The great unknown Mike Slack.

Here are the 1971 results:

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/images/stories/NCAA_XC_PDFs/1971-men.pdf

BachelerFan42 wrote:

Hey i'm a high school runner and my dad works with Mike Slack at Sports Authority Headquarters in Englewood, Colorado. As iv'e become a high school runner and met and talked with Mike on several occasions and know some of his past, winning of the D3 NCAA XC Championships in '71 and '72 for North Dakota State and placing 3rd behind Pre and Bjorklund in '71 D2 or D1?? Also his 4th place finish in the '76 1500m trials and his Pan Am Experience in the 5000m but as hes kind of a idol..sorta i just was wondering if anyone else can tell me anything else, you know stories, times, races interesting stuff or whatever about him, i know they called him Slick or something? Thanks.

Slick is NOT unknown to any older runner from Minnesota or NDSU. Broke 4 minutes for the mile way before it was common. He was very talented at 800m-5,000m on the track (ran few 10ks on the track) Very good on the roads at 5k-20k. He was on several US national teams that competed in Europe. For some reason, he could never quite run a good marathon. One time he had about a mile lead over 2nd place, with just 3 miles left. He ground to a halt and finally stopped. We yelled at him to just keep going, but he just said he couldn't even pick up his feet! He had the same experience at another marathon. He had great speed, I think he ran 1:47

for 800m, 3:55 (?) mile. He was a partner of mine in the running shoe business in the early 80s, and was a very funny guy. Kept us in stitches.

Slack took 2 steps for every one of yours. I watched also walk-down 800m natioanl champ James Robinson in an 800m in Torino, Italy. He lost by inches, I think. 1:46 high.

1971 NCAA Xc Championships.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qId-mlFsHCw

1977 AAU Nationals 1500m 3rd 3:37.5

There have been threads about him before on here, but it is always hard to search for Slack and get good results.

Here is his TFN cover:

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/asset/cover_art/197708_thumb.jpg

A recent thread about the 1971 NCAA XC champs:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3884507&page=0

The first time I saw him was at a cross country meet, probably Minnesota AAU meet. It looked like he took two strides to everyone else's one. Crazy fast turn over.

I think he is the only person to go sub 4 for the mile in North Dakota. Finished second to Bjorklund in the Minnesota high school mile. BJ was 4:05.1 and Slack was around 4:11.

Dang, malmo is too fast for me.

mcgato wrote:

There have been threads about him before on here, but it is always hard to search for Slack and get good results.

Use the Google search of the boards and put Mike Slack in parentheses.

Three pages of results.

Chris Wasnetsky wrote:and put Mike Slack in parentheses.

Sorry, I meant quotation marks.

mcgato wrote:

Dang, malmo is too fast for me.

LOL

In the 60s and 70s there were two NCAA divisions: College & University. There were no Div 1, 2, 3 then.

Slack won the college division and placed 3rd in the 'University" Division, running for North Dakota State which had excellent XC teams.

Actually another 'division' existed = NAIA, which produced quite a few excellent distance guys.

As mentioned - great range.

Caught me by surprise once.

old school steve wrote:

[quote]BachelerFan42 wrote:

For some reason, he could never quite run a good marathon.

For a true miler to successfully transition to a marathon is extremely difficult. Dixon is almost alone in his abilty to do so at a high level. It's almost as if the miler must consciously destroy his fast-twitch muscles to withstand the distance.

Reality Bath wrote:

old school steve wrote:

[quote]BachelerFan42 wrote:

For some reason, he could never quite run a good marathon.

For a true miler to successfully transition to a marathon is extremely difficult. Dixon is almost alone in his abilty to do so at a high level. It's almost as if the miler must consciously destroy his fast-twitch muscles to withstand the distance.

Quax also managed it pretty well as did Bill Baillie though I'm not sure that either of them were as "pure" a miler as Dixon or Slack.

To the OP, Slack is far from unknown to those of us who were running during his heyday.

mcgato wrote:

There have been threads about him before on here, but it is always hard to search for Slack and get good results.

Here is his TFN cover:

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/asset/cover_art/197708_thumb.jpg

Running with a couple of slugs.

Doesn't get any cooler than that look. And, though he "only" finished fourth, he set the pace that gave Salazar heat stroke. Extra points for that.

1 32:31 Bill Rodgers GBTC CR

2 32:37 Mike Roche New Jersey

3 32:53 Craig Virgin Athletics West

4 33:02 Mike Slack Minn, MN

5 33:04 Greg Fredericks State College, PA

6 33:07 Hillary Tuwei U. Richmond (KEN)

7 33:10 Bruce Bickford Northestern TC

8 33:12 Bob Hodge GBTC

9 33:18 Greg Meyer GBTC

10 33:20 Alberto Salazar GBTC

Wasn't Slack the guy who had some "less-than-kind" words for Tom Byers for leading the '76 Olympic Trials 1500 through 1:50 then slowing to a jog? I think many guys were upset, but I remember hearing that Slack was exceptionally peeved.

Yeah i remember that name Tom Byers, Slack always called him a moron and ruined his chance for the Olympics and all, he said if the race would have been at a reasonable pace, not world record pace, he probably could of made the team with his devastating kick. and about the marathons, Slack would painfully talk about this one, so he and Bjorklund were running New York, i forget which year, and apparently he ended up with a pretty significant lead over the whole field and around the 24 or 25 mile mark, he felt as if he couldn't run anymore so he just sat down on the curb and quit.

I think that Slack's only attempts at the marathon were at Grandma's. One time he had a huge lead but dropped out at about the 24 mile mark (old school steve mentions this above). I think the other time he ran with Bjorklund and faded late, I think dropping out. This is all from a very hazy memory of long ago.

tjhe aviator wrote:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_hd4wuvEKsG4/Sv3jYkY8aaI/AAAAAAAABAA/_5T-oXreWrs/s1600-h/78FRR6_0009.jpg

Doesn't get any cooler than that look. And, though he "only" finished fourth, he set the pace that gave Salazar heat stroke. Extra points for that.

1 32:31 Bill Rodgers GBTC CR

2 32:37 Mike Roche New Jersey

3 32:53 Craig Virgin Athletics West

4 33:02 Mike Slack Minn, MN

5 33:04 Greg Fredericks State College, PA

6 33:07 Hillary Tuwei U. Richmond (KEN)

7 33:10 Bruce Bickford Northestern TC

8 33:12 Bob Hodge GBTC

9 33:18 Greg Meyer GBTC

10 33:20 Alberto Salazar GBTC

I remember watching this race. In looking at the pic, I notice 2 guys who have left this world, Bobby Doyle and Larry Olsen. Notice where BR is in the start. Notice Dan Dillon with the 'fro.

The quote I heard, although not first-hand was "I'll kill that bastard if I ever see him, anywhere."

The dumb part is that Byers would have had a shot at the team with his speed if the pace had been average or slow. I'm not sure why he had confidence issues and went out at a suicidal pace.

chubb wrote:

The quote I heard, although not first-hand was "I'll kill that bastard if I ever see him, anywhere."

The dumb part is that Byers would have had a shot at the team with his speed if the pace had been average or slow. I'm not sure why he had confidence issues and went out at a suicidal pace.

That MAY have been a little strong for Slicker, but he was very, very pi$$ed at Byers. I seem to remember a lot of F'ng Byers, F'ng Byers.....Slack did have a very good shot at making the team,but maybe shouldn't have let Byers influence

his own performance as much as it did. I'm not that familiar with racing at that distance, so maybe Byers did really screw up Mike's chances. I forgot what the times were, but Byers definitely influenced the outcome of the race. I still think Mike had a good shot at 5,000 and 10,000, as he was very strong and obviously quick. I always felt that Slick was as talented as BJ, but BJ got more notice. Mike was definitely faster than Garry (don't believe BJ ever broke 4 for the mile, but was close). Garry ran some great marathon times, which Mike could never do. As someone earlier mentioned, it's hard to have that wide of a range, ala Dixon, Quax and a few others. We all felt that Slack could run a good marathon because he was very formidable at 20-25K, but he just couldn't handle 42K, I guess. No question about it, though, Slack was very talented and a very colorful part of racing in that era. He and Garry did some hellacious workouts together, and raced well around the country in the mid-to-late 70s.