Gatfxc.com: Did you play any sports as you were growing up?
CB: All the ball sports thru my freshman winter and then fell in love with running. I dropped football and I switched to x-c in the fall of my soph year and ran a 2.13 mile flat course in 10:23. By my senior year I improved enough to get 5th at the state (no classes in Wisc at the time) in x-c and 6th in the 880.
Gatfxc.com: How/Why/When did you get involved in coaching?
CB: After a 1 ¼ years in college, I went into the service and was assigned to be a PT Instructor at the US Coast Guard boot camp in Alameda, Calif. We had a track team for the recruits and the base personnel that I helped coach for one year and then served as head coach for 3 more seasons. We were 19-1 because we had all HS grads and college kids who were in boot camp on the team. Not hard to like coaching when you win!
During those years, I dropped my 880 time down to 1:53.4 while running for a club called the Santa Clara Valley Youth Village. Even got to run against Peter Snell in an All-comers meet at Stanford.
After I went back to college and finished, I got a job teaching Geography and English and assisting the x-c and track coaches at a small private school in NE Vermont. After two years, I decided to go back to college for a Masters degree in PE so I could get into full time college coaching. Wound up spending 10 years at UofFla with 7 as Hd X-C coach and 3 as Hd Track Coach.
Gatfxc.com: What are some of your fondest memories from working with the Florida Track Club, which included Frank Shorter?
CB: As the distance coach at UF and the President and then Exec Dir of the FTC, my role was just supporting Shorter, Marty Liquori, Jack Bacheler (9th in Munich marathon), Dick Buerkle, Jeff Galloway and perhaps another couple dozen nat’l and world class runners. I’d help them find jobs, get into grad school, find housing and also supply them with fresh towels and clean jocks etc. Jimmy Carnes and I raised money to get them to meets. Just learning what worked for them (ie. Big Miles) confirmed what we had learned from Snell and Lydiard, but Bacheler had found the way to mix in the hard/easy and that was the real secret. Shorter and Liquori ran their intervals harder, but everyone was doing around 120 mpwk when in shape. In 1973, we hosted the nat’l (AAU then, now USATF) x-c championships on my course and won with 21 points (1,3,4,5,6). This was when the club system was at its peak so it was a great accomplishment.
Gatfxc.com: What have been some of the highlights of your high school coaching career?
CB: Way back in the late 60’s at the school in Vt, I had a 4:16 miler, multi time state champ. But helping Marist win a total of 13 state x-c titles for the boys and girls in my 15 years there is going to give me something to tell my grandkids. Certainly coaching Brendan Mahoney to his state record of 1:50.1 and our school records of 1:49.8 and 4:04.78 (full mile when he won the Adidas Outdoor nationals and beat soph Alan Webb) ranks up there. Our distance runners have won almost 20 state individual x-c and track titles so that’s a highlight.
Gatfxc.com: Why do you believe Marist has such a great history of successful runners and teams?
CB: I’ve been able to get them to train intelligently (took 3 years) on the hard/easy system and then to get their summer mileage up to as much as 600 miles in our 10 week period. Of course not too many manage that challenge, but when you have 90+ boys and girls out for x-c, we seem to have enough kids developing as they mature to compliment the truly talented ones who want to excel.
However, I am under no illusions about the greatness of my coaching talents. With the selective admissions of a private school providing a student body that’s highly motivated to succeed, I know how lucky I was the day I volunteered to help the x-c coach find their lst ever community coach. When I told him that I sort of missed the W’s and L’s, and suggested myself, it was the best coaching decision I ever made. It’s been fun teaching the kids how to find their talent level and then develop it. They seem to buy into my effort based workouts rather well.
Gatfxc.com: Do you prefer cross country or track, and why?
CB: X-C is my preference because it’s so much more fun with everyone on the same page. Our track program has suffered from a constant turnover of head coaches, several of whom had absolutely no coaching experience before they volunteered to take on the job. All of our coaching openings have to be filled by teachers who have the academic background needed to fill teaching openings and we never seem to have any PE openings that go to sports other than FB, BB, & BB. As a result I’ve worked for 8 different head coaches and none have stuck around long enough to develop a program.
Gatfxc.com: What is the toughest part of coaching for you?
CB: Dealing with all the injured JV runners who don’t train enough and then crash. ( I’m surprised that I haven’t been arrested by now for practicing sports medicine without a license.) Since I’m the old timer with all the experience, almost everyone comes to me with their aches and pains. It can get overwhelming and when the fit, healthy varsity kids are standing there waiting for me to start their workout, I can get a little short with this type of participant. But the hardest part is keeping my temper when the JV kids are goofing around. As a result, I try to concentrate my efforts on the varsity.
Gatfxc.com: What do you think about the current state of running in the US?
CB: It’s seems to be coming back to world class levels as the club system gets stronger. Our problem is that there are too many other sports draining our talent base. And our American lifestyle creates kids who just can’t train up to international standards like we did until the 80’s. So, it we have to be more careful and also work with a narrower base of talent. As I understand it, Ralph King from St Pius (state record holder in the mile) ran 120 miles a week in HS in the early 70’s. Off that training, he ran 4:05. Us coaches would be jailed for child abuse if we had our HS kids run that kind of mileage today. As a result, we need the club system more than ever in order to give our post-collegians a chance to catch up the rest of the world’s hot shot teenagers.
Gatfxc.com: What do you think about the current state of running in Georgia?
CB: Things here are certainly on a big upswing with the two Emily’s running national class times. Too bad that Borsare had another untimely incident that kept her from showing everyone how good she is. Same thing with Heller and his health problems that kept Georgia from having 3 contenders for Foot Locker spots. The question is whether or not this is just the top of a cycle that will head back down towards mediocrity at the national level after they graduate. Hopefully their efforts reflect the quality depth that a population the size of Atlanta’s can generate as well as our continual improvement as coaches.
Gatfxc.com: Do you run yourself? What inspires you to run?
CB: After 50 years, not so much any more. But I get out about 3 days a week, walk a couple of other days and go to the "Y" a couple times. You’ve just got to find new joints to wear out so you can stay in shape.
Gatfxc.com: What benefits do you believe kids get from being part of a team?
CB: I’m not sure if it’s not the old chicken and egg conundrum here: are we developing character or revealing it? Either way, I hope they learn that the incremental improvements come over a long period of time as they work harder, but smarter. And I certainly think that the memories of doing their best and perhaps even being lucky enough to be state champs are the best things that can come from being on a team.
Gatfxc.com: If your runners only took one message from their time with you, what would you want it to be?
CB: "If you would just double your mileage and cut your pace in half, you’d get better." (just kidding) I hope that they enjoyed running enough to stick with for fitness and health’s sake their whole life. I’d like each of them to be the oldest, healthiest person to ever pass away to that great trail in the sky.
Gatfxc.com: Did you play any sports as you were growing up?
CB: All the ball sports thru my freshman winter and then fell in love with running. I dropped football and I switched to x-c in the fall of my soph year and ran a 2.13 mile flat course in 10:23. By my senior year I improved enough to get 5th at the state (no classes in Wisc at the time) in x-c and 6th in the 880.