Interview with Marty Morse

Morse is the Head Coach of the U of I Wheelchair Track and Field team. His coaching credits include seven time Boston Marathon winner Jean Driscoll, World Record Holder Scot Hollonbeck, Nationally ranked champions James Briggs and Tony Iniguez and well as Sharon Hedrick, the first athlete with a disabilty to win and Olympic Gold Medal. Morse a native of the Boston area was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 21. He talks about preparing an elite level athlete, Jean Driscoll, and his favorite road race, the Boston Marathon

The Boston Marathon

Q: Doesn't the Boston Marathon have special significance for you since you are from the Boston area?

MM: Very much so. I was raised where that patriot's day in April, everything stopped and it was marathon day. When I was injured in 1975 uh and I'm doing rehab and I hear about Bob Hall in the Boston Marathon and I am instantly became very interested in um maybe sometime racing in it but also preparing an athlete to race in the Boston Marathon. And it is the premiere event in wheelchair track and field and road racing. The Olympics are wonderful but they don't compare to the prestige and the excitement that surrounds the Boston Marathon.

Q: Looking at the big picture of wheelchair athletics, how does long distance road racing fit into that? Is it considered an ultimate challenge for wheelchair athletics?

MM: I think it's the toughest of all sports in wheelchair sports right now. In order to be competitive in at the Boston Marathon, the time and energy commitment is unparalleled in anything else in wheelchair sports. Um, I don't think a lot of other wheelchair athletes have any idea about the time and energy that goes into running an hour and twenty-one minute marathon. The commitment that that takes lifestyle, personal life the infringements of your personal life are incredible. Is much like the Tour de France riders in cycling. No athletes suffer like they do in what it takes to be competitive at that level. And it's the same thing with wheelchair racing. On the road, the energy expenditure is unparalleled.

Training

Q: How do you select athletes for the wheelchair track and field team at the University of Illinois?

MM: The number one thing I look for which I think differs from my able-bodied counterparts in coaching on this campus look for is that number one is academics. It is an exercise in futility to bring anyone in here who can't survive in a Big Ten institution. I think early in my career I was looking at athletic ability right away. But right now everything focuses on academics. I start recruiting students when they are 12 or 13 at junior competitions and all I'm concerned about is their academic track. The most enjoyable part of my job is taking rocks and turning them into diamonds, which I have done. I have done that with numerous athletes. I really haven't been fortunate to have a lot of people who were genetically gifted come in and are instantly stars. We've had a few but I said number one is academics and intelligence and the next is a desire and a motivation all of which Jean possesses.

Q: Is there a difference coaching women with disabilities as opposed to coaching men?

MM: The biggest difference is most of the women especially women with congenital disabilities have not been thrust into um placing an emphasis on physical education in their life. They have been pushed away from that and luckily Jean grew up in a household where she was encouraged to compete with her brothers and in the neighborhood. Plus she grew up using crutches for ambulation. So she developed really wonderful upper body strength and endurance and we're able to make that transition into wheelchair propulsion. But most women just do not have the experience with sport so a lot of the basic conditioning has to be put in place immediately and we also need to go over a lot of basic skills with them because they just don't know how to apply those motor skills. Because they have never been exposed to it.

Q: Describe your training process?

MM: Well the first thing we do with any of our athletes that come into this program is that everything is based on wellness. We want to make sure that any disability related problem is either eliminated or controlled. Then the next thing we do is we develop all the components of fitness and we're talking about just general fitness. Flexibility, strength, endurance, skill and um we just build with a little bit of everything together and then we introduce them to the sport. I make no assumptions when they come in here. For instance, if a freshman comes in right now they are not thrown into the program that Jean Driscoll has developed over the last seven or eight years.

Q: How did you develop this training program here at Illinois?

MM: I've really done a lot of work looking at rowing and canoeing, kijacking, wrestling, as well as some of the physiology work which is done with running and also cycling. So its very eclectic. We sort of take little bits and pieces and try to put the puzzle together. Because there is no book that has been written on this..no. Anyone that is coaching wheelchair racing right now is guessing.

Q: How do the athletes afford the equipment and competition expenses?

MM: They all have to have a big sponsor. It's a very expensive sport. We're up to about 2200 dollars a chair right now and that's with the carbon fiber wheels, helmets, gloves, all things that go with the sport and it just keeps on going up. I've been fortunate again because of our relationship with the engineering department of Illinois. I get a lot of very eager and intelligent graduate students in engineering who have helped keep us on the cutting edge in conjunction with our relationship with the sponsor of our program, Eagle Sports Chairs, who builds our racing frames. So we've been able to help them with their development and they've provided us with equipment that has allowed us to be successful.

Q: What do you look for in a racing chair?

MM: Well number one it has to fit to the person. It has to fit just like a pair of running shoes would fit to a runner. It has to fit to the individual differences. It has to fit to their body. It has to be comfortable. If you are going to be sitting in something for an hour and a half and working at close to maximum work effort you need to be comfortable. And that is a...It is a science to some extent, but its more of an art on fitting someone for a racing chair. Again we come back to basic assumptions. You make the basic assumption that everybody's foot is a certain width or a certain length. Well, everybody's torso or butt, especially after its undergone a spinal cord injury is different. And um there's a lot of art that goes into fitting someone for a racing chair. The next thing I look for in a racing chair is durability. Can it With stand the pounding of a 30-week racing schedule? And then next is it needs to be light and it needs to be maneuverable. A lot of great chairs have been built but they won't go around corners very well. And um the controls are too far away from the person who's operating it to make it handle correctly. So those are some of the main things I look for in a racing chair.

Jean Driscoll

Q: Did you first hear about Jean Driscoll through your recruiting efforts at the University of Illinois?

MM: Brad Hedrick went up to Wisconsin to a wheelchair basketball clinic in Milwaukee. I believe it was in spring of 1987. And he had heard about her from a former player, a wheelchair basketball player up there who was helping out with Jean's training and coaching her. He came back and he said you're not going to believe what they have up there. There's this really gifted athlete who I really want to recruit for basketball. And I hear this all the time, so I was um, fine, that's great. If she wants to be the best racer she'll get in touch with us. And um, we went up to Milwaukee in May of 1987 for our regional meet--qualifying meet--so that we could attend nationals. And I met Jean for the first time up there and I was very impressed. She ran exceptional for somebody, who was very rough around the edges, didn't have a lot of training and as far as skill went, she was, as I said, very rough but she ran very well. And then I ran into her again in June in Houston at the National Wheelchair Games and again I believe she won the one, the two, the four and possibly the eight hundred meters and had a very good track meet and then she came into school the following August.

Q: Why did you want Jean to start running marathons?

MM: She really had aspirations to become a world-class 800-meter racer. And even though the 800 is over at that time in two minutes twenty seconds or faster you still need to develop the aerobic component. And the marathon, particularly the Chicago Marathon, it's a very gentle marathon. It doesn't have a lot of hills in it and if the wind is right it's a wonderful first marathon. And I thought that for her base training to lay the foundation with that aerobic conditioning I thought this would be great if we could do it in the fall. I believe she did her first one in the fall of 1988 to get ready for the next season so I really felt she needed that conditioning so that's why we went up there. Also we had numerous women in the program at the time that were doing marathons and I wanted Jean to be part of that training pack and the rest is history after that.

Q: From a coach's perspective, what is one quality that Jean possesses that you admire?

MM: Probably its something she's developed since she's been here is the ability to take critical analysis from me and others and not take it personally. You can just cut her to the bone It's like: "You're doing this wrong. Correct it." And she'll do it. Other athletes will go into a shell. "You hate me. I don't want to work with you any more. I quit." Where as with Jean it's we'll talk it out in her training notes or also in meetings and we'll discuss the problems. First we'll assess the problem then we come up with an action we're going to pursue to alleviate that problem. And Jean is probably the best athlete I have ever coached who has that ability to be objective and step away from herself and say; "Okay this is a problem. What am I going to do to correct it." And she doesn't take it personally.

Q:What is one of Jean's faults?

MM: Saying no to the media. Jean will not say no to anybody. She wants to please everybody..and much to her detriment. She's tired. A lot of the time it has nothing to do with the training intensity or volume she's doing--It's her outside commitments...to service organizations, up and coming athletes, parents, uh children with a disablity..which I think is all wonderful and I stress the service component with all of my athletes but her calendar gets way too busy.

Q: So far in her career, what is Jean place in history?

MM:I think probably without a doubt Jean is the finest wheelchair marathoner in history right now. To do what she's done at Boston under any kind of conditions um no woman has been close to her. When she gets to the hills at sixteen miles..it's been over for six consecutive years. No woman has been able to do it. She's done it into a headwind..she's done it in a tailwind. She's done it with food poisoning and no one has been able to climb with her...And to have that advantage over others..she just has the rest of the women in the world scratching their heads. Because I know. I'm in contact with the other--her competitors'-- coaches and I know they are doing everything possible to beat Jean at Boston. It just hasn't happened.

Q: How do you prepare Jean for a race?

MM: With Jean especially we have very well-developed goal-setting sessions leading up to the competition and someone has to lose and but we both try to be objective and we try to analyze. What happened? What was the problem today? Did I not have the climbing ability? Was I not able to coast down the hill? Was I not able to get out at the start? And we reassess that. And if possible we both try to change the problem. But if we can't change the problem it is going to be a major focus in the development for the next season.

Q: You and Jean not only have a great coach/athlete relationship but you also seem to be great friends.

MM: With Jean, whenever you spend as much time with an athlete um I spend up to about 45 hours a week with her, you develop a relationship that in a lot of ways she can anticipate what I'm thinking and I can what she is. We spend an awful amount of time together. She has become a very integral part of my life outside of the rehab center. She has since my son was born, uh she has been our daycare specialist and Jean has taken a very active role in my life. She has been very active with my family back in Massachusetts. I have an extended family all around the country and Jean is part of the family. And I think a lot of the athletes..Ann Cody and Sharon Hedrick were the same way. This isn't just a 9 to 5 job, this is they are part of my life and Jean especially..my 20 month old son is absolutely infatuated with her..my Jeanie and that's all he talks about..and that's the role she has taken in our lives. She's become a very good friend with my wife and Jean has been there through all the ups and downs and especially with all the changes that I have been going through right now with my job and uh she has been willing to change her training..A lot of elite athletes would be pouting and angry and Jean just makes it work. And along with her other teammates, is they have been willing to accommodate this change in my life. And not being too _ overbearing..And the bottom line is they want to be successful, they want me to be successful. And we try to work together.

Q: What is Jean's future after she stops racing?

MM: That's a bone of contention between the two of us right now because as a coach as you watch an individual who continues to improve almost 5 percent every season, you hate to see them retire. But I also realize the enormous time commitment she's made and what that's done for her personal life. And I'll support whatever she wants to do. But again, I think that her true greatness would come five to ten years from now, the way she's developing. Um she continues to get smarter, stronger and faster..I think you'll see her becoming an advocate for persons with disability. I also see her becoming more involved with helping other young children with spina bifida become educated about the positive aspects of living an active, vigorous lifestyle. And pursue your dreams and not let them be limited by your physical disability. I believe she'll be involved with the women's movement and helping open doors for other women with disabilities and whether it's through academics, athletics or service, so I think it's a very positive future and also very lucrative. Because Jean will be outstanding at whatever she decides to do.