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Harry Marra joins UO track and field staff
By Curtis Anderson

The Register-Guard

Harry Marra, one of the nation’s leading experts in the multi-events, has been named assistant coach for the Oregon men’s and women’s track and field program, UO associate director of track and field Vin Lananna announced Wednesday.

The 62-year-old Marra will work primarily with Oregon’s multi-event athletes, including two-time NCAA decathlon champion Ashton Eaton, a senior, and reigning NCAA heptathlon champion Brianne Theisen, a junior.

Marra, a former decathlete, who served as head coach of the U.S. national decathlon team from 1990 to 2000, also will oversee the UO pole vaulters, high jumpers and men’s high hurdlers.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled,” Lananna said of Marra’s hiring.

“Harry has been a leader within the combined event community and has guided athletes to success in the biggest meets in our sport for over 30 years.”

Marra, whose base annual salary will be $60,000, signed a one-year contract, similar to the rest of the UO track and field assistant coaches.

He takes over for Dan Steele, who was hired as head coach of the Northern Iowa men’s and women’s track and field and cross country programs on Sept. 29.

Lananna initially used Marra, along with a select few other combined-event gurus, as a consultant when he began a national search to replace Steele, but gradually, Marra emerged as a leading candidate.

“Every time I talked to somebody, they wanted to know what Harry thought,” Lananna said. “I think he was perfectly content where he was, but I needed to get somebody that was a known quantity, especially as hosts of the NCAA championships this year. I took no chances.”

Since January of 2008, Marra has served as head coach and director of Pacific Waves Track & Field Club, an elite group of post-collegiate decathletes, sprinters and hurdlers based near San Luis Obispo, Calif.

He recently coached Paul Terek to a 10th-place finish in the decathlon at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan. Terek, a 2004 Olympian, ranks as the 14th-best U.S. decathlete with a PR of 8,312 points.

Other Marra-coached decathletes who have exceeded 8,000 points are Bart Goodell (8,109), Paul Foxon (8,254), Brian Brophy (8,276) and Chris Wilcox (8,026).

“Oregon has a long-standing tradition in the combined events, as well as the pole vault and high jump, and I’m looking forward to continuing that tradition,” Marra said in a UO press release.

“Being able to coach at Hayward Field and in this community is truly something special.”

With Marra on board, UO assistant Robert Johnson will pick up the coaching duties for the men’s sprints, relays and horizontal jumps, plus intermediate hurdlers.

Johnson, in his fifth year at Oregon, will continue to coach the UO women’s sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers, while volunteer assistant Jenni Ashcroft expands her role to help with the multi-events, pole vaulters and high jumpers.

“Clearly, our major priority was to make certain that our combined event athletes would continue to progress … to the next level,” Lananna said.

“Harry’s tremendous breadth of experience for such a long period of time, and the fact that he has already coached high-end athletes that have been somebody else’s athletes in the past, that was the most intriguing part of his candidacy.”

Marra was head track and field coach at San Francisco State for 12 years (1981-93), where he was twice named Northern California Athletic Conference coach of the year and named to the school’s hall of fame.

During his tenure at SFSU, he met Lananna, the head track coach at Stanford at the time, and also served as a speed and fitness consultant for the San Franciso Giants.

Marra previously served as head track coach at Springfield College in Massachusetts for four years and as an assistant coach at UC Santa Barbara for two years.

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Youthful Harry Marra, 62, vaults head-first into job as UO assistant coach
By Ken Goe, The Oregonian
January 14, 2010, 6:37PM

Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian/2009

EUGENE -- Harry Marra is 62, which puts him within reach of Social Security. But he isn't ready for the retirement home.

Marra took over coaching Oregon decathletes, heptathletes, high jumpers and pole vaulters when he joined the UO track program as an assistant in November. It didn't take his athletes long to realize this guy is hands-on.

For instance, there was the day UO coach Vin Lananna walked into the Ducks' indoor practice facility beneath Hayward Field's west grandstands and caught Marra demonstrating the "Bubka" pole vault drill on a high bar.

The "Bubka" is named for former Soviet pole vaulter Sergey Bubka, and is a sort of inverted pull up.

"He wasn't being a show-off," Lananna said. "He was just, 'This is how you do it.'"

Except not many people can. The college athletes were watching open-mouthed.

"He can do six or seven," said senior Ashton Eaton, the two-time reigning NCAA decathlon champion. "I can do two."

Marra, who has impressive credentials as a multi-events coach, will be charged with continuing to develop Eaton and reigning NCAA heptathlon champion Brianne Theisen as they prepare to defend their individual titles in June when the NCAA meet comes to Hayward Field.

Marra blushed after hearing the "Bubka" story recounted.

"I've always had a strong stomach," he said.

That and a pedigree that might stretch around the track.

Marra learned the decathlon as an athlete at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Md., in the late 1960s and continued as a postcollegian through the mid-'70s before becoming a coach.

"I never left the sport," Marra said. "Since 1961, I've never missed a track and field season."

He made stops at the college level at San Francisco State, where he was head coach for 12 seasons, at Springfield (Mass.) College as head coach for four and as an assistant at UC Santa Barbara for two.

Marra's biggest claim to fame came as Team USA's decathlon coach from 1990 to 2000, when Dan O'Brien and Dave Johnson were starring at the world level.

Lananna turned to him for advice last fall after associate head coach Dan Steele left to take the head-coaching job at Northern Iowa.

Steele coached Oregon's multi-events, and Lananna wanted Marra to help find a replacement.

Except the longer Lananna searched, the more he became convinced that the best man for the job was Marra himself.

Marra had been running an after-school program for at-risk youngsters, serving as private coach for elite decathlete Paul Terek and heading up the Pacific Coast Waves Track & Field Club near San Luis Obispo, Calif.

When Lananna sent him a text message asking if he wanted to interview, Marra not only said yes but also packed enough clothes to start immediately after the interview.

"What overwhelmed me initially was the total support a program like this has," Marra said. "Everything is here. The table is set. Everybody has everything they need to be successful."

If the support is outsized, so are the expectations. The UO men are reigning NCAA indoor champions and begin the 2010 season Saturday at the UW Indoor Preview in Seattle ranked third nationally. The UO women are No. 2.

Outdoors, the men and women are coming off runner-up NCAA finishes in 2009. The Ducks obviously would like to make a splash at the NCAA outdoor meet, June 9-12 at Hayward.

Lananna used to refer to Steele, who had day-to-day control of the program, as "the director of results." Clearly, Steele delivered.

Marra won't have the same overarching role. His job will be to concentrate on athletes in his events and, in particular, to help Eaton and Theisen improve as throwers.

"We've been doing a lot of technical work," Theisen said. "He's been starting over, right from the basics, getting us to do the same drills, over and over and over again."

Marra told Theisen to forget everything she ever had learned in the shot put.

"I think that's good," Theisen said. "That's what I wanted and what I needed to do because my shot put isn't good."

Ditto for Eaton.

"We needed a more technical edge in the throws," Eaton said. "He's brought that to us."

Steele guided Eaton to both of his NCAA titles. The two were close.

Before Steele left Eugene last fall, he and Eaton talked.

As Eaton remembered the conversation, Steele told him: "'This transition might be a blessing in disguise.' Even he agreed that we might need fresh eyes in certain events."

Nobody knew then that a lively, very fit 62-year-old might be the answer.

"Harry?" Lananna asked, eyes twinkling. "He is by no means in retirement mode."

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UO Track & Field

FRESH EYES ON MULTIS |
Harry Marra brings a long and respected track record to UO

By Curtis Anderson

The Register-Guard

Appeared in print: Tuesday, Jan 19, 2010


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The predicament faced by Harry Marra as the new multi-events coach for the Oregon men’s and women’s track and field program would be daunting to most people.

Marra, 62, inherited the reigning NCAA champions in senior decathlete Ashton Eaton and junior heptathlete Brianne Theisen.

They will be favored to repeat those titles when the 2010 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships return to Hayward Field in June.

Thus, if you think about it, all Marra can do is fail.

The native of upstate New York was hired last November to take over the duties of former UO associate director of track and field Dan Steele, who left the Ducks in late September to become head coach at the University of Northern Iowa.

“I’m confident about who I am and what I can do as a coach,” Marra said. “But in reality, what nut would take this job? If (Ashton and Brianne) go good, well, they were Dan Steele’s athletes. And if they stink it up, Harry screwed up.”

Yet Marra accepted the challenge.

And that speaks volumes about his passion and enthusiasm for the combined events, Marra’s trademark as both a coach and an athlete in a career that is rapidly closing in on 50 years.

“Harry is an outstanding coach,” UO director of track and field Vin Lananna said. “That’s what we looked for and that’s what he is. We didn’t go after someone who is aspiring to be the next Olympic coach. We didn’t go after somebody who is trying to make his mark. We went after a guy who is comfortable in his own skin and who can listen to the athletes.”

Build a new ‘deca mecca’

Marra is far from a short-term fix for the Ducks.

In fact, Lananna had been engaged in discussions with Marra for the past 18 months about a post-collegiate program for the combined events.

Eaton, in particular, will be looking for a training situation once he graduates this spring, especially with the 2012 Olympic Games just two years away.

So when Steele departed, Lananna did his homework, making at least 150 phone calls to gather information about prospective candidates, before eventually turning to his No. 1 sounding board.

“Harry was a natural,” Lananna said. “Because he and I had been talking anyway for the last year and a half about what are we going to do with our graduating heptathletes and decathletes. Is there a way that we can create a program for them post-collegiately?”

Apparently so.

And why not set up shop in Eugene, just as Oregon Track Club Elite has become a destination for middle distance and distance runners?

With Marra as the Oregon multi-events coach — he’s also in charge of the high jump and will help UO assistant Jenni Ashcroft in the pole vault — and Eaton on board, it could be a perfect match.

Dr. Frank Zarnowski, a well-known decathlon guru, has known Marra since he was an assistant track and field coach at Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, Md., in the late 1960s.

At the time, the 5-foot-5, 140-pound Marra was first learning the decathlon as a walk-on to the track program.

Zarnowski believes that Eugene would make a lot of sense as a post-collegiate training center for the combined events.

“Ashton Eaton can be as good as anybody has ever been in this event,” he said. “Once he finishes his eligibility this spring, he will need to find a training situation, and working with Harry could be that ideal situation. Back in the 1970s, everybody showed up to train in Santa Barbara. It was known as ‘deca mecca,’ and Eugene could become that kind of place. Athletes always tend to gravitate toward a good coach.”

A modest decathlete

Marra said his fascination with track and field started with Bob Richards.

The only two-time Olympic gold medalist (1952, ’56) in the pole vault, Richards was the first athlete to be featured on a Wheaties box, and his television commercials caught the attention of a teen-aged Marra growing up in Albany, N.Y.

One summer, during a Boy Scout campout, a competition was held in which each camper had to come up with a physical activity.

Marra chose the pole vault.

He took the center support pole from an Army tent, stretched a rope between two trees about 6 feet off the ground, and cleared it.

“I landed in the grass because there was no pit,” Marra said. “But I thought, ‘This is kind of fun,’ and that was it for me. I got the bug.”

At Mount St. Mary’s, Marra branched out from the pole vault into other events, including sprinting, long jumping and the javelin.

But the decathlon became his passion.

“Deep down, I knew I might want to coach someday,” he said. “So, I figured the decathlon was the way to go.”

Marra graduated in 1969 and married his wife of 41 years, Madeline, two weeks later. The couple have two children, son Andy, 32, and daughter Christianne, 38.

Marra spent one year teaching and coaching at a high school in central New Jersey after graduating from college, but he still had a burning desire to compete.

So when Bill Toomey, the 1968 Olympic decathlon champion, invited him to train in Santa Barbara, Calif., with a group of 17 decathletes from 13 nations in preparation for the 1972 Munich Olympics, he jumped at the chance.

“I knew I didn’t have a shot for (the Olympics), but the opportunity to learn would be great,” Marra said. “It was an education beyond my wildest dreams.”

His decathlon career peaked with a modest score of 6,533 points.

“When I did that, Bert Nelson of Track & Field News magazine, wrote that it was a world record for a runt that size,” Marra said. “I figured, OK, my career is finished. I’m going on to coaching.”

From student to teacher

Marra moved back east to attend graduate school at Syracuse University, where he earned his master’s degree in physical education, with an emphasis on kinesiology and exercise science.

Marra spent the next 16 years as a collegiate track and field coach.

He worked as an assistant for two years at UC Santa Barbara, was head women’s coach at Springfield (Mass.) College for four years, and then became head coach for both men and women at San Francisco State for 12 years.

In the Bay Area, he moonlighted as a strength and conditioning coach for the San Francisco Giants organization.

His greatest recognition, however, came during his tenure as Team USA’s national decathlon coach, in which he mentored an elite group of 10 athletes from 1990-2000.

During that period, Marra coached three Olympic decathlon medalists. Dave Johnson won the bronze medal in 1992, Dan O’Brien claimed gold in ’96 and Chris Huffins captured bronze in ’00.

One of his younger pupils was ex-Tennessee standout Brian Brophy, who still holds the modern NCAA meet record in the decathlon with 8,276 points in 1992.

“I tell you what,” Brophy said. “If Harry is coaching Ashton (Eaton) this year, I guarantee you that meet record is going down. … He knows more about the decathlon in his left pinky than I did in my entire body.”

Change can be good

At Oregon, as the 2010 indoor season gets under way, Marra is introducing “a lot of technical stuff” to his multi-event athletes to make sure the Ducks are fundamentally sound in each event.

“In the multis, you need to simplify things as much as possible,” he said. “It can’t be a helter-skelter thought process. You need to have very simple cues and concepts.”

So far, so good.

Theisen, the school record-holder in the indoor pentathlon (4,321 points) and outdoor heptathlon (6,086), put the shot 40 feet, 6 1/4 inches at the UW Indoor Preview in Seattle last Saturday, her PR.

“It was a big change, but things are going really good with Harry,” Theisen said.

“He told me to throw away everything I’ve learned in the shot put and start from scratch, which has been a really good thing for me, because I’ve struggled in the shot put.”

Eaton, who has already scored the most points in history of any decathlete in the four running events — 100, 110 high hurdles, 400 and 1,500 — is also an exceptional jumper, but he admits he needs work on his throws.

The reigning NCAA indoor heptathlon champion, and two-time NCAA outdoor decathlon champion, said the coaching transition could turn out to be a “blessing in disguise.”

“We talked with coach Steele before he left, and he agreed that we may need fresh eyes in certain events,” Eaton said.

“Harry is known to be really technical in his throws, and a lot of his athletes are really good throwers, and that’s what we all needed.”

A couple of things have surprised Marra during his early days at Oregon.

He was initially overwhelmed at the support system in place, from world-class facilities to a community that fully embraces the sport, and he’s trying to get his athletes to be more relaxed during practice.

“Excellence is expected, but it’s all here to be successful,” Marra said.

“What surprised me is that when these kids come to practice, they have their game faces on. Every once in a while, I say ‘Hey, we’re having fun today.’ ”

And with that, they’re off to the UO Student Recreation Center to play basketball or jump into the pool, instead of repetitive high jump drills.

All of which brings a smile to Lananna’s face.

“Harry was the right choice at the right time for the right reasons,” he said.

“It was a tough position to come into, but he did all the right things, and he made sure he understood what the objectives are for the program and the team. I think what he has done is remarkable.”