Bob Latham

If he is the same guy who coached Palos Verdes, CA in the 70's and 80's he should forget it. He is best with runners who know very little about training and running in general. His teams were very undertrained and on the verge of actually being out of shape. He did have a world class ego and took credit for most of his runners accomplishments.

Almost all quit after high school they were so uninspired.

Yes, he did coach at Palos Verdes. That was a long time ago and he is not the same coach you say he is. I ran for him 4 years ago and he was one of the most driven, knowledgable, and most respectable coaches I know. His teams at Bend were consistant winners. We were not undertrained( the school has one some 20 state titles since he has got there). I ran well under him, and many have before and since. I believe he will make a very good college coach. He does have a bit of an ego, but anybody who is succesful usually does. This is one of the reasons why I believe he would be succesful. The guy would recruit like crazy to prove that he belongs there.

See what you have done, I'm off topic. The question was has anybody heard whether or not he is in the rumor mill for any coaching jobs. Not whether or not he is a good "current" coach. I know better than you Earl. Judging people from 25 years ago is not always a good idea.

Latham burned his athletes out while they were in high school so why not let him burn some others out in college. I doubt he would want to move out of Bend to coach college, to him, there is no life in running after high school, ask Dunscome, Harper, Wilson, the Deckers, Holts, etc.

Holts is running very well at Oregon by the way

My question was not, "is Bob Latham a good coach"? I ran for him, I think he is.

The question is, "are there rumors of him coaching in college"?

Stick to the topic please.

Re claims that his runners "burned out" and were undertrained at PVHS, I see things differently than Ed.

Roger Booth, Todd Chambers, Hugh Driscoll and I all ran in college after running under Latham, as did the Watsons, Dianne Harrell, Mark Stevenson and many others. Many of us competed post-collegiatedly. I just finished 3rd in Palos Verdes Marathon and Mark Stevenson ran Fukuokoa Marathon, representing the US in the late 80's. Henry Burkhardt is still racing into his forties.

In high school, we did close to 60 miles a week during the summer and slightly less once school started. That is neither undertraining nor overtraining.

In the 70's and 80's, Palos Verdes had a bunch of enthusiastic runners who often began running well before high school, due to a few youth and family oriented running programs, so I again differ with Ed.

I think Latham had success at PVHS because he had a good pool of kids from overacheiving families. The kids weren't afraid to work. Running also enjoyed more popularity in Palos Verdes, so more kids turned out than would have otherwise gravitated to other sports like soccer or football. Latham also kept the program mileage sane, which still caused some overuse injuries by some of the better runners, but was enough of a stimulus to bring out the best in some of the talented runners that needed more mileage to blossom.

As to the real issue here, any rumor to what collegiate level program may have offered Latham a job, I can't respond.

Bob Latham was asked/forced to retire as Bend HS coach for disciplinary reasons. For the record, Latham is merely tied for the all time Oregon state team titles at 14 with John Gillespie of South Eugene, where Bob spent the 1980-81 year as an assistant to Gillespie. Gillespie earned his 14th coaching title, to tie Latham, last fall when the Axe-ladies won the team XC title. If you need any more real info please ask. :)

the South Girls did win the girls title. But incase you missed it, the Bend boys did as well. Anyway, even if he is \"merely\" tied for the record, That\'s not a bad accomplishment.

I seriously doupt that Bob was asked/forced to retire. I have heard no such thing. I ran for him. I talk with him fairly regularly( of course he will not tell me or anyone about what coaching job, if any he is pursuing). All I know is that he is interested in the \"right\" situation.

Why do you say that he was asked/forced to retire? Do you have any hard facts? Do you even know anything about the program or are you simply talking out your ass?

Well, I do have a few facts. It had something to do with a road trip where some Bend runners broke some rules (alcohol I believe). Latham allegedly caught them and then let them run anyway. I hear it was not the first time the rules were bent in the name of success and Bob was asked to resign by the superintendent or some other person of power. As for him coaching college, the Northwest Nazarene job is open. I know this because their coach is the guy replacing Latham at Bend.

It doesn\'t sound like you know first hand about this situation. Just hear say? I know many people close to the program as well as Latham himself. I have never even heard about this. To go back to the ego thing, Bob does have an ego, and there is no way in hell he would coach at NW Nazarene. I think it would be very difficult to win there, so he wouldn\'t go.

I am curious to hearing what you have to say about being asked/forced to resign. I am open minded, and if I found out something, then I would be happy to change my mind. But I feel that I must stick up for Latham on this issue because I haven\'t heard anything about this. As far as I know, you are a person that may hold a grudge. He was a great coach and got me running and fast as I could. When I did something stupid(which was a lot), I was punished. I skipped all my classes one day and he did not let me run at a fairly large invitational(this effected the team as I was the number 1 runner). I gained a lot of respect for him in punishing me, and I believe he would have done the same to other runners.