The Gonzaga Bulletin

Issue date: 9/4/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Geoff Thurner Pat Tyson brings 35 years of coaching experience to a Bulldogs program that hasn't won a team title since 1995, when the women won the WCC. The men have never won a team championship. [Click to enlarge]

Pat Tyson believes a great coach is an artist. The runners, he says, represent a canvas, and as the artist, he is in charge of painting a good-looking picture, or more simply put, a winning one.

 In his first season with the Bulldogs, Tyson has his sights set on improving the program as Gonzaga's first full-time cross country and track and field coach.

The job is a homecoming for Gonzaga's new leader.

"I'm back where I belong," Tyson said of his return to Spokane, where he led Mead High School to 12 Washington team titles from 1986-2004. "It's a whole new level of competition."

 After a stint as an assistant at the University of Kentucky in 2006 and then as the head coach at South Eugene High School a year ago, Tyson replaces Kevin Swaim, who coached the Bulldogs on a part-time basis for 13 years before stepping down in January.

When rumors involving Tyson circulated last spring, there was a buzz hovering over the program. Now, three months after his May hiring, many runners are honored just to be in the presence of the track and field icon.

"You just have to listen to him," junior Brett Withers said of Tyson. "You're not going to question what he tells you to do."

Along with his sterling reputation, Tyson employs a motivational coaching style that keeps his team's attention.

"He really knows how to spark people's motivation and get us excited about a workout," Withers said.

Tyson has also impressed his team with an uncanny attention to detail and a willingness to provide valuable one-on-one instruction.

"He is able to see all these little things that are going on while everyone is running around this loop," Withers said, adding that Tyson is able to "help people on an individual basis."

Before coaching, Tyson honed his craft at the University of Oregon during the early '70s. In Eugene, Ore., Tyson forged a relationship with his teammate, the late Steve Prefontaine, and blossomed under the tutelage of two coaching legends: Hall of Famers Bill Bowerman and Bill Dellinger.

"It was like being coached by [John] Wooden, except there are two of them," Tyson said, comparing his former Oregon coaches to UCLA's renowned head basketball coach of 27 years.

Tyson's life changed at Oregon when he ended up living in Prefontaine's trailer, an arrangement that materialized as a result of the two having similar lifestyles and work ethics.

"We lived the life of order, fun, discipline and commitment that one needs to have to be a Division I athlete," Tyson said.

Prefontaine taught Tyson to lighten up, an adjustment that led to major improvements.

"I learned to relax and it made me better," Tyson said. "It's just a game; you're not trying to land this multibillion dollar apparatus on an aircraft carrier."

After graduating from Oregon in 1973, Tyson began implementing the "Oregon System" he gleaned from Dellinger and Bowerman at various programs throughout Washington and Oregon, along with the many pointers he received from Prefontaine along the way.

"[The Oregon System] is about letting kids make mistakes, not making them robotic," Tyson said. "Letting them search into their raw talents so they learn to trust their instincts."

Tyson says the system will work if he can bring in three or four young men and women who buy into it each season. The plan is to recruit in the Pacific Northwest - a region that has produced the likes of Gerry Lindgren (11 NCAA Championships at Washington State) and Prefontaine, who at one time held world records in five distance track events as one of the most influential American runners ever.

"You don't have to travel very far to find the athletes who can raise the bar to Portland's level," Tyson said referring to the perennial powerhouse Pilots.

Portland has claimed every men's team title in conference history and all but three women's titles since the league's inception in 1979.

Tyson's impeccable high school coaching resume will likely help the Bulldogs lure top-tier talent away from nearby schools, namely Washington, Washington State and Eastern Washington.

"We're going to start pulling guys away from them that we wouldn't have gotten before," Withers said. "Once we get a couple guys in here it's going to snowball. He's got a great reputation around the northwest."

Aiding in the recruitment of runners are Tyson's efforts to improve the track and field program. His short-term goal is to get a track on campus and farther down the road, a complex akin to Stanford University's Cobb Track and Angell Field

Complex. As this begins to take shape, many runners feel the program will eventually be able to compete with Portland. It's a wave of optimism that's resonating with the team.

"He tells us 'someday we're going to beat Portland' and it's not just talk," Withers said. "It's definitely possible."

Right now Tyson's canvas consists of roughly 24 runners, which will provide the foundation for his next big art project: a WCC Championship.

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