Presented by HOKA ONE ONE, the interview series sits down with Furman Elite's Robert Gary to speak about America's running groups, the Greenville, SC community and putting fans first.

By Bring Back the Mile

Start Small. Think Big. This is the first thing you'll see when you visitRunFurman.com, home to the Furman Elite training group and the Furman University Paladians Cross Country and Track & Field team. While the organization may have started from humble beginnings, it has quickly grown to fulfill the second part of its motto with a full-circle approach to training and giving back in the Greenville, SC community. In lead up to their flagship event, the Blue Shoes Invitational and Elite Mile, a Bring Back the Mile Featured Event, we sat down with the group's head coach,Robert Gary, a 1996 and 2004 U.S. Olympian in the 3000m Steeplechase. Gary was a six-time All-American and Big Ten Conference champion at Ohio State University ('96) and also led the Buckeyes as its coach from 1996 to 2012 overseeing nine team qualifiers for the NCAA Cross Country Championships and athletes such as NCAA All-American and top Miler Jeff See (2009).

BBTM: After two decades at Ohio State as an athlete and coach you moved to Furman University to be the head coach of the Paladian Cross Country and Track & Field team as well as the Furman Elite team. What was the genesis of the move to Greenville, SC? 

Robert Gary: Ohio State was a special place and it was an incredible nice thing to be able to work with such great athletes, especially alums of the program like Brian Olinger and Jeff See post-collegiately. The tentacles of the program at Ohio State were far reaching and as I moved from head cross country coach to the head Track & Field coach in 2006 it was hard to have the energy and the focus to support the professional athletes. At the last Olympic Trials in particular, we were close or should have had one or two people that could have made the team. I look back and wonder if we twisted the dial this way or that way if it would have made a difference. I got a lot of questions on why I would leave Ohio State to come to Furman.

The support of Furman Elite allows them to be very professional with a forgotten demographic in our sport. It's a unique opportuntiy to be able to support those who finished 3rd or 4th at the NCAA Championships. Athletes who may have run an "A" standard one time or two times, but not an every year guarantee. Some of them have agents, some of them don’t and only a couple get stipends from a shoe company. And while the support from the shoe companies is great, to a certain extent there is no rhyme or reason who gets it. Obviously, the better people get it typically, but not always and many times they are only slightly better. First place at the NCAA Championships may make $60,000 a year and the next person will get nothing or maybe equipment if they are lucky. I didn’t want to be so dependent on it. This opportunity came up and I got to sit back and say ‘well you could do this’ and specialize in the distance area. It’s not revolutionary. Lots of schools do focus on distances; you have to choose your battles in higher education.

Beyond financial or equipment support by the shoe companies what sort of additional sources is Furman Elite able to leverage for its athletes?

One thing I wanted to get off the ground at Ohio State was to leverage all the unused dorm space. Just to be able to pay room and board for athletes is a huge benefit. To have been able to provide post-collegiates, including those I was coaching at the time, Rob Meyers, Dan Huling, Olinger and See, with a financial reprieve would have allowed whatever little money they had to go a little further. And if they didn’t have any support, it would have meant a little less work at the shoe store or wherever they may be working.

The combination of funding from private donors, an alumni base that is pretty excited about what it is going on and being able to provide room & board for some athletes through Furman University all helps. Cory Leslie and Nicole Bush also are full-time recognized NCAA coaches on our team. They aren’t in the office for ten hours, but they passed the recruiting test, make recruiting calls, they are out with the team and travel with us to meets. We also do some basic level things like sell t-shirts.

We also have some horsepower on the team with ten people in the group. That’s a pretty big group from what I can tell of others around the country. And it's a real team. We meet everyday, they all live here and eat together many of the times. It's great that the collegiate kids have access to bump into them everyday as well as other professional groups such as ZAP Fitness who is here for their training camp in the late winter.

Our athletes have put their lives on hold and I’m really proud of Furman University, which has said ‘if we’re going to do it, let’s really do it'. We have donors who are really excited about it and we also have a President who knows what Furman Elite is. Jeff See is really good with web technology and developed a documentary to introduce the team to the local running club. It made it up all the way to the Mayor of Greenville’s office to look at. He knows that just down the road at this small school we have some of the best athletes in the country. There isn’t a lot of places where you have a number of people who have run under 4 minutes for the Mile training together. It’s a niche thing; it’s not a road-running thing, not even 5000m or 10,000m. It’s men and women middle distance athletes and some steeplechase; and some really good ones too.

It seems like a very compelling opportunity for post-collegiate athletes and you have been able to quickly attrack some incredible talent. How is the support being utilized?

It’s not just a pipe dream. Nicole Bush ended up winning a U.S. title last year, Stephanie Garcia joined the group. We’re only going to get stronger as people realize what we have to offer. There’s a good combination room & board support, physical training support, and I don’t charge for coaching. We also end up covering most of their domestic travel. Maybe that will allow them to get over to Europe twice instead of just once. Or rather than getting in just two days before, they can get in a little earlier and acclimate.

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