On Your Mark!

Hall of Fame Coach Bob Parks’ personal account of 34 years of Coaching EMU Track and Cross Country.

Eastern Michigan University’s legendary track and cross country coach Bob Parks tells it as it happened, year by year:  the meets, the victories, the defeats, and the drama that comes with the territory, all written by the coach who guided EMU’s storied Division I Track and Cross Country program for over 33 years.

In his 34 years at the helm of the EMU track and field program, Bob Parks led the Hurons to 31 Mid-American conference titles in track and cross country, 13 MAC invitational titles, and nine NAIA/Division II titles. He had 286 MAC and Central Collegiate Champions, 31 NAIA/NCAA Champions, and earned 26 MAC Coach of the Year honors and eight NCAA Regional Coach of the Year honors. His runners also made their mark on the ultimate international track stage, the Olympic Games, where 10 of his athletes made 16 appearances in the Olympics. Former EMU great Hasely Crawford won the Gold Medal in the 100-meter dash at the 1976 Olympics for Trinidad-Tobago, and former Eastern standout Earl Jones won the Bronze Medal in the 800-meter run for the United States in the 1984 Olympics.

On Your Mark follows EMU’s renowned program from 1967 to 2000—the Olympic athletes it helped produce, the friendships it forged, the lives it changed. Coach Parks holds nothing back in this in-depth, insider’s look at an extraordinary career.