discuss:
discuss:
Timmons was a terrible coach who burned out everybody he coached.
(said while hysterically crying and screaming); LEAVE COACH TIMMONS ALONE!
I call BS, why the hell would Gallowalker's Earth devote space for an article on someone like Timmons?
Well, I got my copy today and the Timmons article is in there. It's kind of silly, "Bad Troll Effort," to pretend it's not.
Hey, I'm not one of the dinks who still reads Gallowalker's Earth.
Link?
The story of Coach Timmons is not really unique to alot of coaches from the 1950's to the late 1970s-timeframe. He was the most famous, but my coach was very similar in his 'hard work for everybody, my way or the highway' approach. Did it work? Yes it did....for some runners (just like in the Timmons article). Most of the distance records from my University are from the late 60s to mid 70s and still on the books today. The formula was: 100 mile weeks for everybody in the fall; hard training throughout indoor and outdoor season. Results: out of 15 runners, 4 would run beyond their wildest expectations; 3-4 All Americans; 4 would be chronically injured and never really get anything going and 2-3 would quit or get kicked off the team. There was 'lots of Timmons-style' coaches around in those days. Some at the high school level too. (ie, The Long Green Line).
How nice for you, but for to suggest the article isn't even in there is a bit silly.
Says you, a reader of such a ridiculous publication incapable of constructing a single coherent sentence.
Bad Troll Effort wrote:
Says you, a reader of such a ridiculous publication incapable of constructing a single coherent sentence.
I quit taking RW years ago, when they started having article on 'getting six pack abs' and putting models on the cover, but went out and bought this issue, just to read the article on Coach Timmons. I had every page of the Jim Ryun story memorized when I was a kid.
the only difference in those results between Timmons-style and most coaches in the 80s and 90s is that the latter coaches would get one runner at most with fast times because they never challenged anyone. To think that I and so many others wasted six years of pre-college running and two years of college running (pre-injury, and no one knew how to fix tendonitis!) with no sound coaching.
been there done that. wrote:
The formula was: 100 mile weeks for everybody in the fall; hard training throughout indoor and outdoor season.
You are totally clueless.
There was no coaching of runners in off season. Timmons had the Wichita Track Club during the summer, which was open to all area runners. I went to a small school outside of Wichita but was welcomed by him and the distance runners to accompany them to occasional meets, and ran some of their practices when I was able to get there. My own school did not have a cross country team until the 1963-4 school year.
Timmons' program helped all of the runners, not just a few. He also coached swimming, and some of the runners ran cross country, swam on the swim team, then ran track in the spring. I have met a lot of coaches through the years, and Bob Timmons was the best, at the events that he coached.
He was basically retired when he went to KU and the situation was entirely different. Kids there would tell him to FO and skip practices instead of doing what he said. In high school he was highly respected and the kids would do whatever they could to run for him and be on his teams. There was a state champion discus thrower who was kicked off the team because he refused to practice in the mornings like everyone else. But that changed when he went to KU, because the college kids were prima donnas and he didn't coach them any longer. He retired soon after going there.
Regarding the high school program, Timmons had the kids doing a lot of things that aren't mentioned. For example the runners did a lot of flexibility exercises, just like the swimmers. He had the runners work on this constantly, every day before running, in between sets, and after. There were other things too. There was no 2 mile then, the longest event was a mile, with the exception of cross country that was often less than 2 miles anyway.
Not everyone ran 100 miles a week, not even Ryun. He might have hit that at the most but was usually running a lot less, including doubles and reps. The quality was the key, not the quantity. Timmons' teams won many state titles! This was not only in cross country, swimming and track, but also many events in these sports. Timmons coached Bob Hansen who was a multi event state champion in the 100, 220, long jump, relays, and who won the Golden West 440 in 47.1 seconds the first time that he'd run it!
Finally, Kansas was a terrible place to run. It was 107 in the summer and humid, so that when you went outside it was like being blinded by a flash bulb with the heat. The summer before my senior year I went out a ran a few times at midnight, which was the best time of the day. In winter it was icy and windy. I was determined to run anyway, and would run with spikes on the icy roads. There were times I headed out into the wind and was driven back by the snow and ice where it was impossible to see where I was going and I wasn't making any headway anyway. There were many good runners, and coaches from the Wichita area and other parts of the state.
Most important of all, Timmons was a really nice guy. You wanted to run and to do what it took, because he was giving you this great opportunity and you weren't going to toss it away.
J.R. wrote:
[quote]been there done that. wrote:
The formula was: 100 mile weeks for everybody in the fall; hard training throughout indoor and outdoor season.
You are totally clueless.
There was no coaching of runners in off season. Timmons had the Wichita Track Club during the summer, which was open to all area runners.
YOU are totally clueless. The poster was talking about the COLLEGE YEARS and the period between August when workouts started and June when the season ended. Wise up. And, btw, I grew up in Kansas, went through school all the way to a masters degree and ran plenty of 100 mile weeks, summer and winter. The weather did not detract serious runners.
Running for Bob Timmons at Kansas was at best a mixed bag in terms of success. Ryun was an off the chart exception to every rule.
A lot of hot shot high school milers came to Kansas and didn't show much improvement. The two biggest names that come to mind are Doug Smith and Barrie Williams. Barrie ran pretty well after transferring to UCLA.
Kent McDonald ran the still school record in the steeple but did things his way, which meant skipping the morning runs and taking it easy in some workouts. Kent came close to getting kicked off the team because of this.
Brent Steiner became an All-American in x-c after renouncing his scholarship and training on his own his senior year.
Then you take a guy like George Mason who didn't even break 4:30 in the mile in high school. George became a sub 8:45 steepler at Kansas and a decent marathoner. Bill Lundberg and John Roscoe also became pretty good in the steeple.
Timmons non-Ryun record is a mixed bag. From my limited experience training under him, it was way too intense. It was too many fast miles and intervals.
I would not heap alot of scorn on Timmons. He was a product of his generation and upbringing. An ex-Marine, remember. When the late 60s and 70s came along, alot of old school coaches were caught in the wave of change in runners thinking for themselves more and everything else that a coach like that would have problems with. I remember an article in Track and Field News in the mid 70s that talked about Timmons changing with the times in regards to hair-length and clothing styles. Sure, he made some great champions and arguably the best miler America has ever seen; and also ruined alot of potential talent by not devising individual programs for the different types of runners he had; but he was no different from other 'hard ass' coaches of his day in that regard; just one of the most famous. Bill Easton, his famous predecessor at KU, was 'blamed' for ruining Billy Mills. (rent the dvd 'Running Brave' you young guys).
All the pros and cons aside, regarding Timmon's coaching methods; I think it is an outstanding thing he did, giving Kansas University all of his land for a 'permanent' KU cross country course and training area for the distance runners. I know that they have held Big 12 there and Nationals within the past 10 years. Bravo to Bob!
[quote]Jayhawk wrote:
Brent Steiner became an All-American in x-c after renouncing his scholarship and training on his own his senior year.
A little before your time, but I recall the great Dave Anderson from SMS ('69), went to KU, disappeared for awhile, then came back and ran well his last year or so. Did he go the 'Steiner route' or was he always training under Timmie? Did Jon Callen the 9 flat 2 miler ('69) from Wichita East go to KU too? I assume he did.
Wasn't much of his coaching based on swimming?
I know I swam on the swim team one winter instead of base training while in high school, and the radically different training (versus track and cross country, where we raced 1x/week and did speedwork only 1-2x per week) was really a shock. Intervals all day, every day. It was hard to get used to physically and mentally.
You can find successes and failures with ANY coach.