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

scotth wrote:

the BRodgers story by Steve Rushin in the issue that just hit newsstands.

what is the story about? a bio piece or update on his life since he left prime racing?

What a Good Guy Ryun Is wrote:

>Just got done watching my dvd "Jim Ryun, America's greatest miler"...

What was that address, from which to order the DVD?

For years after reading the Jim Ryun story I thought Bakersfield, CA must be a really special place. I would love to order a copy of the DVD. I know some milers who would like to see it.

Best wishes to Coach Timmons and everyone else.

Jim Reardon

Wisconsin Track Club

vu2max wrote:

What a Good Guy Ryun Is wrote:

>Just got done watching my dvd "Jim Ryun, America's greatest miler"...

What was that address, from which to order the DVD?

For years after reading the Jim Ryun story I thought Bakersfield, CA must be a really special place. I would love to order a copy of the DVD. I know some milers who would like to see it.

Best wishes to Coach Timmons and everyone else.

Jim Reardon

Wisconsin Track Club

He will probably see your post here and contact you. If not, he goes by 'Jayhawk' on here and you can also 'google'- "Rinks Ramblings" to get to his website. It is a 'must have' for any distance runner to have along with the Prefontaine movies, Running Brave and Chariots of the Fire.

[quote]vu2max wrote:

For years after reading the Jim Ryun story I thought Bakersfield, CA must be a really special place.

Same here. Whenever the city of Bakersfield or Terre Hautte popped up I automatically thought 'Jim Ryun world record mile and 880'-word association; like Pavlov's dog.

editorial correction

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" ... Robert Browning (one of my favorite quotes)

personal take - whew, a hornets nest for sure. If I were a conspiracy theorist I might surmise that this has played in well with the philosophical contrast (stark at that) between what seems(?) to be the RW camp and the high intensity camp.

On the other hand I have nothin to add from any personal experience. It has been, however, somewhat intriguing, if not painful, reading.

Another saying that jumped out at me relative to reading these posts:

"I felt sorry that I had no shoes, until I met a man with no feet".

And I almost always think of Track and Field's own Brian Sternberg. He the shoes? or is he the feet? And there are many more - aren't there?

Wow ! I have held off on this for a while.

Firstly, those who recognise my name will know I am one of the "Lydiardites" (troll language).

Yes ! I am on the other side of the world in New Zealand and I too am horrified by the RW article and what is blatantly an attack on Bob Timmons

What does Bob Timmons mean to me. Personally nothing, EXCEPT he was a guy who fired those of us who loved running by getting this Jim Ryun character running phenomenal times in High School and of course KU.

Yes ! We were Arthur's disciples and we knew that Arthur disagreed with the "How" and "what" of Jim's training but that did not stop us running down to the local Bookshop to get the "Jim Ryun Story". I can reach out and still grab hold of that book as I write here.

I looked longingly at the pictures of the guys training at Wichita East and KU and wished I too could be a part of something like that. We had hours of discussions about those aspects.

I ultimately did at a small NAIA School in Arkansas.

But more than all that : Timmons was part of a Jayhawk culture that intertwined our own Running History. Afterall, we were bought up on Jack Lovelock and Glenn Cunningham, then along comes this kid from KU to challenge (and beat) our own Peter Snell.

Most Kiwi's who ran back in the 60's knew there were many Universities in the US but there were 2 who figured most in the running culture: Oregon (because of the Bowerman/lydiard connection) and Kansas (for the above). Sorry our 2 guys got the Olympic Golds Guys !!.

When Jim Ryun came to NZ in the early 70's many of us flocked to the meet to see him run. The fact he was well beaten over 2 miles did not bother us. We just wanted to see him in person and get his autograph.

I look back at how Timmons trained you guys and I would not do some of the stuff he did. But he was operating on what he knew and what the current thinking was.

Hence Lydiard's criticism of the US College system.

I knew Arthur well enough to know although he would disagree vehenemently with Bob Timmons on training philosophy he would not stand an attack like we see in RW and would be the first to come to Timmon's defence in a situation like this.

They came from a similar era that had values like Loyalty and Integrity stamped over everything and those they saw as violating those qualities were not tolerated easily.

I also know that Arthur would have struggled in a US University Coaching role as he could not tolerate "Petty Politics" and all (as we say) the parlava that goes with those roles. He was always head on with officialdom in this country .. and others, so he probably had quite a respect for Coaches like Bob Timmons who could work in those environments.

So Mr Sharp, stop looking for a way out of this and let the old man live out the rest of his days in dignity. You ain't gonna win on this one mate, there are too many backs up now !!!

Jayhawk .. love your blogs.

[quote]Kim Stevenson wrote:

I ultimately did at a small NAIA School in Arkansas.

where did you run in college in Arkansas and what years? I ran Nationals in Arkadelphia, Arkansas in the early-mid 70s.

Attended Hendrix College, Conway. Ark.

I ran NAIA Nationals at Arkadelphia 3 times ; 1974, 75 & 76.

Made the semis of the 880 yds in 1975.

you had to run against 147 guy Robert LaGrant from Texas Southern and Gerald Masterson from Pine Bluff, John Nelson from Fort Hays State, Dennis Biel from Wisconson Parkside and maybe Malcom Cleary from Occidental? I didn't even attempt to run the 880 at nationals with a pr of 152.

not to mention Olympic medalist Mike Boit from ENMU who ran a sub 4 minute mile in '73 losing to Tommie Fulton, but probably ran the 1/2 in one of his college years most likely.

Gerry Masterson was a good friend. Went to Ouachita Baptist in Arkadelphia. We did a lot of training together in 1976.

I recognise some the names you stated (I have a copy of the heat results from '75).

I was 4th in the 1st Heat Won by Johm Warren of David Lipscomb. I ran 1:54.40 to beat out Michal Embler of Baptist South Carolina by 1/100 of a second to make the semis.

Malcolm Cleary was 2nd in Heat 2.

Toughest Heat was the last .

Mike Boit 1;51.1. from Cornell Evans. Gerry Masterson was 4th in 1:52.44.

I got blown away in the Semi.. I went through 440 in 54 and I was already last !!!!

BTW :My PR was 1:53. .. Coach enterd us because we were just up the road !!

Kim Stevenson wrote:

We were Arthur's disciples and we knew that Arthur disagreed with the "How" and "what" of Jim's training.

When Jim Ryun came to NZ in the early 70's many of us flocked to the meet to see him run. The fact he was well beaten over 2 miles did not bother us.

I look back at how Timmons trained you guys and I would not do some of the stuff he did. But he was operating on what he knew and what the current thinking was. Hence Lydiard's criticism of the US College system.

Actually, Bowerman and Lydiard represented "the current thinking" when Ryun was in high school.

Some have pointed out that Timmons's responsiblity was to KU, which meant winning NCAA championships. But even in that scenario, Timmons overtrained Ryun, since Ryun was clearly burned out his senior year in college, when he should have been indomitable in the NCAAs. Had Ryun managed to beat sophomore Marty Liquori in the mile outdoors in 1969, KU would have won the NCAA championship. After Ryun finished second, Timmons put him in the three mile to score the few extra points needed to win, but Ryun dropped out.

Had Ryun been trained under the Lydiard method, he probably would have been running faster as a senior in college than as a high school senior. He probably would have run faster in '71-72 than in '66-67. He probably would have been the first human to run under 3:50. And he probably would not have been performing so erratically in '71-72.

(By the way, when you saw Ryun getting "well beaten" in NZ, was that the same tour that included Steve Stageberg?)

One final point about Timmons. I agree that the US collegiate system is less than ideal for developing world class talent. But not all collegiate programs chewed up their athletes to the same degree as KU. What about all the Villanova grads who had long, successful careers? Marcus O'Sullivan, Eamonn Coghlan, Liquori, Sydney Maree.

I shudder to think what would have happened had they gone to KU.

As for Jim Ryun's letter to RW, it's interesting that he defends Timmons the man and praises "the program" but makes no defense of Timmons's training methods.

Ryun points out that since an athlete chooses the program, the athlete can simply leave. But that suggests that there were indeed drawbacks to the Timmons approach.

It's unrealistic to shift the blame to the athlete. You can't expect a teenager to know enough about training to avoid certain programs. And once they're under scholarship, how easy is it for an athlete to transfer somewhere else, especially if they're struggling under the wrong program? Timmons's method brought phenomenal short-term results for Ryun in high school, so why wouldn't Ryun want to follow Timmons to KU?

"The current thinking" about training was in flux when Ryun was in high school. It was still in flux a few years later when I was in college. In the early 70s we were on the track four to ten times a week. Yes, ten times, we'd run a morning ladder and then come back with some straight intervals in the afternoon at times and only a few years earlier guys like Bob Schul, Jim Beatty, Jim Grelle, etc. (the guys Ryun had to beat) were doing similar sorts of things under Igloi.

We were always told that distance runners needed to be "tough" and that training needed to be so hard that races would seem easier by comparison. And it was. At the start of each season we'd anxiously look at the schedule for weeks with two or even three meets scheduled and would savor the prospect of those weeks because races felt so muche asier than our training did. Conversely there was nothignwe dreaded so much as a week with no meet. I think Charlie Gray made a comment to this effect earlier on this thread.

In time, that approach passed away and was generally replaced by things that at least remotely resembled Lydiard's stuff. But during that transition there was a whole generation of coaches who learned their jobs under the "make it tougher than races" school. The ones I knew were devoted to the sport and to their athletes. They didn't WANT their kids to break down and leave the sport but tended to see those happenings as an inevitable consequence of trying to develop your athletes' fullest potential.

It was brutal. Thank heaven something that worked as well or better that was more pleasant came along. But I think it is unreasonable to think that a coach like Timmons who'd had some spectacular successes with his methods, would change to something he'd never done.

But let's say I'm wrong and that he was a horrible coach. Why is an article like this being written NOW? Ok, thirty years ago maybe you write it in hopes that KU would recognize how bad the guy is ( and I am NOT saying he was, just being hypothetical) and dump him. But now? What's the point? It just reads like axe grinding done by someone who didn't have the courage to grind the axe until his subject is too old to perceive and respond clearly.

My friend, good points here & likely mirrors what many have felt about the KU way during BT's career. This includes the 'Had he's' and 'probably would's' that are speculative but intuitively sound.

While your take on what happened and what might've been are decent arguing points, they don't necessarily address what appeared in the RW story. I was left wanting more when done reading, puzzled and angry too about the focus on things peripheral to BT the coach. The story was shallow, lacking a variety of viewpoints. It felt like a character slam minus the supporting evidence...in a major running publication. The writer hop-scotched all over the place, jerry-picking snippets of the man & program that fail to fairly depict what happened. It's a one-sided hack job.

HRE wrote:

But let's say I'm wrong and that he was a horrible coach.

He burned out America's greatest middle-distance talent.

Anyone not following Lydiard in 1964 was behind the current thinking.

scotth wrote:

The story was shallow, lacking a variety of viewpoints. It felt like a character slam minus the supporting evidence...in a major running publication. The writer hop-scotched all over the place, jerry-picking snippets of the man & program that fail to fairly depict what happened. It's a one-sided hack job.

What do you expect from Runner's World?

Living in the Past wrote:

HRE wrote:

But let's say I'm wrong and that he was a horrible coach.

He burned out America's greatest middle-distance talent.

Anyone not following Lydiard in 1964 was behind the current thinking.

Completely brilliant. It must be so self satisfying to have such amazing hindsight.

Jayhawk wrote:

Living in the Past wrote:

He burned out America's greatest middle-distance talent.

Anyone not following Lydiard in 1964 was behind the current thinking.

Completely brilliant. It must be so self satisfying to have such amazing hindsight.

Hey, I had my mile pr at age 20, too. Big deal. Your pr is your pr; nobody cares if you got it at 20, 25 or 30; no brownine points for that; And it is imposible to say that Ryun or anyone would have run faster at 25 or 30 than 20. Too many variables.

Jayhawk wrote

Completely brilliant. It must be so self satisfying to have such amazing hindsight.

I saw your video on Ryun several years ago. You omitted a key part of the Jim Ryun story, which is the erratic nature of his performances in 1971 and 1972. If anyone can explain what was going on, it might actually advance our understanding of middle-distance training. Too bad you missed the opportunity to break new ground. Must be humiliating to be so mediocre, especially in hindsight.