THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2005
KANSAS RELAYS
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BY FRANK TANKARD
fiankard@kansan.com
KANSAN SPORTWRITER
Bob Timmons sat in an old, torn green leather chair next to the fireplace in his basement.
Several paintings were framed on the wall next to him, with his name written neatly in the lower right-hand corner. They depicted South Africans, a farm cabin and Jim Ryun, all signifying proud moments from the life of the 80-year-old man who coached track and field and cross country at Kansas from 1965 to 1988.
Bob Timmons has touched the lives of hundreds of people, from building a track in 1994 for the residents of a poor South African community to coaching thousands of athletes.
The 'great motivator'
But he will likely be remembered most for coaching Jim Ryun, the first American high-school student to break the 4-minute mile when he ran 3:59 in 1964. Timmons first coached Ryun at Wichita East High School and then at the University of Kansas.
Ryun likes to tell a story about Timmons, one that he feels sums up his former coach best:
He was a high school sophomore, in his first year competing in track and field, and was sitting on the bus on the way to a race.
Ryun had run in just a few races, and his best mile time was about 4:21. He had been feeling pretty good about the way he'd been running.
Timmons called Ryun up to the front of the bus, sat him down and told him for the first time that he though he could break the national high school record of 4:08.
In the same breath, Timmons told him he had the potential to be the first high school miler to break four minutes.
Ryun said Timmons' belief didn't just give him the confidence to break the 4-minute mile, it changed his life.
"He was a great inspirer, a great visionary and a great motivator," Ryun said.
Stephanie Farley/KANSAN
Jim Ryun is just one of the young men Timmons inspired.
The statistician
Don Steffens was a manager on Timmons' track and cross country teams for three years at Wichita East and two years at the University. At every practice at Wichita East, Timmons had him and the other five managers keep detailed statistics on each athlete, which they would hand to the athletes as they stepped out of the shower.
When Steffens was a high school senior, in the winter of Jim Ryun's junior year, Timmons sent him to run Ryun's workouts. Coaches weren't allowed to during the offseason.
He would record Ryun's times.
Steffens said he would still be working for Timmons today if he could. He now lives in Andover, where he is an apartment manager and self-professed track nut.
type them up and bring them back to Timmons.
He has been the announcer at the Kansas Relays and the Kansas State Track and Field Championship meet for about 30 years. He also worked for Track & Field News for 18 years, first as a writer, then as an editor.
Steffens' voice chokes up a little when he talks about Timmons.
Bob Timmons, KU track and field coach from 1965 to 1988, tried one of those paint-by-number pictures in 1954. It didn't turn out very well, so he put it away and forgot about it. When he retired from coaching in 1988, Timmons started back up on art. "I thought, well, I'll try doing some other painting," he said. Timmons sculpts, paints and writes poetry to accompany some paintings. One of his favorite paintings is of Jim Ryun, whom he coached at Wichita East for three years, four years at the University of Kansas and some coaching after Ryun graduated.
"He's the one that really got me interested in track and field," he said. "He's one of the heroes of my life."
** **
Timmons suddenly stood up, walked swiftly to the adjoining room and opened several drawers of a large metal file cabinet, searching for a statistic.
He had been talking about legendary Kansas track coach Bill Faston, the man he replaced in 1965.
He opened a drawer and puller out one blue and two brown folders
"Aw, heck!" he said, moving across the room and laying the folders on top of other papers on his cluttered desk. The search for Easton's statistics was particularly important to him.
"I'll keep looking for it and give you a call when I find it," he said. "We're talking about one of the nation's greatest coaches. I don't want to mess it up when talking about what the statistics really are. As you know, track and field is a sport of statistics. I just have to make sure we get it right."
In 1954, when he was the swimming coach at Wichita East, Timmons had a coaching revelation.
Change in style
Wichita East lost the meet, but one of its swimmers, Jeff Farrell, won the 220-yard freestyle and set a national record for his age group. He had been merely an above-average swimmer up to that point.
After graduating from the University of Kansas in 1950 with a master's degree in physical education, he had spent two years at a high school in Caldwell and one in Emporia, coaching various sports with little success.
Timmons was dumfounded by Farrell's performance. He and Farrell's father walked into the Coffeyville coach's office and Timmons said, "Johnny, I don't know anything about this. How do you get a record recognized?"
When he moved to Wichita in 1954, he started to coach swimming at Wichita East. One day, the team had a meet against Coffeyville, which had won the state meet six years in a row.
"I don't want to interfere with your coaching," he said. "But I just happen to have a certificate to apply for the national record."
The coach told him he would have to fill out a form and send it to the national swimming body.
Then, Farrell's father spoke up.
Timmons' coaching career changed forever at that moment.
seeing how much faith the father had in his son.
"Jeff hadn't come close in practice, but he had so much belief in him," he said. "Remember, I was the guy losing all those meets, all those basketball games, and you're talking about a national record? From that moment on my teams were always doing the best we could do."
He started taking national age group record forms to every swimming and track and field meet, pushing his athletes to go for national records.
"Then here's what happened to me," he said. "As I go through the halls at Wichita East, I start looking at all these guys wondering. 'How many did I go by that might have beer national champions?'
***
Timmons stood back up and walked over to his desk.
He opened a folder and pulled out a sheet of paper. It was a record one of his old managers had typed up of someone's splits for a day of practice when he was coach at Wichita East.
He set the paper aside and passed by his old megaphone on the way to the adjoining room. He pulled out record books he had made when he was volleyball coach at Baldwin City High School from 1992 to 1998, continuing to search through a lifetime of papers for a statistic on Easton's coaching career.
"I want to do right by Bill Easton," he said. "You know, he's passed away, and I don't want to be inaccurate."
He found a brown folder containing five groups of stapled-together papers and a Sports Illustrated with Jim Ryn on the cover.
The papers contained Ryun's practice schedule for the weeks leading up to June 5, 1964, when the 17-year-old Ryan ran a 3:59 mile and became the first high school runner to break 4 minutes. His splits for the famous race were typed next to the target times Timmons had set for each of the 110 vards of the race.
Timmons' goal for Ryun was
3:59.0. the exact time he ran
He pulled out a 1966 media guide, sat down and thumbed through it.
Staying busy
"There it is," Timmons said, reading some of Bill Easton's records as coach. "Three individual cross country champions, one team championship, two outdoor track national championships."
Timmons has been somewhat of a Renaissance man since he retired from Kansas in 1988. He began to paint, make sculptures and write poetry.
A bronze bust of one of his two grandchildren sits in the living room of the house that his wife, Pat, keeps extremely tidy, a sharp contrast to the basement.
Clay sculptures he made of Kansas greats Gale Sayers, Wilt Chamberlain and Lynette Woodard reside in the basement. His paintings adorn the walls of many of the rooms.
A poem entitled "Our Ole Barn" hangs framed on the wall in his basement under a painting of his cabin at Rim Rock Farm, the cross country course north of Lawrence that he's built and maintained since the 1970s. He donated the land to the University last Tuesday, something he'd been planning to do for a long time.
Portraits of South Africans hang on the wall adjacent to the painting of the cabin. He went to South Africa in 1993 with Paul Taylor, associate pastor of the local Mustard Seed Christian Fellowship, where they worked with a missionary named Iaie Venter.
Timmons returned to South Africa the next year and was instrumental in building a track, starting a track and field program, and introducing volleyball to one of the villages.
In July, he and Taylor attended the dedication of a new translation of the New Testament in the Solomon Islands.
While there, Timmons visited the island of Guadalcanal, where he had been stationed as a member of the Marines in World War II.
Timmons plans to return to Africa next year to see Venter, who is now stationed in Zambia. He has a box full of plans in his basement, including ones to build another track and set up sports programs.
"He's been involved in many many ways in people's lives, in ways that most people will never see or know." Taylor said. "He's a remarkable man."
Edited by Ross Fitch
Jiles
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1C
300-meter hurdles in 37.42 seconds, he set a Kansas Relays record. The next day he ran the 110 hurdles in 14.23 seconds.
"I wasn't ready for it. I was so surprised I even won it. I was just excited, there are no words to describe that feeling." Iles said.
Jiles was named high school MVP
"Julius has to do the same thing against Olympians, and his experience level will be different," coach Stanley Redwine said. "Hopefully he will step up."
Jiles said that his decision to come to Kansas came down to where he felt most comfortable.
"I just wanted to be around that crowd and that atmosphere," jiles said.
minutes after the Relays ended. He agreed to commit to Kansas after talking to coach Stanley Redwine.
When Jiles steps into Memorial Stadium this weekend, last year's success will precede him.
Jiles' confidence has come along with the races he has won. He runs with a swagger that not many freshmen possess. After running three races at the Tom Botts Invitational last weekend, Jiles said it had become easy.
"I really hope that I can duplicate what I did," Jiles said. "Hopefully I can beat some of those Olympians."
"He will be excited to compete against the best." Brewer said. "He's not one to step down. He's got a really winning attitude that comes with his success."
If last year's victory is a sign of the times, losing won't be an issue.
— Edited by John Scheirman
"I just went off of the high school races I used to run." Jiles said.
Hurdles coach Elisha Brewer said that Jiles absolutely hated to lose.
Committee
"I think we'll know after this year for certain. Last year was really great, because of the weather." Meyers said. "Last year was a big step forward. Everything ran so much more smoothly, and when that happens, the nights are shorter."
Along with organizing one of the University's most historic events, the
In his fourth year on the student relay committee, Meyers said the Relays were on an upswing.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1C
"Long nights, working behind the scenes, putting fliers up around campus, and getting all the volunteers," she said.
For Wilson, 2005 will be her third year on the committee. Wilson described the itinerary for a relay committee chairman.
three chairpersons of the student relays committee have a semester's worth of classes and other jobs too. They don't stop, even when the job is temporarily done.
"It's really an all-year deal." Mevers said.
Even after three years on the job
"The relay committee is the backbone of the Kansas Relays staff." Weaver said. "To think that a group of 50 undergrads are willing to volunteer year-round for nothing more than a t-shirt, pizza and pat on the back is really impressive."
"We have 39 Olympic athletes coming," Wilson said. "This will be the only time people will get to see all of them in Kansas for the rest of their life."
When the 2005 Kansas Relays fin
Wilson said the Relays this weekend would be something to remember.
Weaver couldn't put a show like this on by himself.
The Relays depend enormously on the help of student volunteers.
Edited by Lori Bettes
"I think it's just amazing, basically that we can get such good work out of a group of students," Meyers said.
"Its always a thrill. If you're disappointed, it's because it's already over," Meyers said. "During the three days you're just exhausted and thrilled at the entire time."
ish, the cycle starts all over again. Meyers has a variety of emotions about finishing something he's worked on all year to organize.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1C
Relays
Invitational in Columbia, Mo. Amy Linnen won the Big 12 and NCAA Indoor Championships this year in pole vault and will go up against Olympic gold medalist Dragila.
Also, the foursome of Jeremy Mims, Benson Chesang, Cameron Schwehr and Matt Baysinger beat out some of the top college teams in the nation to win the distance medley relay at the Texas Relays on April 9.
Recent Kansas graduates Leo Bookman, Charlie Gruber and Scott Russell will all compete in the Gold Zone. Bookman graduated last year and holds the school records in the 200-meter and 60-meter sprints. Gruber, a 200 graduate, ran the 1,500-meter in last summer's Athens Olympic Games. Russell made history in 2002, when he was a senior, by becoming the only person in NCAA history to win the javelin and hammer throw at NCAA Championships.
Some of those who saw the greats of the past
saw this year's meet could match up pretty well.
"I think this is going to be one of the best Relays in the history of the meet, at least in the last 40 years or so that I've been going," said Del Shankel, former professor and chancellor and a meet official since 1966.
- Edited by Kim Sweet Rubenstein