Alumni allowed back in pits to coach Little 500, says IUSF

After the 2006 Little 500, the IU Student Foundation created a new rule that would bar nonstudents from coaching in the pits on race day.\nBut on Friday, the organization announced it had changed its mind. \nIUSF Director Jenny Bruffey and IU Foundation CEO Curt Simic sent an e-mail to Little 500 coaches and riders Friday afternoon announcing they would allow alumni coaches in the pits on race day.\n“Alumni have always been an integral part of our event,” Bruffey said Sunday at qualifications. “It just kind of came down to, three weeks before the race, we were like, well, maybe it is something the race needs and maybe we made the decision a little fast.”\nIn May 2006, Simic detailed IUSF’s “student coaching initiative,” which required all participating Little 500 teams to have a student who would coach them on race day. Simic told the Indiana Daily Student in May he was concerned with nonstudent coaches who were “taking full control” of their respective teams.\nLittle 500 riders and coaches rallied against the initiative, and many submitted a petition to IUSF in September. At that time, Bruffey told the IDS, “We’re not going to not implement this initiative this year.”\nThe policy reversal allows teams to choose either their student or alumni coach in the pit during the race, or both, if a team so chooses.\nLittle 500 race coordinator Matthew Ewing said that since its implementation, IUSF has reviewed the student-coaching initiative.\n“We just came to the conclusion that we think our alumni can have a positive impact and riders should have a choice who they should have in the pit,” Ewing said.\nThe lead critic of the initiative, former coach Tom Schwoegler, said he was happy with IUSF’s decision. \n“When the student foundation does something stupid, I’ll stand up,” Schwoegler said. “But when they do something great, I’ll stand up and say it’s a great thing. To me, this is very late but necessary.”\nErik Styacich, Phi Kappa Psi senior rider and president of Riders Council, said, “I think it’s good that alumni coaches are allowed back in the pits. I think that’s a really important part of Little 5.”\nBut not all Little 500 participants were glad to see Bruffey’s and Simic’s e-mail.\nJim Kirkham, former Cutters coach and current adviser to the team, was one of two coaches who last year proposed the race-day ban to IUSF. \n“I was disappointed that they reversed it,” he said. “I don’t think any coach should be allowed on the track. Only the riders should be. I think the coach has no affect on it at all. It sort of comes of ego if you think it does.\n“It’s a rider’s race,” he said. “They are the ones who have to pedal the bike.”\nBy allowing alumni coaches back in the pits, Bruffey said IUSF is not abandoning the student-coaching initiative. Regardless of whether they will be in the pit on race day, all teams will be required to have a student coach for the next several years.\nThe recent change does not mean alumni coaches will never be banned from the pits.\n“We never say ‘never,’” Bruffey said. “But at this point, for the race and for the betterment of the race, we’re going to allow them to maintain the role that they’ve always had.\n“Maybe in the future, as the student-coaching initiative develops and becomes more grounded, it might be something we look at, but not anytime in the next couple of years.”\n–Staff writer Chris Engel contributed to this report.