck would land here in search of anonymity and healing.
Hellebuyck received notice of his positive drug test in late March of 2004, a few weeks after his eighth-place finish at the Marathon Trials in Birmingham. Despite his long-term cheating, he claims he was shocked when the letter arrived in the mail at his Albuquerque home informing him of the results, and he and Shawn immediately contested the testing process and appealed the findings. They hired Howard Jacobs, the prominent attorney specializing in doping cases, who has represented Marion Jones, Floyd Landis, and other athletes. They contested the case all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, but the original results were upheld, and Hellebuyck was penalized with a suspension from competition. His performance at the Trials was also stricken from the books. (In a separate case, another American marathoner, Deeja Youngquist, failed a drug test for EPO less than two months after Hellebuyck failed his. Like Hellebuyck, Youngquist trained in Albuquerque, had previously been represented by Shawn Hellebuyck, and also contested the test findings. She was given a two-year suspension. Youngquist declined to comment for this story.)
While the failed drug test and suspension drove Hellebuyck from professional running circles, many people in Albuquerque stuck with him, most notably the kids he had been coaching at La Cueva High School, where he had worked for several years. But over time his support eroded, and Hellebuyck was fired from his coaching job. He left Albuquerque, spending several weeks in Kenya living in training camps in the Rift Valley. Upon his return to the States, he and Shawn made their move to Tucson, where he soon began coaching the kids at Ironwood Ridge.
After a few minutes, the varsity runners come over the hill and pound down to where Forrest waits with a rack of sports-drink bottles. The varsity boys drink and crouch and exhale, and then set out on the first of five half-mile repeats. A few minutes later, Coach Eddy comes over the hill towing a flock of the freshmen, the former Olympic marathoner and pariah of the sport coming on as kind as a grandfather. The rookies crash down the hill and collapse, sucking greedily at the bottles. Hellebuyck gives them a reassuring smile and waits patiently for the flight of varsity boys to return from their repeat. When they appear and start running down the hill, hurting and hot themselves now, Eddy turns a discerning eye on Jordan, who is nursing a sore knee.
Hellebuyck shifts his focus to the upperclassmen. He clocks their 60-second rest and then gathers them for the next repeat. "Let's do this," he says in a quiet voice, and then charges up the hill, providing the boys an expertly measured shot of leadership. The moment forms a small but telling piece of good running and coaching.
Forrest watches them go. "Eddy and I never had a long detailed discussion about what he did, and I don't see the need," he says. "As far as I'm concerned, he served his suspension. He's contrite about his violation and has tried to move on. We vetted him before offering this job, and he passed his background checks. Our athletic director received four or five anonymous letters warning us about him, blasting us for hiring him, but because the letters weren't signed, I paid them no mind. The parents haven't made Eddy's past an issue. I'm not sure they even know about it, and I wouldn't tell them anything unless they asked."
He looks at me and then at my notebook. "But I guess that's going to change pretty soon. I guess everybody in the country is going to learn all about Eddy's past." Forrest pauses for a moment. "If you write a story showing a man trying to come to terms with his mistakes, I think you'll have written a good and valuable story that I'll be proud to be part of. But if you write a story questioning the fact that we gave Eddy Hellebuyck a chance to coach, then I'll be sorry I ever talked to you."
BACK AT THE HOUSE after dinner, Eddy and Shawn sit at the dining-room table with the tape recorder on one more time. Shawn is still unhappy about Eddy's decision to talk to me. "I don't see what good could come out of this story," she says. "It's fine that Eddy feels like he needs to unburden his conscience, but it shouldn't be at our expense. We have talked to Jordan about it now, and I think he understands." She gives a tight smile before continuing. "Thinking through the consequences has never been the strongest part of Eddy's game." She regards her husband with a weary expression; she's upset that Eddy has identified Shvetsov as his initial supplier of EPO. "I didn't think it was nice of Eddy to do. I always considered Leonid as a friend."
Eddy doesn't argue the point. "I'm not saying that Eddy didn't make a stupid, terrible mistake," Shawn continues. "But I think it's important to point out that he is hardly the only American runner of his caliber to use drugs. [Eddy] got caught because he wasn't part of a well-organized, well-financed, medically supervised system. He was just an individual athlete who decided to dabble and paid the price. The fact is, EPO really works when it's used in combination with HGH [human growth hormone] and other drugs over a closely monitored three-month training cycle, and that takes money. The athletes who have the money and power are the ones who are getting away with murder on this stuff. That's who you should be writing a story about."
Shawn may be right. But until at least one other distance runner steps forward to break the code of silence, we can never know for sure. As it stands, Eddy Hellebuyck—who failed his drug test nearly seven years ago—is the only high-profile American distance runner proven to have damaged the credibility of his sport, and own up to it. His name accompanies the doubts that arise in fans' minds whenever a distance runner of any nation smashes a record or achieves a great performance. They all run in the shadow of Eddy Hellebuyck.
Moreover, despite Hellebuyck's eleventh-hour drive for expiation, that shadow continues to define his character. While he claims to be selflessly risking his well-being for the sake of the truth, for instance, his remorse comes exclusively on his own behalf. He worries that racing officials will come back and investigate him. He also worries that he could suffer financially. And then there's the toll it has taken on his friends and family. "After we talked the first time at the restaurant, I felt really good about it," Hellebuyck had told me. "I kept getting really emotional [about confessing]. It is very important to me. I just cannot die thinking that my whole life I was a cheater. I was not. I didn't get any medals or anything, but I did some really great things—I ran a lot of great races, I managed, I coached."
Not once in our conversations has Hellebuyck ever voiced concern for the runners who finished behind him in the races that he ran juiced; the honest athletes who, as DeHart points out, Hellebuyck cheated out of recognition and potential prize money. Indeed, several people I've spoken with speculate that Hellebuyck has stepped forward out of purely self-serving desires to restore his reputation and reclaim the limelight; others scoff at his claim that he was clean prior to 2001. And as Matt Gonzales, an elite American distance runner and University of New Mexico graduate who often trained with Hellebuyck in the early 2000s, told me, "If Eddy really wanted to do the sport a service, he never would've cheated in the first place."
But at the same time, by finally admitting the truth, Eddy also stands alone. However disgraceful his conduct and tangled his motives, he has made a significant contribution by telling his story. Over the course of his confessions, Hellebuyck has exposed a prominent international athlete as a user and provider of performance-enhancing drugs, and has vividly described those drugs' efficacy and appeal. Hellebuyck's narrative suggests that, for all of the moralizing over the subject and all of the international bodies' high-tech testing methods, the single most effective weapon against doping might be the human conscience. Perhaps most important, he may have emboldened other runners to step forward with their stories. If young athletes such as the ones he coaches in Oro Valley are able to compete in an arena even a little less tainted, they will also run in Eddy's shadow.
Hellebuyck draws a little closer to the recorder's mike. "Look," he says, "I made an awful mistake. I was tempted. With EPO it's like you're on the beach and a beautiful girl comes up to you. You start talking to her. You realize if you go home with her, you're going to have one terrific night, but you're going to regret it for the rest of your life."


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