Who is the better coach, Mcdonnell or Bowerman

Orville Atkins wrote:

Winning and placing used to be the main goal but now the stress is placed on times.

It appeared that winning and placing was reasonably important this past weekend.

e wrote:

actually, 7:40 converts to 8:17 for 2 miles. [quote]hoosier wrote:

i was refering to his steeple time, but the 9:30 2mile to a 7:40 3k provides another good example thanks

You are correct. Naturally it has to be but many on this board stress times too much. I think the name of the game is to win.

I think both coach's are great. However are we talking only about md/distance coaching. As I think track has a lot of other events then just the 800m up. My opinion if your going to ask who is the best Coach at the NCAA level. Then we should look at coaching from all the events. One of the things I don"t like about the postings on this site is everyone is only talking about distance running. Like Sprints,jumps and throws don"t exist. What about the Race Walk events and so on.

If were going to talk about great NCAA coaching then talk about the whole picture. That's my opinion.

Yes you're right Orville...everything has

improved. But what was the winning time in

the US Olympic Marathon championships on a near

perfect day for a race? And what was Kenny Moores's

time back in 72? Many things have improved to

facilitate the support...especially not having to

worry about working a job and running full time.

But what has not improved are...the training methods

and the

HEART!

A coach is only as good as the athletes he coaches!

The one big difference between John and Bill, though of different eras, is recruiting. John brings in a lot more talented / proven runners than Bill ever did. People tell me here in Eugene that Bill B. was opposed to recruiting, saying it was not the important part of getting an education.

I think both men have proven themselves to be exceptional coaches. If I wanted to win NCAA championships, I would hire John to be my coach; if I was a university president. If I wanted a man who would inspire greatness, either one could do the job. If I was a runner of average ability or one who did not adapt to normal training methods, I would ask Bowerman for his help, if he were alive. To me, Bill Bowerman or Bill Dellinger (whom I admire greatly) could get me to a higher level of performance than any other American coach. A close second for me on the all-time list would be either Jumbo Elliott or John McDonell. Tinman

I happen to know Bill B and Bill D from my time in Oregon and actually ran under both. The other coaches discussed in this exchange I do not know.

Bill B was a champion at treating each runner as an indivdual and coache him according to his needs. His was extreamly good at bringing people to run good races after having been injured or for some other reason having been out of running. He was very carefull and we never did much hard speedwork or any kind of intervall with Bill B.

His pilosophy could be described as 95% is a lot better than 101%, the last 1% beeing extrremelky harmfull. As a result many of us did a lot of hard road runing while training with Bill. This was needed in periods to be realy good.

Billy D followed the "hard easy" principle, but his hard days was a lot harder and his scheduels gave room for a lot less hard road running. His schedules gave good results, but he did not have Bill B's ability to handle all runners as individuas with different needs within the same program. In my time with Bill D pretty much designed the schedlules for Pre and we all ran that.

The two was also different personalities. Bowerman always wanted to try out things himself and had a lot of ideas about thing to try. He was always fun to be around exceopt when we lost meets. Bill D did not have that type of personality. He much more stuck to his system and followed that.

Former Oregon runner.

knut is 10th on the u of o mile list....3:57.9

2nd on the steeplechase list....8:25.6

and represented norway in the 1976 olympics running the 5000 meters.

I was about to say, Walt, "is Knut a tall Norwegian?"

yes, 6"3" or taller.

post college...

27:42 10k

1:03 1/2 marathon

Bowerman was around before Mcdonnell, and didn't have the Oregon system to read about when trying to figure out a training system. He was kind of ahead of his time.

I don't have enough info to say who was best.

Knut:

Thanks for the real scoop. You mentioned that Bill B. was good at tailoring workouts to individual needs. Will you please describe a couple examples during the time when you ran for the Ducks? Thank you very much. Tinman

All of us running with Bill B pretty much had experienced Bill's tailoring of the program.

One well example probably well known to many readers of this page is Kenny More. Kenny had a tendency to get trouble when he ran to many hard workouts. When I was there Kenny often told me about how Bill had started him out with just jogging on the easy days and how he gradually and very carefully gave him harder work while he kept the easy days extreamly easy. Kenny was a reasonably good steplechaser but he kept sticking to Bill's system during his marathon running and he consulted Bill when in doubt when Io was there. If you can reach Kenny I'm sure he will confirm this and give yu more details.

I'm an other example myself. When I came to Oregon Bill gave me pretty much fredom do do my own running during the winter. This meant that I did the type of base work I was used to. He then brougt me in on the program around spring break. The seson started well for me, then I got sick and was out for some time. When I came back I was ready to forget about my US season. Bill had other ideas. He took me to the track for some of his workouts while he was there watching me al the time. He was extreamly careful and I rememnder one time I had a long discussion with him becaus I had run to fast. He wanted me to stop the workout and go for a jogg around the track so he could see me. I talked him into letting me finish but did not dear run a second faster that he said. I ran 4.00 in the twilight meet. This was a complete surprise to me.

There are dosens more and I belibve most people who ran under Bill will tell some story like mine.

KnutK

Knut, you were one of the best runners in the world "in the day" yet you never did squat at NCAAs under Bowerman. Did bill give you the wrong individual training schedule? What happened?

First excuse for all the typos in my last mail. I was in a hurry and had no time to read through. Hope you stil got the meaning.

The reason for me not running NCAA under Bowerman is very simple and has nothing to do with Bill's coaching. The year I ran with him I was qualified as far as times go, but some time before the meet Oregon got a letter from NCAA stating that I was not eligible. I never knew the exact reason but it had to do with the year I spent at University of Oslo and the formalities surrounding the change to Oregon.

I would also say that I was not one of the better runners in the world until later. My last year on the Oregon team was 1973 - coached by Bill Dillenger. The first year I was of the betetr runners around was 1974 when I stayed in Eugene during the winter, trained most of my hard training with Mike Manley or by myself and coached myself. when coaching myself I used my experiences from the two Bills even though my program took many ideas from Lydiard. I also had good ude of my background of running from Norway when Arne Nytrø was my coach.

KnutK

Qucassidy,

Who was the great coach at Florida?

KnutK, are you living in Norway now?

Roscoe Divine used to tell boisterous stories about you, Arne and living in Norway in general? Knowing Roscoe do you think any of them are true?

Can you end the rumors once and for all - just whose leg was it that Bowerman pissed on in the shower?

Malmo

Both Arne and I are living in Oslo.

I don't know about Roscoe?s stories about us. Roscoe and Arne were great friends at Oregon and they have kept contact ever since. I?m also a friend of Rosoe?s, but we never had so much experience together as Roscoe and Arne had. For me hanging out whit those older guys Arne had been friends with at Oregon was always great fun, but by time they all had moved on in life so it was different than when they were all on the team together. Roscoe lived in Oslo one year and he has been here on several trips so he knows Norway pretty good and have lots of experiences with life in Norway, both the good and the bad sides of it.

The conclusion is that Roscoe knows the truth so he is in position top tell true stories. That leaves it up to if you believe in Roscoe as a storyteller and I guess that is were you were before you asked me.

Bowerman loved playing all kind of practical jokes on people. I?m not able to help you on the shower pissing.

I have never seen him piss on an athletes leg in the shower. At my time in Oregon there were many people talking about it and no one ever doubted it being true. But I cannot name an athlete for you. Knowing Bowerman I never doubted the story.

Do you live in Eugene? Did you stay there while you were active? Say hello to Roscoe if you see him.

KnutK