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Jonathan Mulkeen
"A discipline, not a game." Almost sounds like it could be a slogan for a major sports brand but instead, it is Pat Connolly's view of track and field.
Indeed, if track and field is a discipline, then Connolly is undoubtedly a disciplinarian within the sport. Her parent-like qualities tie in perfectly with how she is described by her long-time friend and former Olympic team-mate, Willye White. "Pat's a mother first, and then a coach," says White, who won an Olympic silver medal in the long jump at the 1956 games, aged just seventeen.
Pat herself is no stranger to major success as a junior athlete - she competed at the 1960 Olympics in the 800m as a sixteen-year-old. Her own experiences as a successful young athlete (throughout a career that saw her make three separate Olympics before the age of twenty-five), no doubt put her in good-stead for her role as a coach. Her most famed recruit, Evelyn Ashford, made the 100m final at the 1976 Olympics at the tender age of nineteen and one of Connolly's more recent success stories was that of eighteen-year-old Allyson Felix, whom Connolly guided to an Olympic silver medal in the 200m.
Connolly's success stories as a coach, however, stretch far beyond the confines of junior-level achievement. After 1976, Ashford went on to set multiple world records in the 100m and scored double-gold at the 1984 Olympic Games.
Connolly also played a key role in reviving sprint-hurdler Renaldo Nehemiah's career after a four-year stint in the NFL. With Connolly's help, 'Skeets' Nehemiah re-entered the top-ten world rankings in the sprint hurdles.
It is fair to say that Connolly, a coach of over thirty years, has devoted her life to track and field. The same can be said of her husband, Hal, who won the Olympic hammer title in 1956. Between them, they have touched the lives of countless athletes from the grass-roots youth level, right up to the crème de la crème of athletics.
A disciplinarian, she may be. A determined, outspoken task-master too. But the one underlying and unquestionable quality of Connolly's that has remained with her throughout the years is her utter devotion and passion she has for the sport, in her hope of making a difference.
Quite simply a mother-figure of track and field, Connolly's gift for recognising athletic prowess is exemplified by the way she identifies several athletes as having "heart."
It certainly takes one to know one.
Pat Connolly: Currently, Michael and I are setting up a new running and jumping club in the Sacramento area and will be recruiting athletes of all levels of ability for membership. Look for an announcement to be made in late April.
PC: Absolutely. Think in terms of specificity, especially with regards to the time you spend running at pace or faster than pace. That is what counts. A woman I coached in the eighties ran less than 35 miles per week and managed to qualify for the Olympic trials in 1984 with times of 2:04 (800m) and 4:16 (1500m).
PC: Renaldo's hurdling technique was already in his muscle memory, so all I had to do was get him confident in his speed again. He started to get faster but not as quickly as he hoped. Like milers, his tendency was to over train and that slowed him down. In 1992 he went back to his high school coach and did the same workouts, like 8 x 200, that he did as a teenager. That slowed him down and he couldn't make the final at the Olympic trials. Football really did destroy his confidence.
PC: Skeets wasn't allowed to focus on the 100m in high school. But if I could have worked with him from the age of eighteen, he would have matched Harrison Dillard's achievement (double gold in the 100m and 110m hurdles). He clearly could have ran under 9.9 in the 100. For 1992, I would have had him run the 400m hurdles. Based on a 300m I timed in practice, I believe he would still hold the world record in that event, had he given it a serious try.
PC: Carl Lewis and Renaldo Nehemiah. Neither one came close to their potential. Watching the 200m Carl ran in Indianapolis, (I can't remember if it was the nationals or a sports festival), I saw him come off the turn so fast he scared himself and slowed down long before he threw his arms up to cross the finish.
As for the women, they were working harder during this time.
PC: No. She could have run close to 10. 60 in the 100m. In the 200m, Evelyn never ran close to her ability. I expected her to run under 21.60 - it was her better event!
PC: Even Flo Jo's coach (Bob Kersee) admits that the 10.49 race was wind aided. Everyone in that quarter-final set PRs. The IAAF should never have ratified the record. Still, 21.34 is possible to be broken by a clean athlete. Perhaps Gwen Torrence could have done it if she had been more patient.
PC: The answer to this question is very long. In short, what I believe is that we must stop punitive testing and get complete genetic and systemic profiles on all our athletes over the age of 14 - before they "hit it big" - then they can be checked later to see if their performances are natural or enhanced (either pharmacologically or genetically).
Dr. Catlin at UCLA agrees with the feasibility of profiling. We are spending too much money on the drug testing game and not even getting the benefit of research that would be helpful not just to athletes but the public at large. We still don't know what is a placebo and what is very dangerous to some and not to others.
Genetic males should not be allowed in competitions for women, period!
PC: After Evelyn had her baby in 1985 her husband, Ray Washington, began helping her. While she got advice from some coaches from time to time, she was ultimately self-coached. After we had nine years together, Evelyn knew what to do and how to listen to her own body.
Though she never ran the times I expected of her, she did a darn good job in 1988. Just watch the 4x100 meter relay in Seoul. What she had from the beginning, that I didn't teach her, was heart!
PC: Allyson's management team had a different plan for Allyson's development than I had. It was not about money.
PC: If she has the desire and the patience, and pays the price.
PC: Wyomia Tyus! Two-time Olympic 100m Champion. She never came close to her potential in the 100m or the 200m. I also would have liked to coach my former Olympic team mate Willye White in the long jump. She had the speed to jump over 23 feet, clean!
PC: While the first thing that comes to mind is my UCLA team victory, winning the nationals in 1977, my greatest challenge/success was when Diane Williams won the national championship 100m and relay gold at the '87 World champs, running faster after a three-year detox than she had run while on drugs.
PC: I don't believe in technical role models. Everyone has different levers set in their joints differently. The art of coaching is to get the most out of each unique individual.
PC: The most exciting is always the one who runs with the most heart. I think Lauryn Williams did that in Athens.
PC: As an athlete, I should have stayed with my coach, Ed Parker. As a coach, I did not hire good assistant coaches.
PC: I admire Evelyn for running with heart over and over again and for believing in herself and not the pharmacist. I look up to my coach, Ed Parker, not only for what he did for me and other athletes but because his moral standards were/are impeccable.
PC: Nothing compares with your first Olympics which, for me, were in Rome in 1960. My Olympic team mates from '60, '64 and '68 are still the greatest athletes of all time - Bob Hayes ran the fastest relay anchor I ever saw in Tokyo and Wyomia Tyus and Lee Evans were all heart in Mexico City.
PC: Stop spending hundreds of dollars on punitive testing and redirect testing to research and athlete-profiling to prove the innocence and natural prowess of the athletes. Give all marks not checked by medical record profiling an asterisk - perhaps in the shape of a small monkey or robot.
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