The Badger Herald

SPORTS

Another award for Nutty

JEFF SCHORFHEIDE/Herald photo

Looking for a print version?
Simply choose ‘Print’ on your computer and a printer-friendly document will be generated.

Also by Adam Holt:

Elsen finds success on links at young age (April 23, 2008)

by Adam Holt

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Ed Nuttycombe has earned an impressive number of awards and accolades in his 25 years as head coach of the Wisconsin men’s track team. However, his induction into the Madison Sports Hall of Fame June 4 has unique significance.

“It’s an honor,” Nuttycombe said. “When I look at all the names of the people on the plaques on the wall, I just realize how exclusive of a group it is.”

It’s a typically modest response from a man who has few reasons to be humble. During his tenure as head coach, Nuttycombe has led the men’s team to 23 combined indoor and outdoor Big Ten titles, produced 159 All-Americans, and last year, made Wisconsin the first Big Ten school to win a national title in track.

From the start, Nuttycombe was destined to find this success in coaching. His father was a Hall of Fame high school track coach, and as a child Nuttycombe would run his own backyard track meets.

“Maybe five or six times during the summer, we’d host a neighborhood track meet, and we’d have 40 or 50 kids from the neighborhood come and run in it,” Nuttycombe said.

This love for the sport would lead to him become a four-year letter-winner in track at Virginia Tech and eventually helped him gain an assistant coaching position at Wisconsin under Dan McClimon.

“[McClimon] gave me the opportunity to get started in the coaching world,” Nuttycombe said. “Dan was a wonderful person. … It was a wonderful opportunity, but too short a period of time.”

A tragic plane accident claimed McClimon’s life in 1983, leading to Nuttycombe being named head coach. The transition was eased by the fact McClimon already had the program’s foundation in place.

“What we did was supplemented it,” Nuttycombe said. “He put things in place, and we just kind of refined it and tried to improve on it.”

As his résumé shows, Nuttycombe’s refinements to the program have worked out quite well. Assistant coach Mark Guthrie is quick to point out Nuttycombe’s success should be attributed as much to the man himself as to the foundation he took over.

“He really has a great relationship with his athletes,” Guthrie said. “He treats them like men.”

Senior captain Peter Dykstra agrees.

“He has kind of a laid-back relationship with his athletes,” Dykstra said. “I think one of the main reasons he’s been so successful is that he gets a very high level of respect from his athletes. He treats each one like an individual. He’s not out at practice just to give orders.”

Nuttycombe’s history as a decathlete also gives him the benefit of being well-versed in many events.

“He’s had experience in almost all the events,” Dykstra said. “He’s really knowledgeable across the whole field.”

As much as his peers and athletes laud him, Nuttycombe is quick to defer much of the credit to his assistants. However, the boon of having a good coaching staff is also a bane.

“Keeping staff intact is difficult, especially when you’re successful. People want to come and take your staff from you because they see them as being part of the formula,” Nuttycombe said. “And there’s no question that having good quality staff like we do now [is important]. There’s a chemistry that you as the head coach orchestrate from the top, but those guys are the ones in the trenches getting the work done.”

As modest as Nuttycombe is, he also carries a confidence about what he’s done, with the 2007 indoor national title being a point of special pride.

“It was something that we had dreamed of, that I had dreamed of for many years,” Nuttycombe said. “It felt like the culmination of a lot of work from a lot of coaches and a lot of athletes. I’m really proud of it for the program and for the university and for myself personally.”

In the wake of that national title, it would be reasonable to feel extra pressure to succeed, especially when combined with the way UW has dominated Big Ten track and field during Nuttycombe’s tenure. However, he believes the only pressure on the team is self-imposed.

“I think yes, there’s pressure, but it’s pressure that the coaches and athletes put on themselves,” Nuttycombe said. “That’s what makes you stay hungry after all these titles.”

In the end though, it’s not the titles or the awards Nuttycombe wants to be remembered for.

“It’s very simple: someone who was a good person, who took care of his athletes,” Nuttycombe said, in typically modest fashion.

But just that?

“And,” he added, “someone who put together a good, competitive track program on a yearly basis.”

As his history and colleagues can attest, he should have no trouble accomplishing that either.

Feedback

Show all comments

Hide anonymous comments

Anonymous (May 15, 2008 @ 7:43am):

Good article. That is quite a feat. Go Nutty!

Anonymous (May 22, 2008 @ 8:52pm):

Best coach at UW

Anonymous (June 3, 2008 @ 8:32pm):

Way to go Ed! Congratulations!

Add a comment

We welcome your thoughts, but please keep your feedback thoughtful, on-topic and respectful. Offensive language, personal attacks, or irrelevant comments may be deleted.