John Cook, a former coach with the Nike Oregon Project, said he was not surprised by allegations of misuse of prescription drugs in the program.

Cook spoke with Runner’s World Newswire on June 5, two days after the BBC aired a documentary and ProPublica published a companion article in which former Oregon Project team members accused the program’s coach, Alberto Salazar, of encouraging runners to take prescription medications they did not have a medical need for in the hope of improving performance.

Cook was the head track coach at George Mason University from 1978 to 1997. Among his runners there was the 1987 world champion at 1500 meters, Abdi Bile. Along with sprint coach Dan Pfaff and strength and conditioning expert Vern Gambetta, Cook was recruited by Salazar to help coach the Oregon Project in 2003, when the program’s primary focus changed from the marathon to middle-distance and distance track races. “My task was primarily to teach them ancillary work, non-running programs that I put together with Dan Pfaff,” Cook said.

Cook said he left the program in 2005, after roughly 18 months, in part because he and his wife didn’t like living in Oregon. In addition, he said, “there were some things I just didn’t like. Some of the coaches I brought in, like Vern Gambetta and Dan Pfaff, got fired for various reasons because they disagreed with some things. Those guys were my amigos, and I just didn’t feel comfortable.” Gambetta and Pfaff declined interview requests from Newswire.

After leaving the program, Cook coached a small group of Nike-sponsored runners, including Olympic bronze medalist and U.S. record holder Shalane Flanagan, World Championships bronze medalist Shannon Rowbury, and Olympic silver medalist Leo Manzano. Cook said he’s not “a disgruntled former employee. I left on great terms, coached Nike athletes for 10 more years. I have many friends at the company.”

A resident of Sarasota, Florida, Cook, 73, is mostly retired from coaching, although he said he still works with Olympic Trials qualifier David Torrence and advises the coach of Alexa Efraimson, who recently broke the U.S. junior record for 1500 meters.

Below is an edited transcript of Cook’s interview of June 5. We’ve added clarifying information in brackets where needed.

Runner’s World: When you saw the recent reports, especially David Epstein’s ProPublica piece, what were your general thoughts?

John Cook: My general thoughts were that all things eventually come to fruition. I was, frankly, not surprised.

I thought it was very well written and very well done. I was pleased because it brought out some points that needed to be brought out.

RW: Such as?

JC: On the general topic of drugs in athletics—I think it’s a huge failure as far as drug testing is concerned. Some countries have no labs, some countries have some labs, some countries don’t test at all.

I read it very, very carefully. I thought it was needed.

RW: Needed for the specifics of the Nike Oregon Project, or needed to force action on a broader scale on the topic?

JC: I have absolutely no relationship with the Nike Oregon Project, and no relationship with the director [Alberto Salazar], period. So I don’t want to comment too much on that, and I don’t want to accuse anyone. But I think it’s pretty obvious that drug testing can be circumvented in pretty much every corner.

RW: Salazar has long had the reputation of going up to the legal limit of what the World Anti-Doping Agency allows. For example, a couple months ago there was the story about the Oregon Project experimenting with L-carnitine, where the WADA limit at the time was no more than 50 milliliters every six hours, and so they take just less than that every six-something hours. Is that the Salazar you knew when you worked with him? Was the Salazar portrayed in the ProPublica accurate, based on your experience?

JC: What I would say is, there’s no stone left unturned. If there’s a way to get better, it’s done. Is it the prednisone? Is it the inhalers? Is it the cryotherapy? The idea of the program is to avail the athletes of every opportunity to stay healthy and recover to get to the pinnacle.

RW: You’ve had a long relationship with Nike. Nike is in the name of the program. Do you think Nike condones this? Do you think they don’t want to know? That they don’t care?

JC: My main contact has been [director of athletics] John Capriotti, who I knew first as a coach. We had a meeting with [Nike co-founder] Phil Knight and the director of the NOP. Mr. Knight was very definitive that everything has to be by the book. At this meeting, someone was warned “we’ve already had one situation” about something that goes way back. He made it very certain that if anything like that were to occur again, we’d all be gone.

RW: But does this get back to one of your earlier points—that current testing is easily avoided and therefore it’s theoretically possible to meet Phil Knight’s demands while not necessarily doing what he meant?

JC: I don’t think Mr. Knight would want to circumvent anything. I think he’s loyal to certain people, and he backs his people pretty much to the hilt.

As far as your general question about the testing, I think the testing is a joke, and it can’t be enforced universally. To give two examples, you’d need to build a lab in Kenya and build a lab in Jamaica. So the only place where the testing can be equally enforced is the meets. And there are many loopholes there.

RW: So is it harder for an American to cheat than, say, a Jamaican? Is that what you’re saying?

JC: I think Americans as a whole are tested more than others. To give USADA some credit, I think they’re more on top of it than some Third World countries, and I don’t see how that will ever change.

RW: If I understood you correctly before, one of your points was that even if the testing is occurring, it can be worked around if you know what you’re doing.

JC: Sure, there are certain meets you just don’t go to if you know the testing is going to happen.

Also, the chemists are getting so good that some of the efficacy [of performance-enhancing drugs taken in small doses] can leave [the bloodstream] in less than 90 minutes. So how do you deal with that? Test [athletes] in the warm-up area? That’s not going to happen.

RW: In 2013, [Nike Oregon Project member] Galen Rupp was one of if not the most tested person on the publicly available United States Anti-Doping Agency list. How should the average running fan think about that?

JC: I go to the gym pretty regularly, and it’s mostly guys like me, who work out, play tennis, etc. That’s exactly what their point is—[athletes have] been tested, so consequently everything is fine. As you know, Marion Jones never tested positive. [Editor’s note: Sprinter Jones won three gold medals at the 2000 Olympics but was later stripped of her medals and served time in federal prison after admitting steriod use.] No one is going to test positive. It’s just not going to happen.

RW: So from your knowledge, that could or could not have any relationship to whether anything technically illegal is going on?

JC: If you take the testing objectively, and you never fail a drug test, as far as the average person is concerned, if you’re negative, you’re negative, and that means you’re a good guy. But that’s not what’s happening.

RW: So how can the average fan of the sport stay a fan if the lack of a failed test doesn’t necessarily mean that much?

JC: The average fan remains ignorant in terms of it wanting to be that way and wanting it be “Chariots of Fire.” Some of the people I talk to when I’m on the treadmill or lifting weights don’t even know the athletes make money. And they think if [athletes] test negative, they’re as clean as white snow.

That’s the great paradox of the whole charade.

RW: How about you personally then? You obviously still follow the sport and care about the sport.

JC: I follow the sport without particularly much fervor or excitement because I know too much. When I was naïve, I liked it a lot more. I’ve been turned off pretty much.

RW: After the report came out, [Olympic silver medalist] Nick Willis told Runner’s World, “I want the next generation of young runners to know that it is more than possible to win Olympic medals relying solely on a balanced diet, good sleep, and consistent training.” Do you think that’s accurate, or is he naïve?

JC: First of all, I really respect Nick Willis, and I like his coach. But I think that’s a very unusual situation. Not to be negative, or disparaging about Nick—I think it’s a great statement, and I wish it were like he says.

To give you an example: Dan Pfaff and I and some other coaches developed a program [of extensive non-running exercises] that we thought would be very advantageous to naturally raise testosterone by exercising, especially in women. Sometimes it’s very difficult to raise testosterone levels in very strong males. If you raise it one point, or half a point, in a woman, you’ve done a hell of a job. With this, combined with the running, we thought we could compete. I taught that program to Salazar.

I think if someone does that program, and then you add certain materials, they’re unbeatable. That’s one of the reasons I got out of the sport. We had a lot of success—with Shalane Flanagan, with Shannon and Leo. But I knew also in my heart that I couldn’t sustain it.

RW: What were your thoughts when Shannon joined the Oregon Project in 2013?

JC: I was retired at that time, and of course Shannon had the latitude to go anywhere she wanted to go. I have no relationship with Shannon.

RW: Since she joined the Project? Is that what you’re saying?

JC: Yes. Shannon was like a daughter to me. I love her dearly. And I’m very close to her family and her mother and father. When she joined the program, I wrote her an email and I said, “Our relationship is over.”

RW: This gets to a larger question I have, and it relates back to the average running fan. The Oregon Project and its director have had this reputation for a long time. How should people think about runners who join the Oregon Project given the reputation it already has?

JC: There’s an article in the UK where they suggest that Mo Farah should stay miles away from it. I think that concerns the whole deal.

What concerns me, and I feel sad about it, is that good and honest athletes, whatever they do, are tainted. And that’s just not fair.

RW: It’s not fair to the athlete?

JC: Well, let’s say someone has a hell of a performance, and he’s part of a certain group. The first thing that will be said is, “Well, there they go again.” And I think that’s unfortunate.

Take, for instance, the best female marathoner [Shalane Flanagan] we have in this country. I coached her for two years and she set five U.S. records and medaled in the 10,000 against the East Africans. I’ll guarantee to this day that she’s as clean as a whistle. Otherwise, why would she have gone with a certain coach and not with a certain other coach? [Editor’s note: After parting with Cook, Flanagan was coached for a short time by her husband, and then began working with her current coach, Jerry Schumacher, who is a Nike-sponsored coach.] Whenever she does something, it’s legitimate.

RW: Is that why you wrote to Shannon what you did?

JC: I mentioned to her that she should pursue every opportunity she could find. And I didn’t mention names, just like I’m not mentioning names now. I think she has a huge, great, clean reputation. And I thought this is not where she needed to go. [Editor’s note: After the ProPublica report was published, Rowbury told Newswire, “I have never seen anything that would make me question Alberto or anyone in the group. As for myself personally, I value my honor and integrity too much to ever cheat.”]

SD: Along those lines, when you were asked to work with the program, that reputation in some ways already existed. Did that concern you at the time? How did you deal with that?

JC: It concerned me a great deal.

For instance, getting a Therapeutic Use Exemption for an inhaler can be very easily done. If I take you and run your ass up and down the stairs five or six or seven times, then take you into the doctor, you’re going to be asthmatic and fail the test, and you’re going to be allowed to take an inhaler.

Don’t get me wrong—some of these drugs make life better for certain groups. But if you’re a healthy person, why the hell would you need an inhaler? I was somewhat concerned about that.

[Agreeing to work with the Oregon Project] was one of my huge mistakes.

But like my wife said this morning, “You’re not exactly Mother Teresa yourself. You did it because of the money.” The money was really good. It was a budget like I’d never had in college.

Getting back to your original question, no one is going to test positive. But there has to be some ethics, there has to be some honor, there has to be some accountability.

And the hypoxic houses, and the this and the that, it all costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

RW: That’s the sort of thing Nick Willis is questioning. Setting aside potentially illegal scenarios, his sentiment is that it shouldn’t be necessary to do all this other stuff.

JC: There are a lot of great coaches who are knowledgeable who think they can outwork this by being tough, hardworking coaches. I honestly think they’re fooling themselves.

I don’t think everybody has a thyroid problem. I don’t think everybody is asthmatic. One person may be, and he may need prednisone and this and that. That may all be legit, but like I was telling you earlier, I can get you to fail that test in a heartbeat. And that’s just a small part of the equation.

The chemists will always win. It makes no difference what kind of program you design.

The other thing that bothers me: I knew Steve Prefontaine pretty well, and I knew Bill Bowerman a little bit, and respected him a great deal. I don’t think they’d be happy with what’s going on in the sport right now. I’m not saying you have to go back to the old days. I’m not that stupid. But that part of the sport is gone. And that’s the part of the sport I like.

* * *

Editor's note: In an earlier version of this article, John Cook recollected a conversation with Mark Nenow, a former Nike employee, from 2003 when Cook joined the Nike Oregon Project. That recollection has been removed from the article because it could not be independently verified.

Scott Douglas Scott is a veteran running, fitness, and health journalist who has held senior editorial positions at Runner’s World and Running Times.

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