Received an email from an alum who was vying for the position with the news this evening. No link yet, but will no doubt be announced soon.
Received an email from an alum who was vying for the position with the news this evening. No link yet, but will no doubt be announced soon.
Kind of pushes the concept of "distance", doesn't it? What did Johnny ever run, maybe one or two 1500's?
There's a lot of track coaches for woman that are men too...
I don't understand the logic, being a runner and being a coach are two very different things.
The same Johnny Gray that assisted at Pepperdine and didn't show up reliably?
Yep, that one.
I hope this rumor isn't true. I know Johnny Gray was an outstanding runner in the 800 meters during his era. But in order to be a successful coach at a place like UCLA, you have to be passionate about what you do. You have to show up to work everyday. You have to be reliable and as solid as a rock. You have to be a good communicator, and you have to be able to multi-task when you are coaching every event from 800 meters up to 10,000. I don't see any of these qualities in Johnny Gray. He might be a nice guy but he should not be hired to coach my alma mater UCLA.
Doesn't Johnny coach KD? That would at least give him some experience coaching and could be a great item to help draw in 800m talent. Maybe Maynor's vision is not for them to be a distance power but a mid distance force. Is there a team in the PAC-10 that can say that?
Not every school is trying to beat Oregon in XC. Not every team really cares about the 10k and 5k.
Does Texas A&M or LSU?
gray to coach mid distance. Distance coach still to be hired
actually he has run under 14 mins in the 5k and under 30 min in the 10k. He had weeks at over 100 miles. Guy was a freak doubling everyday and doing threshold workouts up to 5 times a week.
Sounds like a good thing to me. Whoever was appointed was going to have shit thrown at them on here. Gray is by far the most qualified person of the options they were presented.
Then UCLA track is going nowhere.
Yeah, how many 800 or 1500s did Al Sal run? I guess he won't be a very good coach for Webb.
Nowhere in a year, or nowhere in two years? You can say stuff like that now, but it's very hard to back that up. It's along time til we find out. It's at least 5 months before the first indoor race and even that isn't a great indicator of how good the team is. The XC might have a tough time but they might break through. If things don't change in the way the team is organized you are right. But if things do change you could be wrong. Just saying.
wlvtrojan wrote:
gray to coach mid distance. Distance coach still to be hired
Is this fact, that there will be a distance coach and that Gray will be strictly middle distance? Will Gray have any involvement with XC?
If so, who is still being considered for the distance/XC job?
New update. The same alum has now said that Gray is only in the interview process and has not accepted the position. Charge me with a false start.
IF johnny gray were to get the job as middle distance coach, he'd be a great hire. i assume these forums are frequented by distance runners; if so, anyone with any experience knows that it ain't brain surgery. i've seen johnny run 12 mile tempo runs and intervals that maybe three people in the world could do at the time. j gray's years of world-class experience under coaches merle mcgee and joe douglas gives him more knowledge than most, if not all, the semi-anonymous posters here (one has to appreciate bryan green posting under--gasp!--"bryan green"), as well as other candidates for the job. if it were about knowledge, anyone with a jack daniels book and a runners world subscription would qualify for the job. however, if you've ever had johnny come talk to one of your athletes, or seen him interact with his own, you'd see what makes him a quality coach. as a bruin alumnus i am--err, excuse me, i would be--excited about this hire.
that's my story and i'm sticking to it,
cush
Will Johnny get them to the NCAA where they will go out way over their head in "The Bruin Zone" and come stumbling home wondering what went wrong?
i'm sorry chubb. i forgot that in the world of letsrun posters everyone has run the perfect race every time. had the letsrun messageboards been around when i was racing, i probably would have run 11.5 seconds faster in the mile. i'm putting asterisks by any record or time set after the spring 2000 inception of letsrun.
in my world, i'll take a bronze medal, making a few olympic teams, a 24 year old still-standing american record, and a decade+ of world-class rankings over a pithy/witty quote any day. johnny, to his credit, had all of the above--i love the one you've remembered.
I think if you run at a world class level for 20 years, it is safe to say you are passionate about running
As a long-time fan of the sport, most anyone I know who is asked what Johnny Gray is remembered for answers the same.
Extraordinary talent & range, great long career, super in domestic meets, but more than anything else running insane early paces in major meets becoming fodder for the rest of the world. Whenever questioned he responded about about "taking people where they have never been", "the Gray zone", and other bizzare tales. He typically crumbled with this strategy but was right back there in the next championship with the same rhetoric. As a fan, I was always frustrated that he would never run near his potential by doing this repeatedly. Yes, I thought he could faster than his sterling PR's. More importantly, as a coach since this is the thread's topic, Gray had KD doing and talking the same garbage. I was not intending to be negative, just truthful. Being a great athlete does not automatically qualify a person as a great coach.
Great interview with Steve Cram - says Jakob has no chance of WRs this year
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adizero Road to Records with Yomif Kejelcha, Agnes Ngetich, Hobbs Kessler & many more is Saturday
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I’m a D2 female runner. Our coach explicitly told us not to visit LetsRun forums.
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