Arkansas Runners- McDonnell Era

What is the story about Cragg? I'm a huge fan and never knew he was homeless.

Alistair's brother brother died when he was at SMU and he had a tough time of it. Dont think he was homeless though. John did a great job making him believe in himself.Both Alistair and Joe had absolute belief in themselves during college, thats what mae them so good. When they were done with college they both had set backs that messed with their confidence. Joe never really got it back, I hope Al will get it back out in CA

The Return of the G wrote:

What is the story about Cragg? I'm a huge fan and never knew he was homeless.

His younger brother rather cruelly survived a suicide attempt after which he was left paralysed and brain damaged until he died several months later. Alistair went to SMU on scholarship in Jan 2000.. Dropped out a couple of months later and moved to London where his parents had moved to and were living at the time. Don't know much about this period but I remember an interview he did with IAAF magazine(I have a copy of it somewhere..think its from around the time he won European indoors) in which he references occasionally sleeping rough in London. He quit running for almost a year and when he started again, SMU had given away his scholarship. So he contacted Coach Mac and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Good guy. I'm a big fan

My vote is Falcon - if he had the advantage of being 2-3 years older, he probably has 9-10 titles and 14-15 All American awards!!! Like someone said earlier, they both had great careers and its like comparing apples to oranges because of the age differential. Let's just say that it is a toss-up!!! Good luck to Alistair (sp???) in reaching that next step; hope he can get on the medal stand at Worlds or Oly's

Geez thats some pretty deep stuff.

Falcon would be my pick but Cragg would be a very, very close second

Bump

great thread. is DOC= marc davis?

must admit, i keep peeking back at this thread. i'm sure a lot of universities could boast similar stories, but none could boast the talent, nor the coaching genius.

i competed against joe--nearly had to hurdle him in the 92 trials, and had to completely hurdle razorback mike morin in the same race. maybe falling is an arkansas thing? (pot calling the kettle black disclaimer: i fell in the semis, as did jeff atkinson.) joe was a cool dude, but i have to add to those who've already mentioned his proclivity for "fish-tales." i always laughed, because it didn't matter what month it was (i.e. right before the olympic trials), joe always responded to any queries about his training, even when it was just small talk, with "still running 90-100 miles/week and haven't set foot on a track." if you can run a 3:49 mile doing that, then he really didn't live up to his potential, but i will second those who've already come to his defense. very few really know how difficult it is in the rarefied air he occupied for long (college) and brief (professional) moments...

i didn't see a posting by a "DOC," but that was indeed M.D.'s nickname (another character that could merit a lengthy thread...).

Cush...are you Greg whitely? I was there in NO to see that race of which you spoke. Great finish up the home straight.

no, i'm cush, as in cushing-murray. whitely (also a socal boy out of orange county) was 2 spots ahead of me in the dreaded 4th spot...

cool. yeah, i remember you. i remember thinking it was odd to see anyone over 800m in santa monica track club gear. i went out in the semi's. first and only trials. was a complete neophyte.

Socalcush - 2010 US Clubs XC Master's Champ.

sorry, i was 2nd overall, though i won my age group.

back to arkansas, i was saddened to hear about the passing of keith iovine years ago; he was a teammate of mine with santa monica track club in the mid-90s. great guy, definitely goofy, appeared out of nowhere and just started training with us even though coach joe douglas had no idea who he was. i lost touch with him after '96. anyone know how he died? i worked out with this guy for a couple of years almost everyday, and i knew so little about about him...

I'm with you there socalcush. I keep peeking back at this thread every few days to see if people have added to it. I wish some more of my former Razorback teammates were on here contributing. Speaking of Joe's proclivity (nice word by the way) for "fish-tales." The Springfield Newsleader in Springfield, MO did a big story on Joe when he was training in the Springfield area during the early 90s. They quoted him as saying he was doing 300 miles a week. Of course any of us experienced runners know that's crazy, but I'm sure some readers believed the story. I thought it was pretty funny. No doubt Joe worked his ass off, but I know 300 miles a week was stretching it a little. He definitely set foot on the track depending on what time of year it was. If it was fall, then he probably wasn't on the track at all. One of the mainstays of Coach Mac's training was that we never set foot on the Track during XC season. We did all of intervals on grass during the fall.

Everyone knows Joe's 3:49 mile came off of his 5 years of base with John mcd, and then he lit up the speedwork, cutting into the huge base he had to get the 3:49 mile. Unfortunately, the rumor is that there was only one legit Razorback fall in the 92 Oly trials, and that was Morin. Morin was tripped, and still managed to get to 1200m at 2:55. I believe Joe fell, then caught a suntan before getting up. Oh well.

Cush:

Iovine was a great guy. Always had a smile on his face, a girl on the go, a new business deal to make him rich and was fun to be around. He died way too young of hermoragging of the blood vessels leading into his heart. My wife described it to me once, but I can't quite remember the exact details. His dad was a glass blower for scientific instruments and unfortunately died young too. We used to call him G.G. At Arkansas, which stood for " Gums Giovanni " since whenever he smiled, which was all the time, you could see his gums.

He had an old school American model huge car that burned more oil than gas. Sometimes we would put a keg in the trunck, run the tap into the back seat and drive around campus drinking.

He was a Funny guy and is missed!

slipperytracks wrote:

Everyone knows Joe's 3:49 mile came off of his 5 years of base with John mcd, and then he lit up the speedwork, cutting into the huge base he had to get the 3:49 mile. Unfortunately, the rumor is that there was only one legit Razorback fall in the 92 Oly trials, and that was Morin. Morin was tripped, and still managed to get to 1200m at 2:55. I believe Joe fell, then caught a suntan before getting up. Oh well.

So you and all the rest could of run a 3:49 if you just would of gotten onto the track a bunch - you are so full of yourself! It may of been some good training with his coach; reasonable amount of racing (instead of over-racing) and getting into the right races for fast times! His hs coach (who also happened to coach Teg) deserves some credit instead of a "slap in the face" by people like yourself!!!

Socalcush,

I knew Keith in HS back in Louisiana. He beat my brother to win the LA 4A mile title back in '81 in 4:19, kicking a 60 last lap. That was his jr year, running for Rummel HS in New Orleans. He came back in '82 and swept the 800 and 1600 in 1:52 and 4:12, crushing both fields. Very slight build with a devastating kick. I remember he wore Tiger Spartan A sprint spikes in his races. Lost touch with him after he went to Arkansas, but he's one of the best middle distance runners Louisiana has ever produced. One of his distance rivals in New Orleans, Jon Ratcliffe, ran 9:09 to win state and also went to Arkansas.

What did Joe do after 1991?