Arkansas Runners- McDonnell Era

iovine was a good runner .He made the us trials in 88.He past away in 2002.

So many greats came through Fayetteville...'78-'06...what a time to be a razorback fan.

I wonder who mcdonnell considers his greatest pupil? O'mara? Reina? Falcon? Consiglio? Cragg? Lincoln? Donovan?

Do you guys know of Ronnie Moore? A 400 hurdler and also ran xc. I heard he ran a 4:04 mile.

I like my odds wrote:

I wonder who mcdonnell considers his greatest pupil? O'mara? Reina? Falcon? Consiglio? Cragg? Lincoln? Donovan?

John would have to answer this, but it's a politically charged question, so he'd be careful with his answer.

Falcon........didn't live up to his potential, so doubtful

O'mara - NCAA champ and Olympian as well as 2x world indoor champ, possible

Reina - Reina was steady, cool headed multiple NCAA champ,

Consiglio. Made an Olympic team but never performed in championships, no

Cragg - very possible

Lincoln very possible

Donovon, on the list but no

Niall Bruton must be up there, v.consistent at NCAA XC and multiple winner on the track. Made world champs final, won world university games...

Good answers. Can you say why Bruton packed it in with what seemed such an illustrious career ahead? Hood should likely get an honorable mention as well.

I like my odds wrote:

Good answers. Can you say why Bruton packed it in with what seemed such an illustrious career ahead? Hood should likely get an honorable mention as well.

Remember. Consistency is key. You need to be healthy to be consistent.

Hood, 9th in the 1992 games in a 1,500m that became an 800m looked like he was on track to be the all time great. Injuries kept him from being a consistent performer. He's an NCAA Champ, and an Olympic Finalist, so he's the top Canadian.

Hood's on the list, but not the guy.

Bruton - Super talent, very consistent in college, but hampered by injuries after college.

lsu wrote:

iovine was a good runner .He made the us trials in 88.He past away in 2002.

Didn't know that. I only remembered him being a 3:45 guy. Sad to hear that he's gone also. I have memories of watching him lead off some great 4 x 1500 teams at Penn.

Bruton retired from running with a long term hip problem. He works for Nike now and handles the Man Utd and Arsenal accounts. He's doing well and living in Manchehster I believe. My kids got to see him in Kansas City this summer when Man U played Kansas City.

Very interesting. Thanks for the answers regarding Hood/Bruton. Both were amazing runners. have a great memory of watching Bruton run at the 300m Iowa State indoor arena. Really was poetry in motion. I don't know why, but I also remember he and Schiefer always wore sprinter spikes, even though they ran the 1500/mile.

results wrote:

I like my odds wrote:

I wonder who mcdonnell considers his greatest pupil? O'mara? Reina? Falcon? Consiglio? Cragg? Lincoln? Donovan?

John would have to answer this, but it's a politically charged question, so he'd be careful with his answer.

Falcon........didn't live up to his potential, so doubtful

O'mara - NCAA champ and Olympian as well as 2x world indoor champ, possible

Reina - Reina was steady, cool headed multiple NCAA champ,

Consiglio. Made an Olympic team but never performed in championships, no

Cragg - very possible

Lincoln very possible

Donovon, on the list but no

Niall O'Shaughnessy

I'll second O'Shaughnessy. Fernandez broke his wjr for the indoor mile. 3:55...

Seems like Lincoln would also be high up there in terms of consistency and improvement. Wasn't he something like a 9:40 2 miler? Multi conference champ, national champ, and finally an american record holder. Not sure about any world or olympic teams. Then, off to med school. Pretty nice run if you ask me.

I bet if you broke him down Macdonell will say Joe Falcon was the greatest. But yes the question will always remain as to how good he should have been.

He won 7 NCAA Championships. He tripped and fell at NCAA xc one year when he was going to certainly win. And he was a favorite in 1989 NCAA 1500 when he fell and DNFd.

He and Fernandez in my opinion are the two greatest U.S. talents in the last 30 years. If Falcon was running today he would be around 12:50 for the 5000 and an outside medal contender.

I know his 5000 and 10,000 pr's weren't great but I saw him run both. This was before the days of mass set-up time trials at Stanford. He ran the 5000 at their invite on a high school track and the only 10,000 other than the NCAA meet he ran at Penn. Both of those races he was jogging until the last 200. That guy was great to watch, he wa such a machine!

Plus the guy had a friggin Razorback tatoo on his arm back before tatoos were redundant.

I like my odds wrote:

I wonder who mcdonnell considers his greatest pupil? O'mara? Reina? Falcon? Consiglio? Cragg? Lincoln? Donovan?

Personally I'd pick Falcon but I've always thought that Cragg was Mac's favorite. Maybe its cause of the whole background story but for some reason I've always had that impression

I'm biased being from Missouri myself, so of course I'm going to say Falcon was the best. National titles in everything from 1500 to 10k. Tore up the college ranks while he was at Arkansas. I know he didn't do near as much post collegiate as he could have. He did run 3:49 and won the Dream Mile. Honestly though it's a tough call. We had some real horses come through Arkansas!!

Here we go. The first two weeks of January in 1993. It was my third year at Arkansas and we had some real studs. I think Falcon was training with us for some reason, but not completely sure. I know Omara and Dononvan were.

1- 10 miles on trails

2- 14 miles on trails

3- 10 miles on trails

4- 4mi. morning run. Afternoon workout - 2mi. warmup and warmdown, 2000 in 5:20, 1600 in 4:14, 1200 in 3:12, 800 in 2:04, 600 in 1:32, 400 in 60.3

5- 4mi. morning run, Weights then 8mi. in afternoon

6- 4mi. morning run, Afternoon workout- 16x400 on indoor track at 61 seconds with a 40 second recovery (killer workout!!!)

7- 4mi. morning run, Weights then 8mi. in afternoon

8- 10 miles on trails

9- 8 miles on indoor track (weather was really nasty that day. I actually remember it pretty clearly)

10- 14 miles moderate pace.

11- afternoon workout- 2mi. warmup and warmdown, 3xmile in 4:15, 4:14, 4:20 with 3min. recovery (another killer workout!!)

12- 4mi. morning run, Weights then 8mi. in afternoon

13- 4mi. morning run, 10mi. in afternoon

14- 4mi. morning run, Afternoon workout- 2mi. warmup and warmdown, 2x800 in 2:03, 2x600 in 1:31 and 1:33, 2x500 in 1:15, 2x400 in 59, 2x300 in 43, 200 in 27.5

15- 4mi. morning run, Weights then 8mi. in afternoon

16- 10mi. on trails

17- 12.5 miles

That was a killer first couple of weeks of January! Weekly total mileage was right around 80 miles. Morning runs were on the trails. Weights were a circuit of high repetitions with short recovery, and we always ran after lifting. The recovery on the interval workouts was always short. You had to be a tough guy to keep up with this training program. Coach Mac never allowed any "lolly gaging" as he liked to say! Hope this inspires and challenges or at the very least sheds some light on the Coach Mac legacy. He was and always will be the greatest NCAA coach in my opinion.

Miner

What dminer doesn't mention is that the run on the trails included going up that damn hill to get there. I was an older guy that moved to Fay. in 1979 and followed and even ran easy long runs with those guys until I couldn't even keep up on the easy days. But think about that amazing run from 1979 or so to the mid 2000's with soooo many great runners. I was more familiar with the 80's guys. Being around the program, the word that summed up the attitude would be "excellence".