Nick Symmonds, the five-time USATF 800-meter champion and 2013 world championships silver medalist, has ended a seven-year relationship with Nike and signed a shoe and apparel contract with Brooks. He is not at liberty to discuss the financial specifics of his Brooks deal.

The switch comes after the most successful season of Symmonds’ career, the most successful one an American male 800-meter runner had in decades. And it means “I will need to sell my house in Eugene,” says Symmonds, who says his agent, Chris Layne, was told that “I’m not welcome to use the University of Oregon facilities.” Symmonds had been a member of the Nike-sponsored Oregon Track Club since becoming a professional runner in 2006.

Seattle, the home of the Brooks Beasts team coached by Danny Mackey, will become at least a part-time training venue for Symmonds. “Danny Mackey is a very, very talented coach with a lot of potential, and I look forward to training with them,” he says. But, he told Runner’s World Newswire, “due to the fact that I require warm weather and altitude to maximize my training I cannot make Seattle my permanent residence, but will be spending large portions of time there.”

“For the goals that I’ve set for myself on and off the track, I think that Brooks is going to be a better fit,” says Symmonds, who flew to Seattle on New Year’s Day to sign his deal at Brooks’ corporate headquarters. Although he emphasized that he “truly appreciated” what Nike had done for him for seven years, he stated, “just for the immediate goals and the long-term goals, Nike and I were no longer a good fit together.”

Symmonds’ track goals include a possible world indoor championship in the 800 this winter in Poland and appearances in the 800 and 1500 at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. But matters less specifically athletic in nature seemed to influence his move to Brooks.

“I’m a champion for athletes’ rights,” says Symmonds, who is perhaps the most vocal elite American runner on the issue of increasing sponsorship opportunities for track and field athletes. “The way that Nike is currently writing their contracts, I think, pretty much strips the athletes of all their rights, their ability to market themselves to potential other sponsors. The reduction clauses that they had were harsh and unnecessary.”

The reduction clauses Symmonds refers to are the inverse of bonus incentives. Athletes can have payouts reduced if they don’t meet specified goals, such as making an Olympic team. While he was constrained from discussing his situation, Symmonds says, “All the Nike deals that I have heard of from agents have reduction clauses and most other companies write reduction clauses into their contracts.”

He adds, “Brooks, the ‘Run Happy’ company, wants their athletes to be supported through the good times and the bad, and they don’t put reduction clauses in their contracts, which is revolutionary and game-changing, and is absolutely the only way I think shoe contracts should be done.”

Moreover, he says, “Brooks will allow me to continue to court other sponsors." Symmonds already has relationships with the Idaho-based wellness company Melaleuca and with Hansons Dodge Creative, a marketing firm that won an auction to rent temporary tattoo space on his shoulder. The arrangement with Brooks “opens up an opportunity to go after Garmin or Oakley or something like that.”

“I would have come off as a little bit hypocritical if I said that we need to fight for the athlete’s rights to be able to market themselves and operate as independent contractors and then I would go sign a Nike contract that basically completely crippled my ability to do that,” says Symmonds. “That’s why I’m putting my money where my mouth is and I’m signing with Brooks. I truly believe that they are the company to go with if an athlete wants to be supported and to have a family around.”

Symmonds had been working with the Oregon Track Club coach Mark Rowland, but Rowland is a Nike hire, and that arrangement is no longer possible. Speaking again of the supportive atmosphere he anticipates at Brooks, Symmonds says, “I was able to have that with OTC, and I will sing OTC’s praises until the day I die. I was lucky to have them around because they provided that support and that family feel. But I never felt that from Nike corporate.”

Brooks “is all about the run. I love the fact that they are just running,” states Symmonds, though Brooks has had overseas sponsorships of soccer, rugby, and field hockey national teams. "At Nike, the running department can be looked at as an afterthought after the big moneymakers of basketball and golf,” says Symmonds. “I just liked the idea of working with a small company where they’re solely dedicated to providing the highest quality running products and the greatest running experience. I’m going to have the opportunity to work with their marketing teams. When I visited the corporate headquarters, I just felt like I was home, like I had a place where I could work hard on the track but also come in and work on the various departments from product development to marketing and really feel like I was a part of the team.”

Symmonds’ immediate plans are for a three-week high altitude training stint in San Luis Potosi with Olympic 1500-meter silver medalist Leo Manzano (who currently has no shoe contract). Symmonds will then do indoor races in Winston-Salem, Boston, and New York, and then try to make the U.S. squad for the world indoor championships in Poland “and hopefully win that title.”

Seattle’s Brooks Beast will be a part of his life, but the one constant will remain Sam Lapray, whom Symmonds calls his best friend. They’ve known each other since Symmonds was a student at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon and Lapray was a coach. More recently, he was an assistant to Rowland at the OTC.

“For now, Sam Lapray is going to be my mentor as he’s always been for the last ten years and help guide this transition phase,” says Symmonds. “He’s has seen me through the transition from college to professional and the transition from Coach Gags [Frank Gagliano, the earlier OTC coach] to Coach Rowland.”

“I think my  best years are still to come,” says Symmonds. “I was a late bloomer in high school, I was a late bloomer in college. I didn’t even start training year-round until I turned pro at 23, so I do have quite a few miles left in my legs.”

When he spoke to Newswire on December 31, the day after he turned 30, Symmonds was eager to get to San Luis Potosi.

“I need the month to go down and get some great altitude training in and clear my head,” he says. He’ll also be working on a book. “It’s autobiographical,” he reports. “Rather than being running-focused, running is more a platform to talk about coming of age and transitioning from the [NCAA] D3 background to a professional setting, and really tell some interesting stories about marketing and business and what it’s like to be on the circuit in your 20s traveling through the world.”

Symmonds will write about his move to Brooks in his Runner's World column on January 6.