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University Daily Kansan, April 16, 1981
After 16 years as KU coach Timmons. Relays are tradition
By DAN BOWERS Sports Writer
When you come right down to it, KU track coach Bob Timmons is the one person most responsible for making the Kansas Relays tick.
Timmons, a Pittsburgh native in his 18th year as head track and cross country coach, is the central fiber that bonds the Relaxs fabric together.
FOR TIMMONS, the Relays are a year-round affair. He can be found at nearly every meeting of the Student Relays committee and Greater Relays Committee throughout the year and his presence and hard work inspire the members of these groups to produce for him and the meet.
or we reuses approached, Timmons could be found literally burning the midnight oil in his office at Allen Field House making preparations for the
The most awe-inspiring aspect of his dedication to the Relays is that he is able to devote so much time to the meet, now in its 60th year, in addition to guiding his own track team through another championship season.
Championships are new nothing to Timmons, 56, who has been at the helm while KU has dominated the Big Eight, capturing a total of 28 Big Eight cross country, indoor and outdoor championships, including this year's indoor title.
Timmon's teams are winners, but the cost of winning has not meant a sacrifice in his ideals of the role of a coach.
In his office, he sits back in his chair, his face forming a silhouette against the Jayhawk mural on the wall behind his desk. He scans the office walls that are laced with golden trophies and awards of achievement, of championships.
"Those don't mean anything to me," he said.
Yes, it is a great thrill for Timmons to see his teams earn those trophies, to stand alongside great athletes like Jim Cunningham and Jackie Robinson, who leave their mark in the record books.
"For me, it's just as great of a thrill to see an athlete struggling to come in with the best time he's ever had, knowing that he's given everything that he's got," Timmons said.
TIMMONS'S VIEW toward coaching may sound somewhat idealistic, but for many coaches it can be a powerful tool.
traditional athletic values will always hold strong.
Memories of the tumultuous period of campus unrest of the late 1980s and early 1970s remind Timmons of a time when college students were to collegiate athletics was the place for a patriotic World War II veteran with a conservative background, who spent his boyhood fishing and swimming in the surrounding hometown of Pittsburgh.
Timmons remembers with contempt the burning buildings on campus, the shootings, the students parading the campus flashing the two-fingered peace sign, and the brutal events erupting into violent riots. The hypocrisy of all it confused Timmons.
He points from his corner office in Allen Field House to the arena outside its office, the same arena where his
"Abble Hoffman stood out there in front of 10,000 cheering students as he spoke against all of the things I believed in. And then he takes out an American flag and blows his nose in it."
—Bob Timmons, KU head track coach.
track teams have logged hundreds of miles in training and competition.
"ABBIE HOFFMAN stood out there in front of 10,000 cheering students as he spoke against all of the things I believed in." he recalls.
"Timmons squirms in his seat, his brow wrinkling behind his wire-rimmed glasses." And then he takes out an oxygen mask and flaps his nose in it. he said.
"I had a lot of pride in my high school, in KU, in my fraternity (Timmons was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity while he was a KU student). I was with the Marine Corp. To see all of this shot down was very frustrated."
The frustrations built to such a peak that Timmons nearly decided to abandon his coaching legacy and join the Peace Corps.
"It wasn't my desire to be in the Peace Corps so much as it was because I was tired of the frustrations I was facing at KU," he admitted.
"IF I WASN'T willing to make some changes and become a little more
resilient, a little more understanding,
then I really had to get out of
coaching," Timmons said.
"I realized that if I'm going to do anything as a coach, I better try to see their point of view, try to see where they're coming from.
"In the last few years, that's really come into focus for me, and I've really enjoyed my job."
"Before, I didn't even like some of our athletes," he said as he recalled some incidents with athletes involving drug problems and political activity. "I really disliked them because I couldn't forgive some of the things they'd done."
TIMMONS WAS able to make that transition without compromising his values. His emphasis on discipline is as strong as it was at Witchia East High School, where he led the school's swim team to seven consecutive state championships in the late 1960s and early 1960s.
After he learned that some of the members had drank beer and smoked cigarettes following the seventh title, Timmors issued an ultimatum that they would go but not returning senior from going out for the team the following year.
"It looks pretty good when you look back," he said. "It looks like a coach is making a stand for what he thinks is right."
"But I reflect back, and I realize, Coach, you've turned your back on the people who needed you most."
"The people who needed me the most were the ones who broke the training rules—should they have been "yes"—was, but was the discipline too strickt."
"NOW, IF somebody had difficulty, whatever it is, we're going to do everything in our power to see that this guy gets back on the right direction," he said. "The easiest thing to do is boot him up the team, but that won't solve anything."
The job of head coach carries with it a role of an administrator, recruiter and general organizer. Timmons pointed out. He would prefer to spend as much time as possible developing one of his players not only as an athlete, but as a person.
"I guess that when it's all said and done, I want to feel good about me," he said.
"And to know that somewhere down the road, that maybe I've contributed something into their way of life.
"I if I haven't done that, then I haven't made it at all."
KU's head track coach Bob Timmons, in his 16th year as the Jayhawks leader, somehow finds time to coach during hectic Relays preparations.
DAVE KRAUS/Kansan staff
Quick change left Coffey at Kansas
By CYNTHIA HRENCHIR Sports Writer
In early June of 1980, Carla Coffey was preparing to leave for Nigeria to help organize that country's national track team for world and Olympic competition. She had taken six shirts to her passport and had six more to go.
COFFEE WAS accustomed to sudden changes in her plans. In 1971 she raced through the rain at Cheney, Wash., qualifying in both the 100- and 200-meter hurdles for an invitation to the Olympic trials at Frederick, Md.
During the Olympic Trials' preliminaries, she pulled her hamstring. She managed to make it into the semifinals anyway.
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"I was 22 at the time, and this was my last chance at national competition," Coffey said. "So I took it."
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Her new goal was to earn a masters degree in that same field. She did
Phyllis Howlett, assistant athletic director at KU, called then and informed Coffey she was among the top 10 recruiters for her college. She was then interviewed by phone.
She became involved with organizing sports in Nigeria, but still applied for coaching positions at various colleges, including KU.
"IT WASN'T UP to my 'standards of competition," Coffey said, adding quotation marks in suitable places with her hands. "I could have stayed there, probably retired. But I needed a place with more going in the sports area."
program. She was offered a position at University of California-Davis, and the took job.
Coffey said she emphasized the importance of both the workout and the mental state. When she arrived at Kentucky, she the team was average.
There she found a different challenge. The school didn't offer scholarships and the grade entrance level was high.
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"THEY CALLED two or three of us in for personal interviews," Coffey said. "I thought about the position while driving home. It is a nine-hour drive to Kentucky so I had plenty of time. Saturday morning they called up and said there were a few formalities, but I could have the job. So I took it.
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