Yep Coach loved Maguire. Any time someone looked hungover on a Sunday run, Coach would say something about how the only guy he ever knew who could get away with drinking and chasing tail all night and still look good in practice the next day was Maguire.
For those of you who don’t know Harry Groves, it is nearly impossible to capture the essence of this man in several dozen one-line anecdotes. Yes, he produced 200+ All-Americans during his career and multiple Olympians, but more importantly – he produced hundreds of MEN. He taught us class, character, and integrity...although not always by obvious example.
He influenced everyone he came in contact with – and those of us who were lucky enough to be coached by him, have been bettered for life. I’m sure there is someone who was rubbed the wrong way by Coach Groves, but underneath his rough exterior, he had a heart of gold and his runners were his children. (If Coach Groves were to read this – he’d say in his deep gravelly voice, “Goddamnf***er! I’m still alive. You sound like a damn obituary!”
A few stories..........
• The week before NCAA XC Regionals, it snowed about 8 inches. The golf course where we trained was a mess, and Groves was in a salty mood. When we pulled up in the van, he spotted a snowman about a quarter mile away on the fairway. He floored the gas, and we were going about 50 mph when he hit the snowman. I was certain we were going to die. Groves slammed on the brakes and we slid another 100 feet in the wet snow, then he put the van in reverse and BACKED up and ran over it again. Coach Groves and the golf course groundskeepers never got along very well.
• On a flight into Kansas City, Carrot Top was on the same plane. The team was in the back, and halfway through the flight several people started chanting ‘Carrot Top Carrot Top.’ When we landed, Carrot Top put on an impromptu performance at the baggage claim. Groves didn’t know who he was, but matched him line for line. At one point, Carrot Top pulled out his wallet and showed us his enormously well-endowed ‘baby picture.’ Groves took one look at the picture and fired off about 20 jokes. Carrot Top was speechless.
• Groves hated the police. In particular, he hated the Penn State Campus Police. They were very aggressive about ticketing, and parking around the training complex was difficult. He once caught an officer in the act – the tirade was so withering that the police never came back – at least not that semester.
• We had a run called the Yanomami, named after the South American tribe. Basically, on a deserted trail or back road in the woods, we’d see how far we could run naked. College stuff. Once, coach unexpectedly showed up in the van. Instead of pulling over and cursing us out, he tried to run us over. Groves and his van were a deadly mix. One minute, you think he was going to kill you – a half hour later, he’d be waxing poetic about your mom’s cooking.
• Every year, we’d have a new team van or two. They didn’t last much longer than that. We were in Boston for a meet, and Coach Groves was trying to find a place to park in the city. We pulled into a parking garage, and immediately hit the ‘Low Clearance’ sign. He ignored it and kept going. After dinner, when we went to leave the garage, Groves ended up wedging the van underneath a concrete girder. Normal people would get out and decide what to do. Not Coach – he gassed the van forward. And then backward. And then forward. Concrete scraping back and forth across the top on the van. Finally we were unstuck. Groves never said a single word.
For those of you who don’t know him, the personality of Coach Groves is hard to capture in a few words. He voice is full of gravel. His is face weathered into a well-worn leather, tanned from years in the sun. His body; not quite as limber and flexible as it once was. I have no idea what he looked like when he was younger, but he was probably not a looker. Nevertheless, he is an incredibly attractive, charming and charismatic man. In an era of coaches getting fired for inappropriate comments or actions, Groves remained Old School. In the mid-90’s when I was at Penn State, I saw him leap on the track in the middle of an indoor race, drag a teammate off the track, and pummel him with his clipboard. Once, with the women’s team all around, he told a joke: “What is the difference between a bunch of Pygmies and the women’s track team? ... One is a bunch of cunning runts, and the other is a bunch of running c--ts.” The women loved him. He loved them. He loved all of us. And that is why people were rarely offended. Beneath his rough exterior, Harry Groves deeply loved his athletes – all of them. Maybe that is why he was able to get away with the things he did. A younger coach, or a coach at another school would have been fired. But not Coach Groves. He was from a previous era – he was raw, unedited, and unrestrained. He was also a class act. And because of him – hundreds of his ex-athletes have a little more class, a little more integrity, little more character........and a much more colorful vocabulary!
Leif Steiner wrote:
• We had a run called the Yanomami, named after the South American tribe. Basically, on a deserted trail or back road in the woods, we’d see how far we could run naked. College stuff.
"Yanomami" because Napolean Chagnon was at Penn State in the 1970s and taught one of the most popular courses, Cultural Anthropology 101, mainly every day slide shows of his work with the Yanomamo tribe in the Amazon.
Leif Steiner wrote:Once, with the women’s team all around, he told a joke: “What is the difference between a bunch of Pygmies and the women’s track team? ... One is a bunch of cunning runts, and the other is a bunch of running c--ts.”
Timing is everything in joke-telling.
Q “What is the difference between a bunch of Pygmies and the women’s track team?"
A "One is a bunch of cunning runts" (full stop)
Just saw this thread, it's great. Made me think about the time he told a teamate he didn't take him to an away meet to "lope around the track like a big piece of shit".
Stretching out before a run one summer, Groves started telling a story about his team a few years before. They had just finished a 100 mile week at Rec Hall and he drove the van back across to the track. When he got there, he saw them getting off a bus.
"Riding a bus across campus after a 100 mile week? That's like jacking off in city hall!"
Gotta love Harry.
The story about running over the snowman just made me laugh out loud. This thread is awesome.
Leif's description of Coach's use of the team van brings back some memories. One fall day, we went out to the mountain for those god-awful 1.5 mile hill repeats and Coach got the van wedged against a tree. Word has it he broke into a log cabin shed, 'borrowed' an axe, and chopped the tree down to free the van.
And man did he tear ass around the golf course. Someone once had a photo of him with the van up on two wheels. He would chat up Herman Goffberg and the injured guys in the van while hauling around like it was crash derby. As one of his runners, you definitely had to watch your back and listen for that van a comin'.
this is quite likely the funniest let's run thread of all time...you just had to know harry...hilarious!
MF
Larceny, wisdom at the track
By Chris Rosenblum
He was through with the 1992 Summer Olympics.
Andrew Valmon, believing he would not make the final U.S. 1,600-meter relay team, had packed to leave Barcelona early. Discouraged, he stopped to sign out of the Olympic Village.
That’s when Harry Groves, an assistant Olympic track coach, intervened. With a sympathetic shoulder? A stirring pep talk?
No, larceny did the trick.
Behind Valmon’s back, Groves stole one of his bags. The sprinter wound up staying overnight, re¬considering, getting on the relay team after all, and winning a gold medal.
“I stashed it so he couldn’t find it,” said Groves, 78, a State College resident and former Penn State track and field and cross-country coach. “I wasn’t going to let him go home. To this day, he thanks me.”
Besides guile, Groves brought a deep reservoir of wisdom to the job of guiding elite, sometimes temperamental athletes striving for glory with the world watching. In his illustrious 53-year career, in¬cluding 38 years at Penn State, he coached 14 Olympians.
“To be an Olympic coach takes a heap of living,” he said.
Groves knew from experience, for example, that agents, personal coaches and family members can distract Olym¬pians and potentially sabotage their performances. He even wrote to athletes’ parents, ex¬plaining they could best support their loved ones by keeping their distance. Some didn’t heed his advice.
“One of the worst (cases) was a young girl, 1,500-meter runner, really good, national class,” Groves said. “She got all kinds of awards for her ability as a runner. Then her parents showed up and did nothing but run around Barcelona as tourists, with her with them. And she never made it through the trial rounds.”
For the Games, Groves directed all the distance runners except marathoners. He had consulted with their coaches after the U.S. Olympic trials, saying he would do whatever they wanted for their athletes.
But when problems arose, Groves and the other Olympic coaches relied on their own judgment
.
“We had one young lady,” Groves said. “She just blew up completely. So I called her husband, and we flew him over to try to salvage her, but it didn’t work. She just got nervous and jumpy and couldn’t handle the whole thing.”
Egos also sometimes tested coaches.
Carl Lewis and Dennis Mitchell both wanted to an¬chor the 400-meter relay squad. Neither would yield. During practices, they bickered constantly, driving other teams from the track.
“Dennis wanted to anchor it be¬cause it meant his sponsors would give him more money. It’s that simple,” Groves said. “Carl didn’t need the money at that point. It was just a matter of pride.”
Finally, two days before the event, enough was enough. Groves said he urged head coach Mel Rosen “to make the call.”
Groves recalled Rosen’s next move: “He goes down and lines them up and says, ‘Carl, you’re going to anchor. Dennis, you’re going to run the third leg. You’re the best turner in the world. And if you guys don’t want to do it, get on the damn plane and get the hell out of here. We’ll substitute for you.’ Boy, they just reversed: ‘No, no, we’ll run.’
“Anyway, it turned out we not only won it, we broke the world record. And those guys who had been fighting like cats and dogs were hugging each other all over the place.”
Determining the 1,600-me¬ter relay choices provoked squabbles as well. But then Quincy Watts, the 400 champion, stepped forward and volunteered to “run any number of rounds in any leg you want me to run.”
“Now, with a statement like that, was morale ever high,” Groves said. “That shut up all the crying and complaining.”
But Groves found himself at a loss for words after the 400-meter intermediate hurdles.
Hours before the event, he ran into American hurdler Kevin Young. Young declared he would finish in about 46 seconds and shatter the world record. Groves razzed him for his audacity.
When Young returned, after blazing to a 46.78 finish, gold medal and new record, Groves could only lift the sole of his shoe. “See that?” he said to Young before offering his congratulations. “Stuck in my mouth.”
Another gesture provided one of Groves’ favorite mo¬ments of the Games.
In the 1991 World Championships, the British had crushed the U.S. in the 1,600-meter relay — as they loved to remind the Americans. After the U.S. gained golden re¬venge at the Olympics, Groves and the U.S. relay coach went to an Olympic Village bar to celebrate.
“We walked in, and the whole British staff was there,” Groves said. “And they stood and applauded, which was the greatest sportsmanship. They were hardcore. They were needling us all the time. They all came over and shook (the relay coach’s) hand. You don’t get that kind of stuff often.”
Just thought of another great one from the mind and mouth of Harry Groves. A team member had just run a very poor race and came to Coach looking for advice and solace. After listening patiently for a while, Coach interrupted the emotional team member and said "I know exactly what your problem is. LOFT. You know, Lack Of F***ing Talent." With that cutting statement done, Coach stormed off to watch a relay.
Doubtful Pre Doubtful wrote:
It strikes me that no one responded with a hate message against Harry Groves.
How is it possible that no one disliked him?
There was one guy who didn't get along with Coach Groves, but he got fired and then died after it turned out that he'd allowed his assistant to diddle kids.
may have heard of him wrote:
Doubtful Pre Doubtful wrote:It strikes me that no one responded with a hate message against Harry Groves.
How is it possible that no one disliked him?
There was one guy who didn't get along with Coach Groves, but he got fired and then died after it turned out that he'd allowed his assistant to diddle kids.
The AD who forced Harry's retirement is going to prison. Dont pick up the soap in the showers Mr Curley. Other inmates might want to "horse around" with you.
Just out of curiosity, any chance he comes back to PSU? Sounds like a great guy and better coach.
What do you mean "comes back to PSU?". If you know Coach, you'd know he's never left. A great man - still kicking on.
My wife and I are Stanford professors teaching at Oxford this quarter and out of the blue we contacted Sir Roger Bannister and had tea with him and his wife. It triggered a flood of memories of running cross country and track for Coach Groves back in the early 70's before I went off to med school. All of us have hilarious stories of the outrageous (and off-color) jokes and quips Coach Groves had. I was a "walk on" but he always treated us just as well (sometimes maybe was easier on us!) as his amazingly talented athletes on scholarship. What sometimes get missed is that in spite of Coach's crusty demeanor he genuinely cared deeply about all of us. When I saw him last at the SNF in State College a couple of years ago he did share with my wife: "Yeah, Dean wasn't my fastest middle distance runner, but he did significantly raise our team's average GPA!" Thanks for the chance you gave me, Coach...
With the recent passing of Bruce Lehane, Dan Stimson, and George Dales, I have been thinking about other coaches who had a huge impact on my life and athletics. Harry is at the top of the list. I hope he's going to be with us for a lot more time.
Holy crap, I miss Coach. Gotta find the time to head to State College, track him down, buy him a coffee at Panera, and talk some serious trash.
Bump in his memory
RIP
Thanks for everything Harry
