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Anyone got stories about notably nutzoid old school coaches?
I was lucky to have run for half a dozen old timey coaches who were great men and great influences despite being more than a little crazy.
The most notable was John Ward at Santa Ana City College, and later the Southern California Striders, forty years ago. He was a fraternity brother of John Wayne and Ward Bond and had been a boxing instructor in the Army during WWII. As an 18 year old I watched in awe as he rolled his own Bull Durham cigarettes and lit them with one hand while navigating a team van down the freeway with the other hand, with the windows open! In Orange County near Coach Ward's home someone released an alligator into a resevoir where he fished. There was quite a local controversy about what to do until John got fed up with the issue, took his scattergun out on his aluminum boat and blew the gator to smithereens. He was not what you would call a sophisticate... but he produced a ton of middle distance runners every year by running people into mass barfing sessions... coach would laugh, tell some really raunchy joke, and then have everyone jump back into the workout. But he was effective. The teams were always strong, relays virtually unbeatable, and two JC guys from Santa Ana made the USA-USSR Team(Eddie Caruthers and Fred Kuller).
I was lucky to have run for half a dozen old timey coaches who were great men and great influences despite being more than a little crazy.
The most notable was John Ward at Santa Ana City College, and later the Southern California Striders, forty years ago. He was a fraternity brother of John Wayne and Ward Bond and had been a boxing instructor in the Army during WWII. As an 18 year old I watched in awe as he rolled his own Bull Durham cigarettes and lit them with one hand while navigating a team van down the freeway with the other hand, with the windows open! In Orange County near Coach Ward's home someone released an alligator into a resevoir where he fished. There was quite a local controversy about what to do until John got fed up with the issue, took his scattergun out on his aluminum boat and blew the gator to smithereens. He was not what you would call a sophisticate... but he produced a ton of middle distance runners every year by running people into mass barfing sessions... coach would laugh, tell some really raunchy joke, and then have everyone jump back into the workout. But he was effective. The teams were always strong, relays virtually unbeatable, and two JC guys from Santa Ana made the USA-USSR Team(Eddie Caruthers and Fred Kuller).
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