When cross-country and track coach Art Kranick passed away at 74 due to heart failure on November 8th, old race photos resurfaced, trophies were dusted off, and former athletes remembered cold winter morning runs. Many believed the conversation would end there. But the story might have just changed its course after USATF’s recent announcement.

Now, more than a month after Art’s death and eight months after the couple resigned from their coaching roles, the USATF has handed them a lifetime coaching ban after an investigation found emotional and physical misconduct. On the USATF website, both Art and Linda Kranick have been marked ‘permanently ineligible’ for ‘Emotional Misconduct and Physical Misconduct.’

The decision surprised many, partly because the Kranicks had already resigned from the Saratoga Springs City School District in April, months before the ban, citing Art’s worsening health condition.

Before that, over almost 40 years, the Kranicks built one of the most powerful high school running programs in the U.S. Their teams won Nike Cross Nationals titles in 2019 and 2022. Saratoga’s cross-country squads collected more than 20 state championships and close to 30 Federation meet titles. From the outside, it looked like a golden legacy. But behind the victories, concerns about their coaching styles had long persisted, right from when Art was hired in 1985.

Over the years, athletes and their parents have complained of overtraining, pressure on injured runners, giving out vitamins to athletes without the parents’ approval, and expecting athletes to run every day without breaks, with many female athletes also sharing stories of physical and emotional pain. Several doctors later linked those methods to serious overuse injuries, some of which required long-term treatment.

The Kranicks coached both the boys’ and girls’ track teams till 2012. While they stopped coaching the boys’ team after, they remained in charge of the girls’ team until they stepped down earlier in the year.

But despite the long history of claims made against the coaching pair, some athletes and parents have spoken fondly of the two coaches, arguing that their training methods were necessary to win.

What followed next would finally push the issue out of school board rooms and into the national spotlight.

How the complaints against the Kranicks Reached a Breaking Point

In 2020, a Saratoga Springs resident gathered multiple complaints regarding the Kranicks and forwarded them to attorney Martin Greenberg, who specializes in athletic abuse cases. In 2023, Greenberg submitted a 77-page complaint to the New York State Education Department and the state attorney general’s office, detailing decades of alleged misconduct. The report included accounts from athletes, parents, medical professionals, and witnesses spanning from the late 1980s through recent seasons.

One of the most serious incidents cited in the complaint occurred in 1988, when Art Kranick tied then-student Kristen Gecewicz Gunning to his pickup truck during a track practice in an attempt to increase her running speed. School records showed that the superintendent at the time learned of the incident almost immediately and counseled Kranick not to repeat it, but no formal disciplinary action followed.

In early 2024, the Saratoga Springs City School District hired the law firm Harris Beach to review whether it had appropriately handled complaints against the Kranicks. The firm concluded that while issues were discussed with the coaches, the district routinely failed to follow up or enforce corrective directives, even after repeated allegations. Despite those findings, the school board had renewed the Kranicks’ contracts as recently as 2023.

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Separately, USA Track & Field began investigating the Kranicks at least two years ago, taking testimony from women who had been coached by Art Kranick. Although USATF completed evidence collection more than a year ago, no ruling was issued until after Art’s death.

“It is unfortunate that it took forty years for any organization to acknowledge what thousands of students experienced, but this decision represents the first step toward preventing emotional and physical misconduct in school sports,” said former student Kristen Gecewicz Gunning on Friday to The Times Union. Gunning, who is now president of the nonprofit Rise Beyond Control Inc., has since called for stronger accountability measures for school administrators who allow abusive coaching cultures to persist.

Now, with the USATF ban in place, Linda Kranick says she plans to appeal. Still, for many former athletes, this decision marks a moment of long-awaited acknowledgment and justice, even if some believe that it’s a case of too little too late.