2-time world xc champ Craig Virgin talks about XC.... And we listen.

Too bad AW didn't hire Dick Quax right away.

Congratulations, I'm guessing you're the highest ranked former professional runner who posts here on let's run(dot) com and the irony is most people don't realize that or acknowledge it - not that you appear worried about that.

Oh no. Dozens of guys more credentialed than me have posted here. Henry Rono for one.

That's a good sentiment, however, Quax was still an active runner at the time. It was Geoff Hollister who hired Harry Johnson. Both were absolute scumbags who would sell out their own mothers if there was a personal benefit in it. But that was the DNA for being employed at Nike, except for Jeff Johnson, ironically someone I've never met.

I raced against Quax, Wells and Lodwick in 1982. Must have been just after Quax started coaching AW. Quax ran a very fast debut marathon right around that time too.

I heard horror stories about Harry Johnson's coaching.

I am amazed you never met Jeff just because it seems like you both know everyone in the world who ran seriously.

Like I said, "ironically, I've never met him". He's the only person at Nike whose identity for the sport is the same as mine. Everyone else at Nike have been weasels, for 50 years.

Interesting, I can't imagine Rono posting here. Most Kenyans in my experience are reluctant to post on public forums. I used to exchange some messages with Ngugi but he was enigmatic/somewhat bizarre in his approach to communication. In fact he was looking for a coaching position in the USA but in the end he did not have the credentials to apply. You would think a world cross-country champion and Olympic 5,000 meter champion (Seoul 1988) would have the pick of positions as a coach in the USA but that was not the case. Rules are rules. He didn't have the credentials.

I wouldn't really characterize it as "horror stories." He just didn't give a damn about anyone except himself. All of his relationships, personal and professional, where modeled as dependencies. You were there to serve him. What was good for you didn't matter at all.

1) All through high school my coaches were good, salt of the earth. My coaches cared for me and what was good for me. The teams that we competed with, their coaches treated us with the same respect and care.

2) Same with college. My coach cared about my well-being and success. So did all of the coaches of the teams we competed with. Prior to being forced to be coached by Harry Johnson I had a wonderful experience.

3) One year of hell under Harry Johnson/AW then after that another 8 years of normalcy.

Only recently I thought that maybe in retrospect I should have stuck it out another two years. Johnson was fired less than 18 months after I quit. I didn't like the idea of having to lie about what workouts I actually did, as opposed to what he directed, but others weren't doing his schedule by then, so maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad idea.

Henry had his own thread going here. Perhaps someone has saved the link.

Here are 186 pages of Henry posting about his attempted comeback and people responding to him:

@malmo I ran track at Oregon 76-79. 400mh. I've connected with Craig over the last two months and I'm collecting information about those years from 1972-1978AW I knew Geoff
Hollister and only knew Harry Johnson as the track coach at South Eugene. Didn't realize he was as demanding as he was with his runners. Didn't sound like he was ready for world class prime-time. Would love t connect about those years with you. I flew out to Lebanan (St. Louis)to meet with Virgin and look at his archival shoes/memorabilia.

Like many guys his age, Virgin seems to consider anecdotal evidence (primarily his own) as gospel. His reasoning sounds okay, but would it be proven out through deeper analytics? Do a significant majority of Americans that run well at World XC actually have great track seasons? And how are we determining "well" and "great"? Surely there are plenty of examples that don't (though I don't feel like looking it up) - isn't that the same argument of the opposite?

I think you'd have a hard time finding anything other than anecdotal evidence on this topic. You have a really small sample size when you're talking about Americans who run at World XC to begin with and it gets much smaller when you reduce it to Americans who run well there. To do that you're going to have to define what running well means and then define what constitutes a great track season. It might be possible but you'd have a lot of bases to cover.

Harry Johnson was a great coach for many, but your mileage may vary. He was legendary.