Arkansas Runners- McDonnell Era

I remember being in high school and reading about a workout Seneca did of 1200, 800, 400 in 2:51, 1:50, :51 and being absolutely blown away.

I don't have any insider knowledge but that is a pretty damn tough workout at any level.

Any insight on Sharif Karie? He was all world in high school and, from both an Arkansas perspective and that of a former HS phenom, just a pretty good college runner. Did he even finish his eligibility? I think I remember hearing that he was there for 4 years and didn't graduate.

Coaching accomplishments at Arkansas

McDonnell was hired as the cross country coach in 1972 and added the entire men's track and field program in 1978.

Coach McDonnell led the track team to their first national championship at the 1984 NCAA Indoor Championships while the school was a member of the now-defunct Southwest Conference. Since then, the University of Arkansas has won 42 NCAA championships, including 11 cross country, 19 indoor track and 12 outdoor track. Other schools have won only 24 combined NCAA titles in the three sports during the same period.

McDonnell's 42 national championships (which include 19 in indoor track, 12 in outdoor track and 11 in cross country) are more than any coach in any sport in the history of college athletics. The next highest is 31 by Pat Henry, former LSU and current track coach at Texas A&M University.

Looks like Godfrey is now a high school coach. It seems as if a very high number of the former Hogs are now coaching. Offhand I believe Godfrey, Seneca and Mike Power are HS coaches and Matt Kerr is a college coach.

Godfrey Siamusiye is currently the Head Cross Country Coach and assistant track and field coach at Shiloh Christian School in Springdale, Arkansas. He first came to Shiloh in 2006 as a volunteer head coach for cross country. In 2007, his second year, he lead the Shiloh Saints to first ever State Championship in Cross Country, winning the class AAA title. His 2008 team had many key returners from the 2007 championship. However, Heber Springs beat the Saints by one point for the Arkansas class 4A State Championship in 2008. Godfrey Siamusiye's 2008 Saints had four runners make All-State. In 2009 he picked up his second and third state championships as the boys team won by a large margin taking the first, second, third, and fifth individual spots, and the girls team won in a close race.

Apparently people are too busy gossiping about which Nike Free Webb wore to his wedding to chime in here.

Hope to get some good stories out of this thread!

I can only add that when I was in college Arkansas won everything- Texas/Penn Relays, Cross/Indoor/Outdoor. If there was a razorback entered in a horizontal jump event or the 800-10k they were probably going to win it.

What a dynasty.

What do you need to know? If you can wait, I hear John is writing a book.

I have heard the same thing.

Crusty Old Hog,

I'd like to hear whatever you'd like to tell. Some crazy workout stories. Or who was the toughest guy on the team or who banged the most chicks or who was the workout champ or who like chocolate milk the most.

Whatever dirt you wanna dish. These guys were gods to me back in the day so I'd be happy with any story.

Agreed. What era were you COH?

Rude Asshat wrote:

Crusty Old Hog,

I'd like to hear whatever you'd like to tell. Some crazy workout stories. Or who was the toughest guy on the team or who banged the most chicks or who was the workout champ or who like chocolate milk the most.

Whatever dirt you wanna dish. These guys were gods to me back in the day so I'd be happy with any story.

I ran against Arkansas from '73 to '77 when he was just starting to make waves and get noticed for his distance runners. our dual meet with them, down there, in '74 was held on a high school dirt track, believe it or not. some of the guys who got the ball rolling for johnnie mac, were: Niall Oshaunessy (sp), Tom Aspel, Randy Melancon, desmond Oconnor, steve Houk, Ron Hendee....just to name a handful that I ran against.

seventies guy wrote:

I ran against Arkansas from '73 to '77 when he was just starting to make waves and get noticed for his distance runners. our dual meet with them, down there, in '74 was held on a high school dirt track, believe it or not. some of the guys who got the ball rolling for johnnie mac, were: Niall Oshaunessy (sp), Tom Aspel, Randy Melancon, desmond Oconnor, steve Houk, Ron Hendee....just to name a handful that I ran against.

do you remember a guy named stu penn? he ran for my hs (ridge, same as jim crawford who also ran somewhere in arkansas and ran 3:56 or so )and followed johnnie mac down there. i believe mac coached at new providence hs in nj. (a few towns over from my hs).

yes, that name rings a bell. slightly younger than me, i think.

As a huge Hog fan, I really hope a book is being written. I remember my brother giving me weekly updates of the insane workouts they were doing at the time. You can find some of the workouts (and legendary Hog exploits) listed in older threads on here and the old TNF media site.

The depth the Hogs had in all events in the '90s was just crazy. It would be interesting to see how the distance workouts compare to Stanford, Oregon, Colorado and Wisconsin teams of the 2000s. For an era that many consider weak the Hogs impressed.

Eric Henry tops the list:

6 twinkies

4 ho-hos

3 hot dogs

2 bags of chips

1 liter of soda

&

8 mile steady state run...

Dan-

your brother was always one heck of a nice guy to us 2nd and 3rd tier runners. I ran at sms, and I'm pretty sure you were up at tulsa with Ryan siler?

I would love to hear the Arkanas workout stories, the real deal, not the exaggarations. Comeone, 4:50 per mile 8 milers on a recovery day?

I heard stories that Falcon would get down around there at the end of Sunday long runs. And of course the ladder workouts got around the country too. And this was before the Internet. We'd hear about them from our coach.

I know in the late 80's Arkansas had a half dozen guys at 3:35 to 3:40 in the 1500 and probably 6 more at 3:40-3:45, 7:46 to 7:56 3000. Seems like most were English, Irish, or British plus Falcon. The 90's they got more high end 5000 and 10000 runners.

Consiglio and Schiefer are some of the best sources for stories away from the track and some on it.

From what I have read I think maybe some of you will not be that impressed by the workouts. It wasn't high-mileage, nor was it 12-13 runs per week. I think that the workouts were impressive because they always had great 1500, steeple, 5k and 10k guys at the same time ... and in some events many who would be NCAA qualifiers and some who would be winners.

I think it was Schiefer who detailed the training that I read, so you may have been able to structure some of it on your own or based on your event and it may have been more impressive then ... don't know ... but would welcome the definitive word.

Those who really know may not want to tell them over and over and I can understand that. I love the story of Falcon and the bench press (I won't give any more away) and the pre-meet and post-meet stories. I think Doug wrote a series of anecdotes about Falcon and his first year or one from each year ... and I thought it was on LR, but cannot tell you for sure.

I had a former high school teammate who went to Arkansas during the McDonnell Era and I remember him telling me that their long runs were 13-16 miles at 5:20 pace.