TOP COLLEGE TRACK TOWN, SAYS FAREWELL TO TOP TRACK COACH

That is Elliott Denman’s salute to Fred Samara, the very long time coach of Princeton. Fred Samara is among the best coaches in our sport. I met Fred through the early Nineties when Fred and Harry Marra have been launching the VISA Decathlon program. A 1976 Olympian, 

TOP COLLEGE TRACK TOWN
SAYS FAREWELL TO TOP TRACK COACH
By ELLIOTT DENMAN

Query: Over time, which faculty city in America stands atop the rostrum as house to residents and visitors coursing severe observe and discipline by way of their veins?

Eugene, Oregon? Ann Arbor, Michigan? Des Moines, Iowa?

Gainesville, Florida? Austin, Texas?

Let me inform you they’re all Johnnies-Come-These days on the collegiate observe and discipline map.

Let me remind you that they’ve been doing this running-jumping-throwing factor in Princeton, New Jersey, for a century and a half. They usually’re nonetheless very a lot at it.

Princeton College has been fielding observe and discipline groups since 1873.

The Intercollegiate Affiliation of Beginner Athletes of America – you understand, the IC4A – staged its first meet in 1876. The primary workforce champion: the Princeton College Tigers. The primary Tiger particular person winner: J.W. Mann, champion in each the shot put…and baseball throw.

Crew USA on the first Trendy Olympic Video games – Athens 1896 – was nearly all males of Princeton (oh, with a handful of Harvard guys) and arranged by Princeton historical past professor William Milligan Sloane. The Video games’ first double winner: Princeton’s Robert Garrett, within the shot put and discus. USA’s first Worldwide Olympic Committee member? William Milligan Sloane.

The second Olympic 100-meter champion: Princeton’s Frank Jarvis in 1900.

America’s first nice outside meet spectaculars: These sensational Princeton Invitationals of the Thirties (that includes such greats as Glenn Cunningham, Jack Lovelock, Sydney Wooderson, and Princeton’s personal Invoice Bonthron) racing earlier than huge crowds at Palmer Stadium.

Jesse Owens?? His path to quadruple golden glory on the 1936 Berlin Olympic Video games was constructed on his epic performances on the ’36 Nationwide AAU’s at Palmer Stadium.

Over time, Palmer Stadium had been the scene of 9 world-record performances.

All this whereas Princeton’s personal varsity groups (coached by suchnotables as Keane Fitzpatrick, Matt Geis, Pete Morgan and Larry Ellis) saved their Tigers within the sport’s highest echelons,for years and years extra.

All this, too, is by means of saying that the final 46 years of Princeton males’s observe – underneath the professional steering of Fred Samara, successor to Ellis, his personal mentor – have been among the many best of all.

With the Heptagonal Championships – now that includes the eight Ivy League faculties, and previously, Military and Navy – the workforce’s major focus, the Tigers have been by far the general “Heps” dominators in Samara’s tenure.

The “Heps” field rating by way of The Samara Period at Princeton: 10 triple crowns (cross nation, indoor observe, outside observe),a complete of 51 workforce titles, together with a whopping 502 particular person titlists.

Samara, inducted into the Nationwide Collegiate Coaches Corridor of Fame in 2017, has guided his Tigers to 9 NCAA individual-event titles, and 6 of his high pupils made it to the Olympic Video games (as he did, too, within the 1976 Montreal decathlon.)

Among the many most notable: Athens 2004 Olympian and multi-national excessive bounce champion Tora Harris, two-time Olympic steeplechaser Donn Cabral, and celebrated pole vaulter Sondre Guttormsen, whose credentials embody three NCAA golds, one European title (for his homeland of Norway) and 2021 Tokyo Olympian.
However Samara’s final two Tiger groups might have been the perfect of all of them. Sondre Guttormsen, together with brother Simen, have been very important elements within the success of his 2022 Tigers: fifth at NCAA indoors, seventh at NCAA outdoor…

Then once more, nothing is eternally, a truth of life Samara, 73, admitted again in June in asserting his retirement. There got here a time, and this was it.

However all his Princeton colleagues, athletes, and associates weren’t about to let him merely disappear from the Tiger scene with out a huge, buoyant goodbye salute, both.

They usually did it in model, too, final Saturday night time (Oct. 21, 2023) on the Westin Princeton Forrestal Village resort complicated.

Over 300 crammed the ballroom – festooned with “Farewell to Fred” signage and introduced with “Fred’s Followers” pins – to say their formal goodbyes.

At tradition-laden Princeton, this was really a historic occasion. No Princeton individual had ever been accorded such a sendoff. Not beloved basketball coach Pete Carril. Not even Albert Einstein.

An array of Tiger alumni, colleagues, associates, and admirers took turns on the dais.

Ivy rivalries typically criss-cross.

Samara, a two-time nationwide decathlon champion and 1976 Olympian, is a Penn graduate; Penn coach Steve Dolan is a former Princeton mentor.

Mentioned Penn grad Frank Harrison (a two-time Olympic Trials decathlete, himself. who adopted in Samara’s footwear as a top-flight Penn all-arounder) put it, “Fred has had an enormous position in so many lives.”

Augie Wolf was an enormous uncooked expertise when recruited out of Minnesota by Samara.

Mentioned Wolf: “He took an opportunity on me and turned my life round. I went from 47 toes within the shot put to 67 toes in 4 years and the 1984 Olympics. That’s Fred.”

Mentioned former Tiger lengthy jumper Jay Diamond: “It took a variety of work by all of us. Nothing occurred by chance.”

He’ll always remember one Hep meet.

“Cornell gained it and was celebrating in all places.”

“That’s the way in which a champion wins, Fred instructed us. “It’s too dangerous they gained’t get to have a good time once more.”

Positive sufficient, Samara’s athletes dug down, gained the following version of the Heps, and have been dominating this “Historical Eight” meet for many years.

Diamond’s imaginative and prescient: A statue of Samara to be put in on the world-class William Weaver Stadium facility (erected in 1998 as successor to the historic Palmer Stadium.)

“He belongs there,” together with such different Princeton greats as basketball’s Invoice Bradley, soccer’s Dick Kazmaier, and hockey’s Hobie Baker.
“He made us all higher males.”
Diamond’s movement handed by a unanimous (alas, unofficial) vote.

“We had the perfect coach in historical past,” stated shot put star C.J. Licata. “Everyone knows you (Samara) have been the perfect. All of us wished to go the place you had been.”

No speaker was extra passionate than Brad Urschel.

He’d been voted the perfect athlete at his Texas highschool in 50 years. He got here to Princeton. He, too, blossomed out as a world-class decathlete. He’d been an Olympic Trials candidate.

However the life he’d identified got here to a shattering shut one night time on a West Texas highway. Driving along with his Dad – to a observe meet – their automobile overturned, and Urschel was thrown from the again seat.

Regardless of the crippling accidents after years of rehabilitation, regardless of a lifetime of obstacles and challenges, there he was at this night time, readily available to honor Samara.

“We will all study from these occasions,” Urschel stated softly.

Urschel has typically stated he not experiences “worry, heaven or hell, states of being.”

“We will all study.”

And the complete home on “Fred’s night time” rose to salute probably the most brave of all these Tigers.

Like so many others right here, John Mack (class of 2000) had been a Samara pupil – and a 10-time Heps titlist at 200, 400, and relays.

Now, the previous workforce captain is the college’s director of athletics, a submit he’s typically stated.

“is actually a dream come true, 25 years within the making.”

So, it was Mack’s job to substantiate Jason Vigilante as Samara’s successor.

“Vig” has been an excellent distance coach with Samara

(after earlier successes in Texas and Virginia) and can now take the complete reins of the lads’s observe and discipline program.

“How do you comply with within the footsteps of a coach as nice as Fred Samara?” he requested.

“He really loves serving to individuals. He loves everybody right here, It’s a love he shares with all of us.”

After which it was Samara’s flip to say goodbyes.

Over time, he’s coached USA groups on the Olympic Video games (Barcelona 1992), together with Worlds, Pan Ams, Goodwill Video games, and extra. When USA’s nationwide standing within the decathlon appeared to sag, he discovered the crucial Visa sponsorship and rallied the USA deca-team again on observe to the world No. 1 rating.

He’d traveled the world, however his coronary heart was all the time in Princeton, N.J.

He credited his Princeton predecessor – “I owe every little thing to Larry (Ellis),” he stated.

He credited his spouse (Lorraine) and son Ben (the just-like-Dad excellent coach at Princeton Excessive Faculty.) He lauded the multi-member-strong alumni assist group, Associates of Princeton Monitor. He saluted the coaches and staffers he’s labored with (from predecessor Ellis to Peter Farrell to Marc Anderson and present colleagues Vigilante and Robert Abdullah, and plenty of extra.)

“I’ve a thousand tales,” he stated.

However he couldn’t inform all of them. The night was rolling alongside.

Baggage – for future travels maybe, and different tokens of appreciation – have been introduced,

Then once more, Samara, a resident of close by Cranbury, might by no means stray too removed from this storied campus. The doorways will all the time be open. And, simply in case, Vigilante promised there’d all the time be a desk for him of their Jadwin Gymnasium workplace quarters.

To study extra about Fred Samara, please try this text:

Fred Samara on the Ivy Way: Revered Princeton Coach and Olympian Embraces Balanced Approach