Mike Walden

Posted on October 14, 2011 by johnkcoyle

People I owe: Mike Walden What do a tennis school in Siberia, a soccer club in Brazil, a music camp in upstate New York, and a baseball club in Curacao all have in common with a bicycling club from Detroit? They are all “chicken-wire Harvards,” a term coined by Daniel Coyle in his great book “The [...]

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Marc Affholter

Posted on December 24, 2008 by johnkcoyle

Marc Affholter:   Childhood bullies, if never conquered, never shrink, never quite die. Childhood heroes have that same lasting power for the same reasons. It is a benefit of timing really – if someone you grow up with retires from the fray before you are able to beat them, then they are stronger or better [...]

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Clair Young

Posted on October 16, 2008 by johnkcoyle

In July of 1977, I was just 8 years old, and I was already a ‘bike rider,’ I just didn’t know what that meant yet. I had a black, red, and yellow Raleigh ten speed with 24 inch chrome wheels and relatively narrow tires (at least as compared with my BMX bike) that I began [...]

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Stan Klotkowski

Posted on June 26, 2008 by johnkcoyle

Stan Klotkowski: Stan Klotkowski was my coach back in the early 90’s. Stan is a polyglot from Poland who speaks Polish, German, Hungarian, English and probably several other languages. He became a regional coach for the United States International Speed Skating Association (USISSA) and found himself with the misfortune of being my coach in the [...]

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The Dohnal Family

Posted on April 25, 2008 by johnkcoyle

Whenever I think of the Dohnals, I always think of the movie Parenthood. In particular, I think of the woman whose daughter was dating Keanu Reeves and whose son (Joaquim Phoenix) is in a bit of trouble. So much drama in that household in the movie – now multiply that into 2 daughters, and 3 [...]

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Eric Heiden

Posted on March 20, 2008 by johnkcoyle

Eric Heiden  In 1980 Eric Heiden won an unprecedented 5 gold medals in the Winter Olympic Games held in Lake Placid, New York. Paling only in comparison to the underdog achievements of the “Miracle on Ice” hockey team of the same Olympiad, Eric’s successes were even more notable because… they were expected. In the previous [...]

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Eric Flaim

Posted on February 9, 2008 by johnkcoyle

Eric Flaim My first memories of Eric were at the first national speedskating championships I ever attended – in 1981 – in Butte Montana. I was terrible but managed to get one 4th place in one final. True to form, Eric wasn’t shy at all and on a touristy trip to visit the local copper mine [...]

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Jeanne Omelenchuk

Posted on February 8, 2008 by johnkcoyle

Jeanne Omelenchuk – Olympian 1960, 1968, 1972 Detroit Michigan, 1981 – 1984. It was always frigid on those Tuesday and Thursday nights. Twirling in the black hole of grasping darkness, speedskaters from across southeast Michigan would gravitate to this forsaken twilight world – a world artificially created in a forlorn city park settled in the middle of the urban blight [...]

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