Before “AI” Was Coined in 1955

The term “AI,” short for Artificial Intelligence, was officially coined in 1955 by John McCarthy while he was at MIT, a prominent computer scientist and one of the field’s early visionaries. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to acknowledge that the foundation for the development of artificial intelligence had been steadily laid through numerous scientific and technological advancements that significantly predated the formalization of this term. AI was the culmination of a gradual process, forged over centuries of human curiosity, mathematical breakthroughs, and the pioneering efforts of early computing. By exploring these historical roots, we can gain a deeper appreciation of the intellectual and technological landscape that ultimately led to the establishment of the AI field in 1955, marking the dawn of a transformative era characterized by unprecedented collaboration and innovation between humans and machines.

In my ongoing series of articles, I delve into history that precedes the coining of “AI” and evolved in parallel with the development of this technology.

The first article in this series focuses on a coach, specifically my college coach and the life he lived and those he coached. Today, sports coaching can be intertwined with AI in various ways, illuminating just how much times have changed and how technology has impacted fields we may not have initially associated with artificial intelligence.

AI has begun to make inroads into sports coaching and its applications are evolving rapidly. Here are some ways in which AI is being used in cross country coaching and may continue to be applied.

1. Performance Analysis: AI systems can analyze athletes’ performance data, such as GPS tracking, heart rate, and biometrics, to provide insights into their running techniques, pacing strategies, and overall performance. Coaches can use this data to make informed decisions about training regimens and race strategies.
2. Injury Prevention: AI can help identify potential injury risks by analyzing an athlete’s gait, movement patterns, and training load. Coaches can use this information to adjust training plans and reduce the risk of injuries.
3. Training Plan Optimization: AI algorithms can create personalized training plans for individual athletes based on their goals, strengths, weaknesses, and historical performance data. These plans can adapt over time as athletes progress.
4. Race Strategy Simulation: AI can simulate race scenarios and provide recommendations for the best pacing strategies based on an athlete’s fitness level and course conditions. This helps athletes optimize their race-day performance.
5. Video Analysis: AI-powered video analysis tools can break down an athlete’s running form frame by frame, highlighting areas for improvement. Coaches can use this information to provide targeted feedback.
6. Biomechanical Analysis: AI can analyze biomechanical data to assess an athlete’s running form and suggest adjustments to optimize efficiency and reduce fatigue.
7. Nutrition and Recovery Guidance: AI can provide recommendations for athletes’ nutrition and recovery plans based on their training data and individual needs.
8. Talent Identification: AI can assist in talent identification by analyzing performance metrics and identifying young athletes with potential in cross country.
9. Data-driven Coaching: AI platforms can help coaches make data-driven decisions by aggregating and visualizing performance data from multiple athletes and training sessions.
10. Virtual Coaching: With the rise of wearable devices and mobile apps, AI-powered virtual coaches can provide real-time guidance and motivation to athletes during training sessions.

I write about a biography of a coach who began his career before the advent of AI and continued to coach without it offers a valuable perspective on the profound impact of artificial intelligence in our lives.

In an era when AI was still in its infancy, this coach relied on traditional methods, experience, and intuition to guide athletes. Their coaching philosophy was rooted in the human aspect of mentorship, drawing upon personal relationships, observation, and hands-on training techniques. The coach’s career trajectory mirrors the transition from a pre-digital age to the AI-driven present.

The coach’s biography reminds us of our capacity for adaptation and innovation.

Gene Long challenged his teams to bring their best. He represented a different era of college coaching, before the big money and the scandals and all of the trappings of intercollegiate athletics today. Gene was inspirational, supportive, and visionary — all of those things that a coach should be. He is gone, but his knowledge lives on in the lives of his runners.

Gene coached at Hamilton College for a long time: 39 years. On his last day there, I stopped by to say hi and wish him well. I was the last captain elected to lead a Hamilton cross country team under Coach Gene Long, so I was emotional thinking about his legacy. After exchanging pleasantries (Gene wasn’t much for small talk), I got a little “Gene advice” and thanked him for his leadership and support. As I was leaving his office, I found he had placed all his files — five boxes from his four decades — outside his door, to be picked up as trash. This was just like Gene — very practical. He was thinking: What do I, or anyone, want with these items?

There were all of the splits he took for all of his runners during his years of practices, all of his correspondence with runners and coaches, race day plans, ideas for inventions, meet results, all of his innovative training ideas — everything from decades of coaching and training, with dedication.

I asked him if I could take the files, and he said sure … and for 15 years, I was the custodian of all his records. In going through the files, the first item I found was the initial note he sent to the first team he coached, on Sept. 21, 1953: “All candidates are urged to wear a substantial shoe with a padded heel. A basketball shoe with a sponge rubber heel insert will work very nicely.”

What a difference 70 years can make, with all of the serious advances in athletic equipment over those many decades. Our athletic shoes have been transformed over the decades by all manner of high-tech engineering, and as for other changes, that’s not to mention the juggernaut the athletic shoe industry has become in those intervening years; a high-dollar business.

I returned to Hamilton to attend the 2006 ceremony at which the Collegiate Cross Country and Track and Field Association awarded Gene its Lifetime Achievement Award. As I had moved a few times over those 15 years, I had kept Gene’s archives with me, and I brought them back for donation to Hamilton’s archives.

GENE’S EARLY YEARS

Gene Milton Long was born April 15, 1929, and grew up during the depression. He grew up in central NY state, in the town of Oneonta. Gene’s father was the athletic director for his high school, Oneonta High School, where he was an accomplished athlete. Gene graduated from Oneonta High School lettering in football, basketball, and baseball.

After graduating from high school, Gene did a semester with the Merchant Marines and then transferred to Cortland State Teacher’s College (today SUNY Cortland). Upon graduating, he went into the Marines, stationed at Quantico, Va., and did a tour in Europe where he received the rank of captain and, in parallel, married his wife Arlene. After two years in the Marines, he took his first and only job at Hamilton. Gene went into the family business: athletics. He came to Hamilton just two years older than the senior class, and he worked there until he retired in 1991.

HAMILTON IN 1953 WHEN GENE ARRIVED

When Gene arrived in 1953, the College had graduated 127 men. These men, born in 1931, ’32, and ’33 were of the Silent Generation. Hamilton was truly an all-male college. In addition to the students, the faculty were 100% male. And in looking at the faculty’s alma maters, close to a fourth of them were Hamilton graduates. In 1953, Hamilton tuition was $300 a semester.

When Gene arrived, Hamilton was very much a regional college. The majority of students were from Upstate New York. A book that William De Loss Love II, Class of 1909, P’45 published in 1963 showed that during the first 125 years, 557 families sent three or more men to the College, meaning one out of every five Hamilton families sent at least three of its sons. Hamilton is not only a College of brothers, but cousins, too, many of whom Gene either directly coached or were touched by his leadership.

AN ISOLATED CAMPUS

Back then, there wasn’t a major highway in Upstate NY; I-90 was still four years away from being created. Hamilton had a few phones around campus from which students could call home. To give you a sense of how technological progress stood in 1953, no one had a TV on College Hill. This contributed to a feeling of isolation on campus, not to mention more challenges in getting the day’s news.

At the time, there was no study abroad program. Today, such a big part of the American college experience is a semester or junior year abroad, to the point now that there are global universities like NYU and Northeastern that have campuses around the world. Hamilton had none of its students studying abroad. I spoke with Bill Bruins ’53, and he explained how he thought he was the first study abroad student. His father, who was also from Upstate New York, graduated from Hamilton in 1918, served in WWI right out of Hamilton, and was in the second class of the U.S. Foreign Service where he served with George Kennan (a disciple of Elihu Root, Class of 1864) and was stationed in Beirut. He offered to fly his son over to visit him.

Bill hadn’t seen much of his dad growing up; his father was held captive during WWII by the Japanese. Bill took his first flight when going to Beirut, and once there, it occurred to him that he could get credit for a year at the American University of Beirut. It so happened the Hamilton librarian was taking a sabbatical at the American University of Beirut, and he offered to vouch for Bill’s classes. And so, study abroad at Hamilton was born.

CAMPUS WHEN GENE ARRIVED

There were two athletic tracks on campus. One was around Steuben Field. Today it isn’t there any more; the building of the Bristol Pool in 1988 cut into it. A track was created around the Love Field (as in the William Love family mentioned above) named after Walter Pritchard, Class of 1932 and a member of the 1932 U.S. Olympic Team who broke the U.S. 3000 steeplechase race time in the Olympic trials (for race at the Xth Olympics that took place in LA they forgot to ring the bell on the final lap and all the runners ran an extra lap – this is thought to be the only example of this mistake in Olympic history).

There was another track that Gene would use, an indoor one around Sage Rink (the oldest collegiate indoor hockey arena) below the seats. Today it would seem like an archeological dig — like finding Tutankhamen’s tomb; no one watching a game there today would suspect that a running track was ever there.

Where Dunham Residence Hall is today stood a soccer field when Gene arrived. Dunham was built thanks to a donation by George Dunham, Class of 1879, in honor of his father, Moses Dunham, Class of 1847, for whom the building is named. In 1953, the beginning of this project was still six years away. In 1959, Dunham marked the first construction project at Hamilton since the building of the Alumni Gym in 1940. It also marked the College’s attempt to grow — it was built to hold a record freshman class of 250 students. In today’s dollars, the Dunham project cost $1,250,000.

The Burke Library (designed by the same firm that designed the CitiGroup Center in NYC) was still two decades from being built.

GENE COACHING

While cross county was a club sport at Hamilton starting in 1918, it was postponed during WWII and picked up again in 1949. Hamilton’s cross country coach was Peter Dugan, who doubled as the football line coach. Peter would train the runners but didn’t attend the meets because he was busy with the football games. Gene was Hamilton’s first varsity cross country coach. He was hired in the Physical Education Department as a trainer and cross country coach.

Gene had a lot of latitude to create the program, and he read up on the sport of running. He was inspired by the work of Roger Banister, who broke the four-minute mile during Gene’s second year at Hamilton, May 4, 1954. Gene’s training methods were influenced by reading and corresponding with international coaches of the period — those who set up the theoretical models by which Roger Bannister trained for his “impossible” four-minute mile.

Gene was way ahead of the times in how he harnessed the athletic potential and passion of his runners. His methods were clear, and his actions were direct. He coached with intelligent compassion, goal-oriented hard work, and a certainty that his student’s intelligence demanded explanations. He told his runners that his greatest rewards were not team titles or individual trophies, but the knowledge that runners he had made fit for college competition would become lifelong athletes. Gene spoke of training in moderation and recovery.

Some of Gene’s training methods seemed exotic and unorthodox at the time.

He had his runners run barefoot on grass and uphill slopes. He had them doing circuit training, which included sit-ups, rope skips, jumping jacks, and push-ups. He attached to his runners’ waists the metal grids that baseball grounds crews used to groom infields and had them run “hard 300s” to develop leg drive and proper body lean. He had runners run through snow in the winter and uncut pastures in the spring to improve leg lifting. Gene would have runners run behind his old Chevrolet station wagon, holding on to a rectangular bar that he attached to the back.

Some quotes from Gene’s archives:

Oct. 19, 1954 – “Cross country is and has been a finite factor in the development of such qualities as self-discipline, intelligence, resourcefulness, self-reliance, and will to win — both in the individual and in cooperative effort. Think it over, boys.”

Sept. 26, 1967 – “Landing from an embankment. When landing from an embankment or surface higher than the next running surface, the danger of spills or turned ankles is great. Especially with tired distance runners. Instead of landing on the lead leg, as is commonly done when running and jumping, land on the trail leg and rock into (a) step. This method provides great stability because landing shock is not taken on the tense lead leg. The rocking into step method then prevents breaking stride as the momentum is not broken. Try jumping ditches and small streams.”

Comments on Gene from his runners:

“He was the most even-tempered, caring and inspirational person and coach. He seemed to always have a smile for us, especially when we were exhausted from a work out, and most importantly when we had a poor race and were feeling down. Gene could shake a runner out of a sense of failure. He could restore confidence for a better next time. He treated us as adults. I remember him telling us that if we succeeded, the honor was ours, but if we failed, so was the responsibility. He knew how to build a person’s maturity.” – Jon Schmeyer ’77

“The week before classes began, the cross country team (along with some of the other fall sports) came to campus for ‘training week.’ For that week, Gene had us run three times a day. My senior year, we started with distances of 5 miles/5 miles/5 miles for the three workouts, building up to 5 miles/8 miles/8 miles by the seventh day. Then on the eighth day, we did a single, 20-mile run, which ended by running all the way up College Hill. After that ordeal, the regular-season workouts almost seemed easy.

“I know that the specter of training week motivated me to maintain a decent level of fitness in the summer. Those who failed to do so either suffered greatly or were unable to complete all the training week runs. I recall Gene taking us out to the golf course to practice jumping the creek He had us land on the trail leg. Although it was a counterintuitive way to jump, it really worked. You can’t jump quite as far as when landing on the lead leg, but Gene’s method was very effective in maintaining balance and momentum, which were beneficial in a cross country race.

“I also recall our normal Monday cross country workouts of quarter-mile intervals up Pasture Hill on the golf course. As we often were still stiff from Saturday races, it was not something we looked forward to. But I think that workout built physical and mental strength like none other. Probably not by accident, that very same hill was situated just past the 4-mile mark on our 5.1-mile cross country course, giving us a competitive advantage in home meets. While opposing runners plodded up the hill, we would charge, buoyed by the Monday workouts and the knowledge that once we completed the hill, the remainder of the course was flat or downhill.” – David Burgess ’78

“The way Gene would tape my feet before each practice to support falling arches was a tireless chore from which he never wavered!

“We were running against a really good team. Gene told us that we weren’t likely to compete well solely on athletic talent, but that we should remember not to make mistakes.

“Run with your brains, boys, it’s your [only] advantage today.

“Gene told us that we could beat Division I Colgate because they put their jockstraps on one leg at a time, just like we did at Hamilton, to telling me I could break an indoor 800 record at a meet. Gene could make such statements with a conviction that never allowed you to think it wasn’t possible.

“Gene would communicate with us over the summer. In his letter outlining what was expected for preseason camp — a week of mostly three-a-days, he said we should bring two cans of Campbell’s soup to campus. We had no idea why. Once we arrived on the Hill we were instructed to carry one in each hand during the early morning run each day. He said it would strengthen our upper bodies and improve our form. Of course, we followed instructions and when we ran by Arleen and Gene’s house on Griffin Road the entire team broke into song. ‘Mmm Mmm good! Mmm Mmm good! That’s what Campbell’s soup is, Mmm Mmm good!'” – Bill Bower ’84

“There were about 4″ of snow on the course, and my feet were soaked and weighed 50 pounds each after about two steps. I was determined not to let that stop me, though. I wasn’t a great runner, but between the team being short a couple of runners (for break) and the really odd running conditions, I had my best race of my Hamilton career. I actually counted for the team — I think I came in fifth out of our runners, and we beat Union that day. Anyway, Gene Long had always said that shin splints are just in your head. I sure did not agree with that analysis, because I personally always felt them in my shins; but that day on the snow-covered course, I finally understood what he meant by that expression. I applied it to that race and to my life since.

“A piece of Gene Long advice that I have admired concerns his realistic attitude. While a lot of stereotypical coaches are known to have said ‘I need you to give me 100%, if you don’t give 100% you aren’t doing your best,’ coach Long had a humorous, practical attitude about the whole thing. I remember his saying once something to the effect of ‘It is impossible to put in 100% of yourself in an endeavor; if you did that, there’d be nothing left over. If you can put in 80 to 90%, that is commendable.’ This advice has proved important to me during my various careers in writing and education; it has given some scope for maintaining my own sanity, and a realistic mindset on what I can expect from others.

“I distinctly remember him often having us all training by running a 70 second ¼ mile on the track 5 times with a 60 second rest between laps during training sessions. He was in the middle of the track encouraging us by name as we ran to “make the team successful.” It wasn’t easy to do but I know it helped me improve. I also remember how positive he was when he spoke to me one on one and how interested he was in my individual success in both school work and athletics.” – Walter Pritchard ’63

“I once went to see Gene in the training room to complain about pain in my shins, and he very carefully taped aspirin to my shins!” – Woody Studenmund ’66

“Gene Long helped each team member reach for their best effort. He did much more than coach the ‘star’ athletes – he worked to lift us up to become a ‘star’ team.

Memorable advice from Gene Long: “Take longer steps faster.” – David Hayes ’81

GENE THE TINKERER/’MACGYVER’

Gene was a tinkerer. In the same way Coach Bill Bowerman of the University of Oregon used a waffle iron to create the first Nike sneaker, Gene made what today would be called “medical devices” for his athletes. Gene himself contributed significantly to advances in sports equipment. An inveterate tinkerer, Gene would fashion protective gear and inserts, often using fiberglass he configured himself for bespoke items. In 1958, when Gene developed a hockey mask that was used in the National Hockey League. He was supporting Hamilton goalie Don Spencer ’59. Gene fashioned a mask out of fiberglass and said the idea for the custom-fit mask came from work he had done in cross country to prevent heel trauma. Gene created custom-fit, fiberglass heel cups — a custom fit, the shock was distributed over the entire area. NHL goaltender Jacques Plante heard about this innovation and was the first to use it in the NHL. In 2020, he was nominated to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.

An example of this is described by one of Gene’s runners.

“During my first season I began to suffer from some kind of tendonitis in my ankle/heel. Coach Long had just the thing. He put an athletic cup in the heel of my shoe. It really gave me just the right support to enable me to continue training. I never thought, as a runner, I’d ever need an athletic cup. It truly worked!”

David Burgess ’78 added:

“Hard to believe we did regular interval workouts in Sage Rink, place where the temperatures were normally in the twenties! As I recall, there were not many functioning lanes either, and there occasionally were small patches of ice on the track. As we liked to say, those hardships built character.

“Gene was an innovator, an outside-the-box thinker. He had high standards and was not afraid to challenge us to do more than a lot of us thought we could do. At the same time, he had an engaging personality. He certainly was a dedicated leader, both at Hamilton and in the larger collegiate cross country and track and field community. He persuasively advocated for physical education and athletic competition being valuable components of an all-around education. He used his platform as a coach and athletic leader to espouse a lot of solid life principles. He also had a quirky sense of humor that kept us entertained. He definitely was one of a kind.”

GENE THE VISUALIZATION GUY

Beyond equipment, Gene was involved in the forefront of work on “visualization techniques” through which he asked his team members to imagine their goals before undertaking them. This approach was very much in keeping with Gene’s mantra: “be prepared.” Gene was an innovator as coach, one of the first coaches to use visualization techniques. In his pre-race meetings, he would ask runners to imagine that they had a rope tied around their waists that was attached to a balloon. This balloon would pull them up a hill. When they came down the hill, they were to visualize a runaway truck. He also advocated the “trout mouth” method when breathing in a race.

GENE OVER THE YEARS AND SPECIFICALLY COACHING WOMEN

Gene was coaching on campus when the Ford Foundation funded a future planning grant that led to the founding of Kirkland College. During Gene’s tenure, Kirkland was established in 1968 and that college later merged with Hamilton a decade later. In Gene’s last year of coaching in 1991, his women’s cross country team went undefeated. He thought the women were tough as nails and he told them.

In the 1950s and 1960s, many sports, such as basketball, deemed women too “delicate” to play a full-court game. Similarly many collegiate coaches devised different cross country and track workouts for women believing their training should not be as “tough” as the men’s. This custom persisted well into the ’90s and beyond. Not the case if you were a female runner coached by Gene, who made a point of saying not only should women’s workouts be the same, he also told them, “women are tougher and more determined than men and even though your races are shorter (cross country), I know you all are going to do the longer runs even if I tell you to run less, so we will do the same workouts.”

Gene once shared that the grade point average of the women on the cross country team was always higher than the men and that the average grade points and standardized test scores went up significantly when women were admitted to Hamilton.

Catherine Zinn ’92 recalled, toward the end of Gene’s last season of coaching, they were preparing for what would be Gene’s last head-to-head meet against Union:

“Gene issued a challenge that would not only be a first for the women’s team, it would also be a big stretch to achieve. He said, “Let’s skunk Union. Let’s get our top 5 in before their first runner; you can do it.” He told them the recent times turned in on our course for the top Union runners. In short, for Hamilton to get it’s top 5 in ahead of Union’s #1 and #2, at least two of Gene’s runners would have to run personal records. Catherine didn’t think they could do it. Instead of running ‘customary’ separate races as they always did, gutting it out on their own, the two fastest runners said, ‘We can do this, and we are going to do it together.”

They did it, they crossed the line together, all five of them — ahead of Union’s #1. Just like they said they would. Catherine writes,

“We were so very proud to deliver this result for Gene and for each other. In preparation, we put into play what we learned from Gene; he believed in the power of visualization — seeing and feeling yourself getting up over that hill, running through it and not letting up, and so on, we knew the course well and where certain runners would need more support and just how to offer that support — with quiet resolve, few words were spoken on the course, we just did it — somehow we just knew exactly what the others needed to dig deep that day. This remains one of the most powerful and meaningful experiences of my life. Admittedly, being very competitive and self-centered, in this shared victory I found something wonderful that has afforded me the life I have today — helping others achieve their goals is my greatest joy. Above all else, Gene treated us with respect and instilled us with confidence, the kind that is earned, not the kind you are born with — anyone who knew Gene was changed for the better.”

HAMILTON’S FIRST RIVAL & NESCAC CONFERENCE

In 1953, when Gene arrived at Hamilton, the College’s rival was Union College, 93 miles east of Clinton. Sage Rink, built in 1921, had two giant words on its roof: “Beat Union!” Hamilton had many sports contests with its New York neighbors: Union, Colgate, Hobart, Rochester, Hartwick, and Harper (now SUNY Binghamton). This was a time before Division I, II, and III distinctions.

And so, in the early 1970s, the athletic administration of 11 New England schools began a dialogue about the need to establish some control over intercollegiate athletics, to provide a baseline framework of rules, and to keep themselves grounded as larger state schools moved into the realm of athletics as a revenue source.

Williams College President John Sawyer had initiated a NESCAC conference — New England Small College Athletic Conference (Amherst, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, Union, Williams) — stipulating that like-minded academic institutions should join and agree to no post-season play, affecting the NCAA championships, and no professionals on teams. Originally, there were two New York schools in the group. Union was in, too, but they left in 1977 and Connecticut College swapped in in 1983. Also, the Williams president that led the early years of the NESCAC, John Chandler, had been Hamilton president from 1968 to 1973.

At the genesis of the NESCAC conference John was the person who expressed the most reservations towards the NESCACs at the small-college level.

John started in a memorandum in July 26, 1968 when he was Hamilton’s president: “I would wonder if it would not generate a set of pressures and problems which would make it extremely questionable as an enterprise for a group of education insinuations which now command great respect for the clear-cut priority which they assign to education programs and goals.” John was not enthusiastic about “keen” competition and league championships. In this memorandum John “argued that striving for league championships would ‘place undue pressure on both coaches and players to win.’” A non-title year would be considered a failure. And in order to bolster the performance of the team, the criteria for admissions would be strengthened to admit those students with “special” athletic talents. John envision a double standard in admissions spreading like a cancer in the NESCAC conference. It is a little ironic that Williams College named their athletic center in John’s honor – he thought it was funny because he believed he was the least athletic of all the Williams presidents. John went on to become the board chair of Duke (a very athletic school) and from 1990 to 2001 John assisted more than forty colleges and universities with presidential searches.

Gene, like his father before him, was made an athletic director. It was in 1973 — a year into the formation of the new NESCAC. Gene was the athletics director at Hamilton, and his influence extended beyond Hamilton to all NESCAC schools as he worked closely with coaches across the league. He was admired for his kindness, seriousness of purpose, innovative methods, and commitment to enhancing all aspects of the league, including the welfare of every college and every team competing in the league

What began as simply a collection of schools abiding by the same recruiting, admissions, and playing standards, (but lacking any conference schedule, postseason play, or collective identity) has coalesced into the goliath of New England athletics, and one of the strongest Div. III conferences in the nation. Three of the NESCAC schools have at least 35 NCAA championship teams each. One school (Middlebury) spent $40 million (the chairman of New Balance Sports is an alum and made the donation) on an athletic center. Another just spent $100 million (Colby), which in the author’s opinion looks like an Amazon warehouse.

Because it began as a reaction to the perceived shift in intercollegiate athletics, eventually codified by the ascendancy of big-time Div. I sports, NESCAC created the most restrictive regulations in the nation at the time, many of which are still in place today.

GENE MAKES NESCAC HISTORY – TWO FIRSTS

Gene coached the first individual NESCAC champion. October 1975 was the inaugural NESCAC men’s cross country meet, where Bruce Carter ’76 of Hamilton won the NESCAC individual title at Tufts. Prior to 1983, no team scoring was recorded at the conference meet; only individual places were recognized. All team results were considered unofficial.

The NESCAC Cross Country Championship was one of the premier championships in the country — it was especially important because the NESCAC rule prohibited post-NCAA competition up until 2001. For the Hamilton men’s cross country team, from 1983 till 2023, Hamilton was never higher than fifth place. except for one year.

This past winter, a Hamilton team won the third-ever NESCAC championship — that was the men’s 2023 basketball. Prior to that, Hamilton won golf. Hamilton’s first-ever NESCAC championship was won by Gene’s fall 1988 men’s cross country team.

I was on the team that won. The prior year we had been in eighth place. I spoke with Gene when he was 91, and lived in Clayton, N.Y., near the St. Lawrence River. I asked him how we won. He said, “It’s like a sine wave. John: sometimes you’re up, and sometimes you’re down.”

As for contributing reasons for our success that fall: for one thing, we all signed a no-drinking agreement for that season. In that pledge, we were led by Captain Brian Vaughn ’89, who was one of nine students in his class at Hamilton from California (the College wasn’t regional anymore). Today he is the co-founder and CEO of GU Energy Labs, a staple of long distance training and racing.

We had a sense we were going to have a good season when early in the season we came in second at the competitive Williams Invitational (20 schools represented). In that race I fell at the beginning of the race during the crowded start and cut my knee to the bone – I finished the race – I still have the scar which often reminds me of that day.

We hosted the NESCACs, and Gene created a course for the championship that had three monster hills (up to the observatory, Kirkland Glen and College Hill Road) that we practiced on daily.

Gene didn’t recruit runners, but we had a few children of runners who ran for him in prior generations, and some were very fast — Andrew Bartlett ’89 (son of Bruce Bartlett ’58, P’89), Tim Button ’89 (son of Tom Button ’60 P’80,’89), Dave Mead ’90 (son of Phil Mead ’59, P’88,’90) and Nick Armstrong ’91 (son of Sam Armstong ’63, P’91 ) to name a few that scored that meet.

One runner that scored that day was Phil Sanderson ’90. Phil today races ultra-marathons – he has competed in over 100 hundred milers and a number of 200 mile races. Phil also was the individual winner of the 1989 NESCAC championship. This is what Phil had to say about Gene:

“I respected Gene’s philosophy on running, which was to stick to the basics. He boiled things down to what mattered: you do the work and get faster. He pointed out that there is a direct correlation between your effort and your results, and encouraged us not to focus on too many things beyond that. He was also clear that this philosophy can be used in all areas of our lives, and this success-process in running will also have the same results in academics, art, relationships and all areas of our lives. When it was time to race Gene would motivate us in his classic just-run-fast kind of way with a ‘hurry back.’”

Hamilton would win future NESCAC championships. Maggie Hanson ’02 won the NESCAC cross country championship in 2001. Pete Kosgei ’11 won the NESCAC cross country championship race all 4 years he raced it ’07-’10 (only athlete men or women to win four consecutive years).

We have some of the fewest NESCAC team championship wins — partly because for a few years we were competing in the NY Liberty League (Number of NECAC Championship teams to date: Williams 200+, Middlebury 113, Amherst 74, Tufts 69… Hamilton 6 – 1 cross country, 4 golf, 1 basketball). While Hamilton will win championships in the future, Hamilton will only have one “first win,” and it was under Gene Long coaching. It was a team for which he didn’t recruit athletes — he coached athletes.

GENE’S IMPACT BEYOND CROSS COUNTRY

In other facets of his career, Gene helped the intramural sports program happen. During the height of the fraternity activity at school, the intramural stuff was very important.

He also developed the physical education program for the whole campus. He taught badminton. He had a challenge, too: he always said at the beginning of his classes that if anyone could beat him, they could be exempt from the semester class. The kicker was he would spot an opponent 15 points — meaning they only needed to score one point off of Gene. In 39 years, only one person beat Gene — a female tennis player. For years, when he traveled with the hockey team, he and the hockey coach would play badminton with the opposing team coaches during down time.

Gene was very involved with the conceiving, designing, and building of the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House, named after the daughter of Harlow E. Bundy (Class of 1877) who had a business in Gene’s hometown of Oneonta — a punch clock company — the precursor of IBM. This venue is where many indoor track events, varsity basketball games, and Hamilton graduations took place, along with the Great Names speaker series. Gene’s practical sensibility was very involved in the design of a structure that touches many in the Hamilton community.

Runners share their thoughts on Gene:

“I learned from Gene to be demanding, yet fair, and dedicated, yet balanced. While Gene was very stern, I remember vividly a time that he took me aside to reassure me that a job search in a difficult job market wasn’t the end of the world, and that I should keep my chin up, a message he delivered with sensitivity and compassion.”

“Gene’s advice that was built into his coaching was: ‘be prepared’. I did a mid-career shift and decided to go to law school later in life. It was the equivalent of finding myself at the bottom of College Hill at the end of an 8-mile training run, and realizing that I was going to have to get up the hill if I was going to eat dinner. There were times during law school when I wondered what I was doing running up that metaphorical hill, and thought about stopping, but I heard Gene in the back of my mind, shouting at me to keep pumping my arms. I was always one of the best prepared students in law school, and studying for the bar exam was much like training on Pasture Hill — when it came time for the toughest part of the race, I accelerated.”

“I remember him as my cross country coach, but also as my PE teacher when I was forced to take golf when no other PE classes were available. I hated it so much. He went to find me several times to beg me to come to class (so I could graduate). He was so dedicated to helping me (although I whined the entire class every time he managed to drag me there). He was a wonderful soul. I am a 4th grade teacher, who also has to teach PE at my school, as well as a fitness instructor. I often think of my relationship with him and how he gently managed to get me to apply myself even when I did not want to.” – Kristin Medina ’92

“My best memory of this incredible man was how he let me store all my clothes etc. at his house each summer. Since I was from West Virginia and it was rather hard to get everything back and forth, he reached out to me and offered me this act of kindness because that’s just who Gene was.” – Lewis Lawson ’69

“Back in 1995, I learned I had a blood clotting disorder: While running the Bay to Breakers (a 7 mi. race in San Francisco), I threw a blood clot to my lungs. After a week’s hospitalization, LOTS of blood thinners, and a couple of weeks at home, I ran a 10K. I didn’t run very fast, but I finished in under 48 minutes. I often think about Gene and my other Hamilton teammates when I run, and the encouragement and support we all gave each other, and Gene really nurtured that as a coach. It’s something I drew on during that 10K in 1995, and that I still draw on today whether I’m running, whitewater rafting, writing a dissertation, or gardening with my kids. For me, Gene’s influence went far beyond cross country and track.”

“I was in a lot of pain during my summer training of 1983, and after many doctor visits back east, I was not given a diagnosis so I continued to run until Coach said I needed another opinion and sent me to an orthopedic surgeon in Utica, NY. A doctor discovered the mass, which had already broken through part of the femur. After the biopsy my femur was weakened further, and on the day I was to go in for reconstructive surgery, the tumor completely shattered the femur, right in front of Dunham Hall. After my surgery and one month hospital stay, I had to be in a stable cast from the waist down for almost 7.5 months which sadly ended my running for Hamilton. I think back to those somewhat scary days and realize how they helped formed who I was and am today: strong and determined to overcome any difficult obstacle or challenge. Gene went above and beyond helping me find answers and the best surgeon to operate. He even allowed my mom to stay with him and his wife while I had the surgery done. He also believed I would run again someday. By no means do I have any great talent as my gait was greatly affected by the injury and bone graft, but I still run at age 61 and have been doing so ever since I was given the go ahead. I’m grateful that I was able to know Gene.” – Tracy (Huntzinger) Sipprelle ’85

“Gene had a lot of maxims for his runner. ‘Mental preparation’ was one he stressed. But the one that really stuck with me was the concept of ‘relaxed concentration.’ (Today we might refer to it as being ‘in the zone.’) I think that is an ideal state for optimal performance in most athletic (even many non-athletic) endeavors. Focus is important, but tension can be detrimental.

“I have kept running ever since college. I did a few marathons (2:35 PR) and a few half-marathons, but mostly 10Ks. Now at age 66, I still run 5 miles/day but do not race much anymore. I used to have a fixation on daily running streaks, once going over 20 years (1983-2004) without missing a single day of running. (I set 3 miles as the very minimum that would qualify as a “run.”) Although various injuries, health challenges, or other lifestyle issues have ended those streaks, I still run 7 days/week if reasonably possible.” – David Burgess ’78

“In May 2005, at the age of 35, I was diagnosed with ‘at least stage III, possibly stage IV’ colon cancer. My daughter was 3½ and my son was 14-months-old, and my husband of seven years was probably more terrified than I was. However, I was not about to stop running in any sense of the word. After I recovered from major abdominal surgery, I kept running until it was not medically reasonable for me to do so — about halfway through chemo. Then, four weeks after my treatments were finished, I started running again. I started from less than zero — I had lost muscle, lost blood cells of all colors, lost stamina and cardiovascular endurance. But, I reminded myself every time I struggled out for a run that if shin splints are only in your head, then so is everything else. Less than 13 months after my cancer surgery and about six months after the end of chemo, I am scheduled to run my first post-cancer competitive 5K on June 2. Thus, I will miss the reunion and the Coach Long event, but I will be there in spirit. Turns out that the ‘shin splints is all in your head’ is sound, universally applicable advice after all.” This quote was from Kim Troisi-Paton ’91, she passed away on Aug. 10, 2007.

“Simply and succinctly, Coach Long inspired me through his care for others beyond simply just coaching for personal pr’s to stay myself in coaching for over 45 years. All those around Gene became better people because of his twinkling eyes and embracing smile!”

An example of Gene’s impact beyond college, “Gene was my most important Hamilton professor. Great professors taught biology, chemistry, Shakespeare, etc. They revealed to me a world of ideas, science and art. But Gene taught me much about myself and the requirements of success. Essential lessons, indeed. I spent my entire professional career as a biomedical researcher and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. I paid the salaries and benefits of everyone in my lab as well as my own, and covered all research costs. To fund all of this, I wrote and submitted many, many grant applications to the NIH. A sufficient number were funded to keep my lab going. I must admit that in the middle of a 10 hour bout of writing, I often found myself flagging. But when flagging began, I looked at the only picture taped on my computer monitor. It was a picture of Gene, and in my head, I could hear Gene say, “Wright, 10 more quarters for time!” “OK coach” and I upped my efforts. I closed my lab and left Hopkins this past spring 2023. Now I am back on the Hill, running a seminar-course entitled, “Pandemics: Pathogens, Pubic Health and Public Policy.” First class was yesterday. Hamilton College students were and remain a great bunch of kids.” – Bill Wright ’71

Many of Gene’s runners have continued running — one example is Ken Judson ’72 who set the American Masters’ (over-40-year-old) U.S. marathon record (2:17:01) set at the Rock City Marathon in Alabama in 1991 — his daughter matriculated to Hamilton.

During Gene’s day, physical education teachers could be professors and receive tenure. Gene, who as mentioned above came to Hamilton two years out of college as a trainer, did receive tenure, a fact he was very proud of. I remember Gene telling me he and Arlene went sailing many times with Professor Sid (the provost) and Ellie Wertimer.

Gene once told me, during a time when a Board of Trustees meeting was taking place at the College, that he could get a vote passed by the board if he wanted, because so many board members were alumni of his running teams.

James Mitchener, in researching his comprehensive book Sports in America, reached out to Gene for research and quoted him in his work. Through Gene, Mitchener found the perfect athletic philosophy at Hamilton, with its idea of physical education for all, sports for life, plus intramural, varsity and junior varsity competition for those who desired more rigorous activity. Mitchener’s analysis stands as a tribute to Gene and the fine men with whom he was associated at that time. Later in his career, as director of athletics, Gene Long helped to provide the same opportunities for women.

IN CONCLUSION

The year Gene came to Hamilton the first successful ascent to the summit of Mount Everest took place, Dwight D. Eisenhower was inaugurated as U.S. President, the Korean War ended, Stalin died, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned Queen, the Dow was at 280, MIT’s Whirlwind computer became the first computer to use magnetic core memory, the First Polio Vaccine was developed, the double-helix structure of human DNA was discovered and transistor radios started to appear for sale.

The year Gene retired NASA launched the 44th Space Shuttle mission, George H.W. Bush was U.S. President, the Cold War was coming to an end, the Berlin Wall had come down, South Africa apartheid was dismantled, the Gulf War was beginning, the Dow was at 3168, Apple released the first Power Mac laptop, Tim Berners-Lee introduced the World Wide Web, the first website was created, and Linux and Windows where introduced.

Gene saw a lot over his years at Hamilton College. At his retirement, Gene was leaving a Hamilton College campus that had 1,600 students, graduating over 400 a year, learners from all over the U.S. and the world — a co-ed school where everyone had computers and tuition was $10,000, a stark contrast to the school he arrived too.

Gene’s cross country record stands at 159 wins, 72 losses and 1 tie. He did this while never suggesting that academics take a back seat to sport.

Gene challenged us to bring our best. He represented a different era of coaching, before the big money and the scandals and all of the trappings of scholastic athletics today. Gene was inspirational, supportive, and visionary – all of those things that a coach should be. He is gone – but his knowledge lives on, in his notes, and in the lives of his runners. Gene Long lived from April 15, 1929 to November 18, 2022

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Werner ’92 ran for Gene Long for three years. In his senior year John ran on Gene’s successor’s Brett Hull’s first cross country team at Hamilton College. Brett is now on his 31st year of coaching at Hamilton: eight more years and he will match Gene. Brett’s wife, Ellen Hull, is Hamilton’s women’s cross country coach and between Brett and Ellen they have coached over 60 years at Hamilton – likely a record. After graduating, John raced hundreds of triathlons (more than 3,000 miles in races), and was an USTA Triathlon All-American in 2012. John says Gene had a profound impact on him on many levels in college and since he graduated. John is a Venture Capitalist; MIT Senior Fellow; AI Columnist for Forbes. His daughter started running cross country in 2020 during Covid and hasn’t stopped. She has committed to run for Cornell University as of fall 2023.