PSAL Distance Runners of the 70s-80s

bumpin this since i am curious for answer(s) if there are any

I ran in the early 90's but my brother in law ran in the mid 80's. One beat paul Vandergraft head to head in a race. His training consisted of pretty much whatever coach told him to run. He also worked about 3-4 miles from his house and would run to work and run home in the summers .

Some of the runs he recalls was 400 repeats with one minute rest. Goal was to run the 400's in under a minute. All done in a cinder track. His coach would also take the whole team in a van and drop them off 7-8 miles away from the school and they had to run back.

In NYC, track was a big deal in the 60s, 70, and 80s.

The Staten Island schools did very well and each coach trained their athletes differently. Some used the interval method, some just had their athletes run mileage. But they were very great leaders and motivators. At the same time you had a few distance powerhouses, just a few, in each borough, coached by great motivators.

It's not just about training it's motivating kids to go out for the team and keeping them interested.

At least that's what a PSAL coach from the era told me. His team ran easy runs, tempo runs and fartlek all year. His athletes bought in and ran the 4× mile in 17:20.

The PSAL didn't have so many sports that syphoned athletes away from track and their were more neighborhood schools. Billy Welsh from New Dorp gave a clinic about 20 years ago and mentioned how his seniors used to drive under classmen to school a few days a week for morning workouts. This could not take place in Manhattan and in the poor areas of the city this day and age.

The best PSAL distance coaches of the last 15 years are also great motivators. It's not the workouts. Mark Mendes, Phil Zodda, Sean Rice, John Padula, the MSIT and Curtis staffs were in the right schools and had very good teams- they all train their athletes differently.

So what would you say the key would be for PSAL to become stronger again? My guess would be just more turnout for the sport. At my school it seems like there are a lot of people with high potential who just never even thought about joining track.

Micheal wassfu wrote:

So what would you say the key would be for PSAL to become stronger again? My guess would be just more turnout for the sport. At my school it seems like there are a lot of people with high potential who just never even thought about joining track.

Changing the culture is difficult, a dynamic coach in the right program can do it. Before he got to Midwood Sean Rice said he wish he could coach there as he felt that school had tremendous potential. Mark Mendes said the same before he got to Stuyvesant. They both created strong cultures.

Still it's difficult coaching distance runners in NYC given places to train, distractions, lack of decent facilities. The Catholic schools and private schools have success because a large percentage of their student body go out for sports. They also can recruit and they have better coaching staffs. They also have better budgets- some of the schools bus their athletes to the armory to train.

I don't see the PSAL getting stronger as a league any time soon. Some schools will be good, you might get a few great runners from time to time but unless teams and rival athletes push each other there will be little improvement (iron sharpens iron or something like that).