Poge 1*-Friday, July 31, 1981-,-The MichiganDaily
GOODRIDGE NEW WOMEN'S TRACK MENTOR
Coach passes position to ex-pupil
By JOHN FITZPATRICK
Daily sports writer
The former coach and his successor.
sat across froni each other in the tiny
office, recalling names and races of
years past. Each spoke with an easy
familiarity to the other, a familiarity
not surprising considering the special
bond they once had-and still seem to
share in many ways-as .coach - and
athlete.
Ken "Red". Simmons, the only coach
the Michigan women's track program
has ever known, retired at the end of
this past spring track season. His
replacement-and the woman now
talking with him who he had once
cqached-is Francie 'Kraker
Goodridge, two-time Olympian and a
former world record holder, now the
Michigan women's track and cross-
country coach.
GOODRIDGE WAS not only coached
by Simmons, but she was his first pupil.."
In 1961 Goodridge was a student at
Slauson Junior High School in Ann Ar-
bor, and Simmons' wife, who taught
phys-eo at the school, noted the speed
Goodridge displayed in a 600-yard run
during class one day. Simmons was
looking°for someone with promise to
coach, and he soon offered his services
to Goodridge, who accepted, with her
mother's approval. "My mother asked
the big question-would I get too many
muscles?" she recalled.
"She was a fair runner at first,"
noted Simmons of his first athlete. "But
we started her doing a lot of weight
training and such . . . we had all the
time in the world."
Indeed they did, and it was put to
good use, as Goodridge rapidly
developed into one of the best middle-
distance runners in the region during
her high school years.
SIMMONS REMAINED her coach
throughout high school, as there was no
prep program for girls in Michigan at
that time. "There wasn't much," said
Simmons, "I was running around
giving clinics (on women's track and
field)."
Goodridge was originally a 400-meter
runner, but moved up to the 800 as she
neared the end of high school, as the
mixture of speed and endurance she
exhibited seemed more suited to the
middle distances.
After graduation, Goodridge atten-
ded Michigan and continued to improve
under the guidance of Simmons. He
squad which was to compete in the an-
nual dual meet against the Russians.
Goodridge had been a favorite to
make the 1965 dual meet squad, ("They
had a big article in the paper about
me-On my way to Russia said the
headline," she remembered ruefully),
but in the qualifying race for the team,
she showed a tendency for starting out
too quickly, which would appear in
later races: "One of the girls went out
too fast, and I followed her. I was still in
second with a half a backstretch to go,
then everybody went by me."
Ironically, disappointment was to be
her lot again in, '66, for after the
euphoria which followed making the
team, came the news that the Soviets
were going to boycott the meet because
of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam
War. This marked the beginning of
what Goodridge called a "dearth of in-
ternational competition for American
athletes," which didn't end until the
1968 Olympics.
IT WAS IN '68 that Goodridge made
her first Olympic team, achieving the
ultimate goal of many amateur
athletes. "It was a blockbuster ex-
perience," she said. "It (was sort of
like) a numbness-we hadn't had the
exposure to international class com-
petition for so long." Despite the lack of
foreign competition, the American
women did well in these Games, as
Wyomia Tyus won her second gold
medal in the 100-meter dash (she had
won in Tokyo in '64 as well) and
Madeline Manning captured the 800
meters, Goodridgie's event.
But Goodridge was shut out of the
final: "There were four heats," said
Simmons, "the first was won in 2:10,
the second in 2:09. Francie ran 2:07.6 in
her heat, but only got fourth, and didn't
Goodridge
two-time Olympian
remained her coach, even though
Michigan did not have a women's
program.
FITTING HER hour-long interval
sessions at the old Waterman Gym
track into a hectic schedule which in-
cluded classes and a 20-hour work week
didn't faze Goodridge. She made her'
first national team in 1966, the U.S.
make it to the final."
The years after the Olympics and up
through the '72 Games at Munich saw
Goodridge turn in the peak performan-
ces of her career. These included a
world record for the indoor 600-yard run
(1:22.4), an AAU championship in the
'indoor 880, and a summer competitive
schedule which included meets in San-
tiago, Chile; Stuttgart, Bucharest,
Hamburg, Moscow, and London.
Despite the talent she showed at the
middle distances from 600 yards to the
800 meters, Goodridge moved up her
racing distarfce once again, this time up
to the 1500 meters prior to the Munich
Olympics. "They (other 800 runners)
were getting too fast," she remarked.
GOODRIDGE qualified for her
second Olympic team in '72 running the
1500. At Munich, she'made it to the
semi-finals, but no further. Her time
was consolation enough, though, as she
recorded a blistering 4:12.8, one of the
top times in the world that year and the
second-fastest time ever turned in by
an American until 1975.
"I felt I had accomplished what I
trained for," she said of her Munich ex-
perience. "It was a nice note to end on."
Her competitive career ended
primarily, but not entirely, with the '72
Olympics. Following the Games, she
moved to Wellesley, Mass. to work for
Blue Ribbon Sports (the predecessor of
today's Nike corporation), and while
doing so discovered-the joys of long-
distance running. "I got that great ex-
posure to the requirements of aerobic
training," she said. "I started doing ten
mile runs . . . that' was a whole new
definition to my career, and I gained a
great sense of independence."
HER LIFE changed in another way,
as' she married John Goodridge. From
1974 onwards she was involved in a
number of challenging jobs, including a
stint as the women's athletic director at
the. University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee, and a period at Ann Arbor
Greenhills School, where she was
Director of Admissions, Financial Aid,
Alumni Development aPd Minority
Admissions, academic advisor, and of
course, a coach for the school's track
and cross-country teams.
Despite a strong attachment to ,the
Ann Arbor area, she left Greenhills in
1979 to assume coaching duties at
Michigan State (where her husband is
also a coach), and East Lansing High
School.
Her greatest challenge at Michigan is
to "gain the team's respect," she said.
"This is a well-established progr.am,
and I'm not going to try to alter things
too drastically," she added, "I think
this team has alot of potential."
Though it remains to be seen how
Michigan'y women's cross-country and
track teams will fare this fall, with a
coach as experienced as Goodridge at
the helm of a squad which is gaining in
- talent and experience every season, one
cannot help but think that the team has,
at the very least, a lot of potential.
SPOR TS OF THE DAILY:
Moffett heads private negotiation
NEW YORK (AP) - Negotiators in
the 49-day-old baseball strike prepared
for A marathon meeting last night in an
attempt to salvage the 1981 baseball
season.
It was learned that instead of full
bargaining teams, the session would
involve only-the three key figures in the
talks - federal mediator Kenneth Mof-
fett; Marvin Miller, executive director
of the striking players association, and
Ray Grebey, chief spokesman for the
owners.
THE TWO sides had been scheduled
to resume formal negotiations for the
first time in a week Thursday after-
noon, but Miller and Grebey apparently
decided to meet together, instead.
It was not known what developments
or proposals caused the two negotiators
to decide on the extraordinary, private.
session. But The Associated Press lear-
ned they were prepared to talk through
the night if necessary in the latest at-
tempt to settle the strike which has.
canceled 580 games, more than 25 per-
cent of the regular schetule.
The private session between Miller
and Grebey was taking place in the
Doral Inn, site of most of the
negotiations throughout the strike. A
year -ago, a similar private session-
between Miller and Grebey on the night
of a strike deadline helped shape a set-
tlement that prevented a walkout at
that time.
Unser takes stand -(
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Bobby Un-
ser, penalized one lap and dropped to
second place in last May's Indianapolis
500, testified Thursday he was told
before the race that there was no way to
enforce the rule he supposedly violated.
Unser took the witnesschair for the
first time in his own behalf. He is ap-
pealing to a special U.S. Auto Club
panel the penalty that gave the victory
to Mario Andretti.
He described a meeting he had with
steward Art Meyers two days before
the May 24 race. Unser had missed a
meeting with all other drivers and
crews a day earlier because he was
competing in a USAC-sponsored pit
stop contest - which he won.
"He had a list of -the stuff that was
5 brought out at the drivers' meeting,"
Unser said, of his- conversation with
Meyers. "We went through everything,
the same stuff Chief Steward Tom Bin-
ford always goes over at the meeting.
We had no problems, no arguments, no
screaming, nothing."
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