Internet fame Dad who took kids out of school for Boston accused of faking BQ

[Fast Eddie]

Questions Arise Over How a Pennsylvania Dad Qualified for Boston

Mike Rossi took his children out of school to watch him run the Boston Marathon, and gained internet fame with his explanation for their absence. Now, runners are wondering about the race he ran to qualify. http://www.runnersworld.com/general-interest/questions-arise-over-how-a-pennsylvania-dad-qualified-for-boston

Last week it was hard to miss the news about a Pennsylvania father, Mike Rossi. He had received a letter from his children’s school principal stating the three days of classes they missed to accompany him to the Boston Marathon would not be excused.

The response Rossi posted on his Facebook page on April 25, outlining the educational value of the trip, quickly went viral and was shared more than 32,000 times. News outlets all over the world, including Today, People, Fox News, and AOL, picked up the story.
 
Now Rossi is experiencing the downside of internet fame. Some members of the running community are scrutinizing his past race results and questioning the legitimacy of his Boston Marathon qualifying time. (See the threads on LetsRun.com and RunnersWorld.com.)
 
At issue: Rossi’s qualifying time of 3:11:45 at the Via Marathon in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on September 7, 2014, is inconsistent with all of Rossi’s other publicly available race results.

[RandMart]

I've said enough about this already

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=5533716

[iwuzwilson]

oops, didn't think that one through very well

letsrun is basically a trash heap (to which I'm addicted) but they do a great service when exposing stuff like this.

[Chasing Amy]

It's easy to cheat at the Via Marathon.  There are several turn around areas that you can simply cut ahead or, because there is a relay happening concurrent to the full marathon, you can hop on one of the buses to the next relay point.

[iwuzwilson]

The letsrun thread is now 100 pages (2000 posts) in just 5 days. They don't take well to marathon cheats over there.

Drug cheats, it's a different story. Generally they skewer them but one of the primary members of the inner circle and a forum moderator is an admitted drug cheat. He gets a bye from the brojos because he claimed he only did late in his career and that "it didn't help" him. That's about as disingenuous as Clinton's didn't inhale.

 

[RandMart]

The letsrun thread is now 100 pages (2000 posts) in just 5 days. They don't take well to marathon cheats over there.

The two Kip Litton threads add to 312

Just about one-third there

[iwuzwilson]

The two Kip Litton threads add to 312

Just about one-third there

They might actually catch Kip Litton, considering the rate of 400-500 posts a day. And from what I've seen the guy has been all defensive on Facebook, which just makes for more fodder. Footnoted spreadsheets. Photo and video analysis.

Also liking (well not really) the http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6057002 exposing the new U Tennessee coach who took away freshman scholarships from students who had barely stepped on campus. The rationale was that she wanted to head in a "new direction" which was to take full or 3/4 scholarships from sprinters and convert those to partial scholarships for distance runners. What she did is not illegal by NCAA rules, but certainly crosses the line for being callous if not unethical.

[iwuzwilson]

Fascinating to watch this unfold in real time on letsrun. Some interested parties are looking at photo shots of runners along different parts of the course (Lehigh Valley Marathon) and have deduced that he was not near the start, and and then was a good 10 minutes behind pace at spot later in the course. Meanwhile, the brojos have put out the IP address and have verified that Rossi has postued under numerous names in the same thread, defending himself. What differentiates this this that Kip Litton was winning age groups and such, and he was always kind of shadowy. This guy is a 3:50-4 hr marathoner and he's back in anyone's face who happens to question the purported 3:11 qualifier last year. Bart Yasso of RW is the race director at Lehigh and is in the mix too. Real Drama.

[RandMart]

Gerry Yasso, is vice president of resource development for race sponsor Via Lehigh Valley. ... You don't fuck with the Emmaus Mafia

[i am party]

Damn. I wish I had caught that letsrun thread from its inception. Going to be a project to catch up now. 

I love this stuff, though. 

[iwuzwilson]

Ahh this is great. Memes are popping up:

http://memegenerator.net/Mikerossicheat

[i am party]

 

[iwuzwilson]

Love it!

[Fast Eddie]

Damn. I wish I had caught that letsrun thread from its inception. Going to be a project to catch up now. 

I love this stuff, though. 

Now that's entertainment.   
 

[Plugging Along]

Wow. My 5k PR is better than his, and I was a 48 year old fat man when I ran it.
My marathon PR was from about the same time, 3:44, and just 5 minutes faster would have been impossible.
Now if I lost 30 pounds and got down to 190 I might have had a chance.

He ran 3:11? No way.

[Eco Ellen]

I love this stuff.

[iwuzwilson]

This Facebook post from the school principal's son is probably the number one reason why he either needs to come up with some sort of documentation that he actually ran that 3:11, or fess up and maybe move on.

From the Principal son posted on Facebook you you tell me what is fair and not fair

 

Never in my life have I typed and deleted Facebook statuses so many times in one week. It's been a weird week. As most of the country has now seen my mother sent a letter to a parent about the unexcused absences of their children. This letter is required to be sent by any principal In the district anytime kids miss days for an unexcused reason. This parent didn't like the letter. He wrote a response. It went viral.

Why did it go viral? Because people agreed with his opinion that you can't learn some of the most important lessons of life in school. I agree, and so do thousands of others. I just WISH he came to see you face to face because the two of you have the same goal. You both want nothing more than to see children succeed. Instead, the issue has appeared on network after network, continuing to drive your identical goal further and further apart.

Now the situation has spiraled out of control. You've become the victim. Instead of being recognized as a woman who has given her life to educating children, and devoting over twenty five years to the community that he loves; the situation continues to drive your reputation through the mud.

What the world hasn't seen behind the scenes of all the widespread support of his email, are the hundreds of threatening emails you've received. Or the 3am and 4am prank calls. Or worst of all, the tears.

There really are some crazy people out there.

The result is an attempt to drag your reputation through the mud. An unintentional attempt to ruin what you have worked so hard for. I can promise you that this will not happen. This incident will not define you. What will define you is the sterling track record you have built for yourself. What will define you is the outpouring of support you have received from the community. From the parents who have written you uplifting letters to the entire school board who backs you unanimously. Or the fact that EVERY SINGLE ONE of your students wrote you a birthday card today and EVERY SINGLE ONE of your teachers went to the school board meeting last night voluntarily to stand by your side. You have given your life to helping this country have a brighter future and you have been a damn good mother along the way. I hope you had a happy birthday, you deserve it more than anyone. I love you, Mom

[Arrojo]

It appears more likely than not that he did not run a 3:11.  But if you're really going to fudge your time like that, you should be more low-key about it. I wonder how many of the 20,000+ BQualifiers who ran this year's race cheated on their time?  Was he the only one?

[iwuzwilson]

It appears more likely than not that he did not run a 3:11.  But if you're really going to fudge your time like that, you should be more low-key about it. I wonder how many of the 20,000+ BQualifiers who ran this year's race cheated on their time?  Was he the only one?

It's probably more common than we think. The only reason that he got caught was because of his high profile shaming of the school principal.
I bet it's in the 100s every year for those trying to get into Boston.
This case might change qualifying rules somewhat. More timing mats and video footage along the course of qualifying eligible marathons.

The letsrun thread is approaching 3000 posts. The evidence has been out there for almost a week, summaries compiled by Friday and Saturday. So now it's mostly speculating when or if there will be a DQ from the Lehigh Valley Marathon.

[RandMart]

Is a USATF/IAAF banning on the table for this dude?