Book Review: A Coach’s Journey by Ken Foreman

Coach Ken Foreman with athletes from the Seattle Pacific University track team.

If you’ve been around the Seattle track community, you’ve heard of Ken Foreman. But, if you’re like I was, you may know little more than his name. I first heard his name as a high school senior when I threw a new personal best of 48.94m at Seattle Pacific University’s Ken Foreman Invitational. Although I later found out the throw was mismeasured, it was a highlight of my young career since it placed me third against a collegiate field and qualified me for the USATF Junior National Championships. Even though this memory was planted deep in my mind, I never learned anything about the man other than the picture I saw of him in the meet program. But from that picture you could see Foreman was a coach’s coach.

Over the years, I heard more and more about him. The local papers often referenced his legacy and successes. Just last year he was recognized nationally with a spot in the National Track & Field Hall of Fame. The breadth of Foreman’s career is outstanding: he has coached numerous Olympians, served on the national team staff several times, pioneered women’s track at the collegiate level, and most notably guided Doris Brown Heritage to multiple world records and world cross country titles. Now, to top it all of, he has published a new book A Coach’s Journey.

When I first heard about the book, I was expecting it to be a memoir of his long career. I’m a sucker for gossip and the thought reading his stories excited me. I was a bit surprised when I began reading the book and I found it was actually an ode to the power of coaching. Foreman uses anecdotes from his long career (which is still in progress at age 88) to show how coaching changed his life and the lives of his athletes. While the book was not what I suspected, it was nevertheless a great read. I am not normally a fan of inspirational books, but Foreman’s humble character allows him to be inspirational without becoming cheesy as so many others in this genre do. And while inspirational books for athletes are commonplace, Foreman is one of the few to address coaching.

Ken Foreman's New Book

Foreman’s stories tell of success in many forms. If there is one underlying theme, it is that coaching is a tool to unlock an athlete’s potential in both sport and life. As with life, there are few absolutes in coaching. No one secret unlocks the success of all athletes. Each athlete is different and it is the coach’s first task to learn about the athlete. Foreman has seen too many blue chip recruits fail and too many walk ons succeed to say that success is mainly a matter of genetics. But while the athlete’s background does not predetermine their success or failure, Foreman finds that it does lay a blueprint for how to approach training and how coaches should assist. Athletes vary in their physiology, psychology, motivations, and baggage. What may help or encourage one athlete could hurt another. That is the challenge of coaching.

This may be a generally accepted view of coaching, but I too often see it ignored. It is easier to give a cookie-cutter training program to every athlete or use the same method of motivation. But the truly successful coaches tend to fine-tune their training to the strengths and weaknesses of the athlete. They find new terminology to explain concepts when old terminology isn’t getting through to an athlete. This takes time, but being a coach is a commitment to providing the athlete with the best help you can. How coaches respond to this challenge separates the good coaches from the great coaches. After all, even ignorant coaches can become smart after having a career as long as Foreman’s. But the open minded and committed coach will become even smarter. And a genius is born when the open minded coach finally finds something to clamp down on from time to time.

After this lesson, Foreman finds that the Xs an Os of coaching are only secondary. While they are important, they matter little if the coach does not understand the athlete. A coach may be a technical expert, but that means little if ignorance prevents him from connecting with his athletes. Coaching, in the end, is simply a tool. But it is a profoud tool, a tool that allows a coach to transfer knowledge, guidance, and life lessons from themselves to their athletes. It can help an athlete catch a dream, or save them from themselves. And it is powerful when used properly.