quote about coaches being runners

Well i think they need to be runners but they don't have to be world class. I think they just need to know there stuff, and most of all know how you react to there workouts.

Timo

Gags and Bowerman played football.

The most important qualities are leadership skills, charisma, social skills, empathy, trustworthiness, emotional intelligence. Qualities that not everyone are strong in, even if they were a great runner.

All the other details can be learned bby anyone whose motivated to do so.

Bowerman didn't run? Or Bowerman was a runner and football player?

Peter Coe coached his son Seb to numerous world records and medals without ever being a runner. So it clearly isn't a prerequisite, but on the whole most coaches were average to above-average athletes. Not many truly world class runners go on to coach.

bazza wrote:

Peter Coe coached his son Seb to numerous world records and medals without ever being a runner. So it clearly isn't a prerequisite, but on the whole most coaches were average to above-average athletes. Not many truly world class runners go on to coach.

Right, take Arturo Barrios, for example....

It may be true that great running coaches need first be great runners, but it may also be true that great running coaches may only produce great runners. There is no reason to be great when you can be the best. This requires only that you see what is in front of you in a perception free from any biases, or at least less than any other coaches, so that you can see closer to the truth of what is effecting the body's ability to move itself in a linear fashion. Anybody who is great surely knows they are great, but along with that realization is likely to come many biases as to what got them to that level, therefore many details will be missed with this semi-closed mind that hasn't the ability to be quiet I believe it's most likely that the best coach available is one that is indifferent to running altogether.

what the hell?

The high school level has its share of great coaches who didn't do much in the way of running.Jeff Arbogast is a former rifle shooter,Joe Newton was a sprinter (maybe that counts as runner,you decide),and I'm pretty sure Jim White of McFarland didn't run,but I may be wrong.I'm sure I'm leaving out plenty of others.

to be fair to Bill Dillinger, who was an accomplished runner, Bill D was the coach of the coach of Pre, et al. Bowerman was the head coach, but it was Dillinger who did the workouts and everything.

Perhaps you aren't aware that there was a pretty decent program at Oregon before Pre showed up.

Timo wrote:

Well i think they need to be runners but they don't have to be world class. I think they just need to know there stuff, and most of all know how you react to there workouts.

Timo

I think that beyond a certain point, the more talent you had as an athlete can work against you in coaching. In my experience, the best coaches are those who did a lot of personal research to get where they ended up, results-wise. A highly talented runner doing good workouts under a good coach may be more likely to take their situation for granted and not be as inspired to learn to the same degree that which they are doing as conscientiously as the medium-talented runner who can't chance not doing everything as "right" as possible.

Coaches don't have to be runners first(there are some like Bowerman who have been succesful without) but idealy they should, especially on the high school level. At that level, the job of a coach is not only to make the runner physiologically better, but to teach the runner what running and racing is about. Someone who has never done that can't possibly know the pain and then joy of hurting so bad with a mile to go that you think you might collapse and then having the guts to go even faster in order to beat an opponent.

I agree with Guest. Often the best major league baseball hitting instructor are the guys wh only hit .260. They had to work on the fundamentals and learn more than a .300 hitter that hit .300 on talent. Same might be true for runners. There are a lot of people out there who have run very respectable times in spite of questionable training methods. There are also a lot of great coaches that weren't top level runners.

I agree with much of what's been said. I see one major difference between a great coach and a great athlete. Great athletes need to be selfish and great coaches cannot be selfish. I think that is where some coaches fail. It can't be about the coach. I have a hard time with Nike Oregon Project because it seems to be about Alberto and it shouldn't be. It should be about the athletes.

Bowerman played football a O of U but, according to "Fire On the Track", also was a quarter miler under the guidance of Bill Hayward, after whom the famed Hayward Field is named.

its all about personal interaction. if the coach can and does talk to and relate to his runners with ease, he will be more able to coach them.

im not saying any coach that can do this will be a great coach, but no great coach can lack this trait.

Are we forgetting wetmore? He was not a great runner in his day, buit has become a great coach. I also think great runners get the chance over other not so great runners when it coms to coaching jobs. That might be why we see it as "great coaches must be great runners first". We just see more former greats coaching.

I think maybe a more interesting question is how do people who've never run a step (for the sake of running that is), end up coaching runners?

I think that coaching and running are two entirely different disciplines. I suspect that part of Peter Coe's genius was that he was open to being inspired in new ways as opposed to the tried and true methods he might have learned had he been a runner himself. Whether this is true or not, the fact is some people coach, some people run, some do both. As long as the coach has an eye for detail and can help his/her runner in improvement then I say power to them.

Monty