Park's Legacy Lives on: Ex-coach's impact outdistances career
- By Doug Kurtis
Free Press Columnist

It has been four years since Bob Parks retired as Eastern Michigan's track and cross-country coach. Although he now splits time between Michigan and Florida, his influence and impact on Michigan athletes, coaches and programs continues through the many relationships he developed.

Eight of Parks' athletes have been Olympians. Hasely Crawford won a gold medal for Trinidad and Tobago in 1976 in the 100 meters, and Earl Jones a bronze for the United States in 1984 in the 800.

Parks' teams won 44 Mid-American Conference titles and nine NAIA or NCAA Division II championships. He was named MAC coach of the year 29 times and was NCAA coach of the year in 1990. His daughter Sue is a successful coach at Ball State.

Let's go back to play it forward. Parks was a middle-distance track star in the 1950s at Howell High and Eastern Michigan. His first coach, Loren Willis, wasn't a track expert but a good motivator. At EMU, Parks ran for George Marshall, someone he considered to be a father figure.

Parks started his coaching career at the high school level, working at Ferndale and Redford Thurston before becoming an assistant to the legendary George Dales at Western Michigan.

Parks, who took over at Eastern in 1967, found successful coaches to be well-organized, eager, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, hardworking and smart. From them he learned that you have to cover all the bases and leave nothing to chance.

One of Parks' former assistants is Kelly Lycan, now the head coach at Western Michigan.

"I wondered if Bob would ever retire," Lycan said. "I thought they would just bury him in the long-jump pit at whatever meet he died. He loved the chase and the challenge of a new season, the chance to beat back all his pretenders to the throne. He was fond of saying that the only reason he kept going was to (bleep) off (former Western Michigan coach) Jack Shaw."

"They were rivals, but two peas in a pod. At coaches' meetings the fur would definitely fly between the two. Since Bob's departure, the meetings haven't been the same. Bob didn't like to lose, and he didn't very often."

Parks' dual-meet record was 162-14-1.

The rivalry with Shaw didn't stop Parks from sending newsletters to Western Michigan track alums trying to help get their program back. Parks is also writing a book about his experiences at Eastern, and he sends out a newsletter so his alums will be organized to protect the school's track and cross-county programs.

"Parks was as much an artist as he was as a coach," Lycan said. "He was just as artful at telling a story, and the hours would fly by while I and others would listen to his tales. Bob Parks loves track and field. In fact, he loves sports in general. He definitely abides by all the qualities which the ancient Greeks held so dear about sport: the beauty of bodies in motion, the honor in competing well, whether or not you win, and the ability to endure, whether pain, adversity, bad luck, whatever.

"Bob recognized the nobleness in the striving, which takes place in sports and what makes our human race the amazing thing it is. That's why I think he took just as much satisfaction in taking a guy who was just an ordinary Joe and turning him into something else than he did working with the guys who were blessed with extreme talent."

Former Free Press Marathon winner Gordon Minty was one of those ordinary guys. When Parks started pursuing him, it took Minty by surprise.Minty remembers Parks' blunt honesty.

"He would say the outdoor track wasn't really all that good and needed to be resurfaced; they didn't have the budget to go to all the meets he would like to go to, stuff like that," Minty recalled.

But Minty, a professor of manufacturing and construction technology at Indiana State, didn't think his experience could have been better.

"Coach was flexible, we were flexible," said Minty, who finished third in the 1973 NCAA cross-country championships. "It was never his team, it was our team, and I think every team he has had feels the same way. Unlike most schools and coaches, it was our team, and he was the coach."

One of Parks favorite stories recounts a mistake he made by not putting Minty in the middle EMU's starting box at the NCAA cross country championships in 1973.   Minty had been unbeaten in every race up to that point. Starting on the outside, he got bumped and fell, then had to wade through hundreds of runners before ultimately finishing third behind world class runners, Nick Rose (former Crim winner) and defending champ Steve Prefontaine of Oregon.

A number of Parks' athletes have become successful coaches. Fred Laplante is now associate head coach at Michigan. Laplante loved the way Parks applied his knowledge of strategy to track.

"Every meet was important to Bob, and he passed it on to his athletes," Laplante said. "He used to say: 'Why put on a uniform if you aren't trying to beat your opponent always?' When he made up a lineup, he could sense how each guy in every event would do against his teammates and the opponents.

"Some guys he would give his take on how he thought the opponent would race and leave the race plan up to the guy. Others he would just tell them how to run their race. He was right almost all of the time.

"Bob wasn't overly high on praise. He expected good results, but if he ever did say you could do something or you had done something well, it really meant a lot."

Derrick Jackson, elections director for Washtenaw County, has remained close to Parks because of the way he changed his life.

"Parks has this quality that few have, the ability to make people want to be better at whatever they do," Jackson said. "No matter what your background, the coach had a way of embracing you."

Minty summed up his feelings for Parks this way: "He may be a great coach, but because he cares for people as individuals, he will always be a better person than he is a coach."

Contact Doug Kurtis at Detroit Free Press, 600 W. Fort St. Detroit, 48226