KEN HAMBLETON / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 7:00 pm
Gary Pepin is the all-time winningest track and field coach in the history of the Big 12 and the old Big Eight. His Husker teams have three NCAA women’s indoor titles, 63 conference titles and have had 22 top-five NCAA team finishes and hundreds of All-Americans. A native of Pittsburg, Kan., Pepin coached at Pittsburg State, Kansas and three different high schools before coming to Nebraska in 1984.
Pepin spent some time this week with staff writer Ken Hambleton.
Q: Football coaches and basketball coaches can alter the game plan, change the approach during the game and at halftime. What can a track coach do once the meet starts?
A: We can make changes in technique in a long jumper’s approach, or talk about adjusting something for a pole vaulter. We can talk to a sprinter about motivation. Sometimes it’s where can your runner get a spike for her shoe, who is entered in the triple jump and the long jumper is having trouble hitting the 8-inch board for a legal jump. But, like most coaches in most sports, the coaching comes during the week.
Q: Were you much of a track athlete?
A: I was a sprinter and long jumper in high school. I also played football, basketball and baseball.
Q: Any good?
A: I was a better passer than shooter in basketball and an OK defensive back. I played basketball for Lynn Farrell (former Hastings College legendary coach). In track, not all that good, a 22-foot long jump and a 10.1-second 100-yard dash.
Q: So how did you end up a track coach?
A: In my first high school jobs, at California, Mo., and other places, I coached softball, football, basketball, cross country and track and field. But I ended up coaching track and field at Smith Center-Sedalia, Mo., and wanted to coach a state championship team. But we didn’t have the people, so I decided to get my master’s and maybe coach in college. I went to Kansas, worked as a grad assistant and eventually coached there nine years. Then I came here.
Q: Do you still run?
A: I try to run six days a week and lift. I competed in weight lifting for a while. My first weight-lifting competition was at the penitentiary in Jefferson City. Mo. I’ll never forget the gates and the bars closing behind me when I went into the prison.
Q: Let’s get to it. Why should Nebraska give scholarship money to track athletes from South Africa, Israel, Denmark, wherever and not just give all the scholarships to U.S. citizens or even to all Nebraskans?
A: We want, and the university supports us, to compete to win the Big 12 and finish in the top 10 nationally every year. To do that we need a much wider net than just athletes from Nebraska. If there is a Division I athlete in Nebraska, we will recruit that person. We start with Lincoln and the rest of the state first in every event, every year. But to compete, and remember, we have only 12½ scholarships for 21 men’s events and 18 scholarships for 21 women’s events, we need to recruit nationally and, to a minor extent, internationally. And everybody we recruit must be able to compete academically, too. With the Internet and with the fact track and field is a big deal everywhere in the world, you sometimes find the competitive person you need outside this country.
Q: A lot of schools get help and cooperation from the football program. What about here?
A: East Carolina has seven football players on the track team. We have just the one, Robert Rands, who came here on a football scholarship originally. I get along with Bill (Callahan), and if the situation arises where we can help him or he can help us, it will happen. It just hasn’t worked out that we haven’t crossed paths that much recently.
Q: We’re going to a track meet. Nobody special to watch. What should we concentrate on watching?
A: It’s hard to follow what’s going on with a meet and you don’t know how high the bar is set or how fast somebody is running. And it can be a long, boring day if we know nobody out there. But watching the high jump, see the technique; watching the 400 and the mile relay is always fun. Usually some pretty good races no matter what level of competition.
Q: What happens when I’m a 6-9 high jumper and I find out the guy high jumping 6-7 consistently is getting more scholarship money than I get?
A: That’s called friction. We don’t want to give a scholarship and then take it back. We recruit people we think will get a degree and will score points in meets at a conference and national level. One of the worst things is to have a great athlete never achieve that potential. Then you feel like you fixed the car but didn’t put enough air in the tires.
Q: What about drugs in track and field?
A: It’s nothing like it was when I started. Now, there’s not only education but testing, too. I think use is way down because of that. We test, the conference tests and the NCAA tests. And the testing is for street drugs, too. Some people have tested positive here but it’s really rare and much less than you’d or I’d suspect.