McDonnell boon for Razorbacks track
Posted on Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Over the past 36 years, Coach John McDonnell’s track and field-cross country Razorbacks created a statewide ritual.
Each of their 42 NCAA championships — 11 in cross country, 19 in indoor track, 12 in outdoor track — triggered a chorus of routine hallelujahs around water coolers in workplaces all over Arkansas.
By the next day or certainly the day after that, most water-cooler talk refocused around football or basketball recruiting.
Approaching his 70 th birthday, Mc-Donnell announced April 21 that he is retiring, effective at the end of the current term.
His records could last into infinity.
No other coach in any sport ever has approached his collection of NCAA titles. Even if an appeal fails to reverse sanctions that would strip Arkansas of two NCAA championships, McDonnell would still lead runner-up Pat Henry of LSU (men’s and women’s track ) 40-26.
McDonnell also won 83 conference championships, including a current consecutive streak of 34 in cross country, while coaching 185 All-Americans and 23 Olympians. His teams won five triple crowns — national titles in cross country, indoor and outdoor track the same school year.
Along the way, he turned down job offers from Texas-El Paso, LSU, Arizona State, Florida and Oregon — schools more naturally conducive to track success than the Arkansas scene McDonnell had entered in 1972.
By the onset of the 1970 s, Razorbacks fans whose absorption with football had previously been total were beginning to gripe about the lack of progress in other programs.
As soon as it became feasible, Athletic Director Frank Broyles hired Eddie Sutton for basketball, McDonnell for cross country and track, and Norm DeBriyn for baseball.
A person who left the country in, say, 1973 and came back in the 1990 s would have been astonished in the surges in basketball under first Sutton and then Nolan Richardson, track under McDonnell, baseball under De-Briyn, and find seething interest in Arkansas teams from September to June. That sort of stuff used to die down from the day after the bowl game to the start of spring practice.
“Track had really been at a low ebb at Arkansas before McDonnell came in,” said former Arkansas Gazette sportswriter Jerry McConnell, always a fervent advocate of track and field improvement. “Improving the track program at that time meant trying to be a little bit more competitive in the Southwest Conference.” Before the McDonnell era, Clyde Scott was the biggest name in Razorbacks track. An All-America running back and safety for Coach John Barnhill, Scott won the silver medal in the high hurdles at the 1948 Olympic Games at London.
“My track coach was Hobe Hoser, and his main job was being Coach Barnhill’s line coach,” said Scott, 83, now retired in Little Rock. “Coach Hoser got me into some good meets like the Drake Relays and the Kansas Relays because he knew I had a chance for the Olympics. “ Sometimes in the winter, Coach Hoser and I would rake snow off the track and set up some hurdles so I could work out. He was very considerate of me, but he was a football coach instead of a track coach, and I could have used some instruction in hurdling technique. “ It was the same way [in high school ] at Smackover. One coach coached everything — football, basketball, track — and he was mainly a football coach. Athletics have come a long way from those days. “ Like everybody else, for years I’ve been in awe of what Coach McDonnell has accomplished. A lot of great coaches never win a national championship, much less 42.” Looking to avoid a little embarrassment, Arkansas found itself with the ultimate track-cross country dynasty. How’s that for irony ?
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