KU Coach-Bob Timmons, coach of Ryun and others-no holds barred article in RW

What a hatchet job. Timmons himself has said they didn't have all that much knowledge to draw on back in the day. As for the writer accusing an 84 year old man of faking memory problems (after the guy was in a auto accident), that's sinking as low any of the liars from the NYT or Washington Post when it comes to their roundabout character assassination when covering people who don't have the same political outlooks at the those who run those rags. No wonder I haven't read RW in years. At least the interview is online.

lots of repeat quarters wrote:

What a hatchet job. Timmons himself has said they didn't have all that much knowledge to draw on back in the day. As for the writer accusing an 84 year old man of faking memory problems (after the guy was in a auto accident), that's sinking as low any of the liars from the NYT or Washington Post when it comes to their roundabout character assassination when covering people who don't have the same political outlooks at the those who run those rags. No wonder I haven't read RW in years. At least the interview is online.

I was with you, til you decided to turn this into a political rant/bashing. Just stick to Fox News and the Washington Times for your right wing affirmations.

In the comments area under the RW article, Mike Sharp who is quoted in the article submitted a lengthy post and there's some argument between him and another KU runner. Didn't read all of it, but it looks interesting.

I would argue that my coach Deloss Dodds got more out of his distance runners and had better success in the 70s than Timmons did with more heralded recruits over in Lawrence. We did respect Coach Timmons and his teams but were somewhat baffled at the spotty results. (most of us were not even recruited by KU). When it is all said and done, Coach Timmons still goes down as one of the 'good guys', overall. May God bless him in his final years.

I am from the other side of the world so don't know what Coach Timmons was like. But was interested to read the article.

I think it fair to cover both sides of a story but don't think it was done well in this case.

Comments like this

"The man is tall, muscular, and ruggedly good-looking. "Hey coach, do you remember me?" the man asks. Timmons says yes, but he obviously doesn't. Maybe it's the fog. Or maybe this guy wasn't enough of a winner to register in Timmons's memory. The old coach just stands there, looking uncomfortable, unsure what else is expected of him."

"maybe this guy wasn't enough of a winner to register in Timmons's memory" - really show a bias against Timmons and throw into question the validity of the whole article.

and why say this guy is "ruggedly good looking" ????

mid distance runner wrote:

I am from the other side of the world so don't know what Coach Timmons was like. But was interested to read the article.

I think it fair to cover both sides of a story but don't think it was done well in this case.

Comments like this

"The man is tall, muscular, and ruggedly good-looking. "Hey coach, do you remember me?" the man asks. Timmons says yes, but he obviously doesn't. Maybe it's the fog. Or maybe this guy wasn't enough of a winner to register in Timmons's memory. The old coach just stands there, looking uncomfortable, unsure what else is expected of him."

"maybe this guy wasn't enough of a winner to register in Timmons's memory" - really show a bias against Timmons and throw into question the validity of the whole article.

and why say this guy is "ruggedly good looking" ????

exactly! I don't recognize people I went to school with 20 years either. That's why they have name tags at high school reunions. People change as they age. It was a cheap shot.

K-State Wildcat in early 70s wrote:

I would argue that my coach Deloss Dodds got more out of his distance runners and had better success in the 70s than Timmons did with more heralded recruits over in Lawrence. We did respect Coach Timmons and his teams but were somewhat baffled at the spotty results. (most of us were not even recruited by KU). When it is all said and done, Coach Timmons still goes down as one of the 'good guys', overall. May God bless him in his final years.

Yes, you guys fielded some great relay teams between '68 and into the late 70s. Yes, better than KU for sure.

as a former pupil of timmie's, i can tell you that he was much more than a coach to me. his hardnosed mentality and drive to make me better carried over into my "real life". the article made me sick to my stomach.

cottonwood falls wrote:

as a former pupil of timmie's, i can tell you that he was much more than a coach to me. his hardnosed mentality and drive to make me better carried over into my "real life". the article made me sick to my stomach.

Isn't that ironic? Alot of times that teacher or coach that you disliked the most due to their demanding class or pile of homework demanded of their students or the coach that seemed to pick on you or be overly demanding are the ones when you look back, removed by a couple of decades or more are the ones that helped you become tough and disciplined in life to succeed in you career or work habits.

I guess that was the point of all those calisthentics Ryun and others had to do during hard interval sessions. It's hard to see how doing pushups and squat thrusts between 880 repeats makes you run faster. I guess it makes you tougher if you don't get mononucleosis or mentally burned out.

Living in the Past wrote:

It's hard to see how doing pushups and squat thrusts between 880 repeats makes you run faster.

It was a beginning form of core strenghting exercises. Looks like Timmie was waaaaay ahead of his time.

Yeah, but why do that in the middle of a track workout? It seems like a strange way to recover between 880 repeats.

Look at some of the Canova circuits. Or John Cook's circuit training with intervals. Or Giggliotti's circuits.

All have some sort of exercises in between running at high intensities.

Are they exactly the same? No, but it isn't as far out there as you may think.

The Kansas University distance program throughout the 1970s and 1980s, was more like the old children's story "The Emperor's New Clothes". Nobody for a long time wanted to tell the Emperor the truth.

Just read the Timmons article in my new RW. I have a hard time believing that Timmons would sometimes have his Cross Country team run an all out 880 right before the race to test their toughness and have them compete gassed from an all out 880?. I've never heard of such a thing. Sounds ridiculous.

I ran with Sharp at KU and I can tell you no one liked him. He was not what one would call a team player.

"The Kansas University distance program throughout the 1970s and 1980s, was more like the old children's story "The Emperor's New Clothes". Nobody for a long time wanted to tell the Emperor the truth."

-Thanks for your commentary, Mr. Sharp. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

KU83 wrote:

I ran with Sharp at KU and I can tell you no one liked him. He was not what one would call a team player.

....that aside; you gotta admire a guy who would come back from such catastophic injuries that he had and run at all, let alone half way decently, on the regional level.

I ran in high school under Timmons and was one of the people who simply faded with the stress of it all. I can remember coming home and just sitting, too exhausted to eat, too exhausted to do anything but sip water. Certainly his coaching helped shape the rest of my life, however. We were taught never to have excuses and to keep pushing ourselves. The attrition of the team was simply a fact of life. I would never call his approach "military," although perhaps it was. He would never yell at us, or berate us; he would simply urge us in a quiet way to keep pushing. I can see now that some of us could have done better with a less rigorous approach, and a little more rest, but the workouts never got shorter. We were told we should never rest before a meet, and we never did. We worked just as hard the day before a competition as any other day. I can remember one cross country meet when we had all done our best, and probably won, and then as runners from other schools sat recuperating, exhausted, he had the entire team line up to the start line and run the course again. The meet had simply been our warm-up. He was very scornful of what he called Roger Bannister finishes. Bannister, of course, sometimes collapsed at the finish line. He always said that if any of us collapsed, we would just be left lying on the ground. No one would come pick us up.