The 2018 class of the UW Athletic Hall of Fame has been selected and one new member will be announced each day from July 9-19. Visit UWBadgers.com each day to celebrate each new member of this distinguished and historic class of Badgers!
BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — The defining moment in Ed Nuttycombe's coaching career seems obvious.
It occurred March 10, 2007 when the Wisconsin men's track and field team won the NCAA indoor championship in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
It's the only national track title the Badgers claimed during the 30-year Nuttycombe Era that ran from 1984 to 2013.
The fact no other Big Ten Conference school has won an NCAA indoor crown would seem to verify the weight of the milestone for Nuttycombe.
"I think people on the outside look at it as a career-defining moment," he said. "Certainly there's some merit to that statement because it's the highest honor you can get."
But Nuttycombe sees things differently.
"For me, personally, the defining moment is the long-term consistency of the team being competitive," he said. "Just knowing that year after year after year we were competitive for a Big Ten championship.
"We won a lot of them and even the ones we didn't win were seconds and thirds. To me, I take the most personal pleasure in knowing that because that's really hard to do."
The Badgers claimed 26 Big Ten track titles — 13 indoor and 13 outdoor — making Nuttycombe the winningest men's coach in any sport in an iconic league that opened for business back in 1896.
That feat alone makes Nuttycombe worthy of inclusion in the latest University of Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame class, an 11-person assemblage that will be inducted Sept. 7.
There's more, though.
Nuttycombe also hired three elite cross country coaches — Martin Smith, Jerry Schumacher and Mick Byrne — who won 26 Big Ten championships on his watch.
Under Nuttycombe, the Badgers finished in the top three in the Big Ten in cross country, indoor track and outdoor track meets a combined 75 of 89 times (84.3 percent).
In addition to the 26 titles in cross country, Wisconsin finished second twice and third twice.
In addition to the 13 outdoor crowns, the Badgers were second four times and third on six occasions.
In addition to the 13 indoor championships, Wisconsin placed second eight times and third once.
The Badgers did more than excel in the Big Ten under Nuttycombe.
They won four NCAA cross country championships while finishing as the runner-up a staggering eight times.
They also placed in the top 10 in the NCAA outdoor meet six times and the indoor meet five times.
"To be competitive for that long, I know that's not easy," Nuttycombe said.
"To be at the pinnacle for as many years as we were, I took the most pleasure out of that."
No matter how you measure it, Nuttycombe is a transcendent coach in Wisconsin athletic history whose accomplishments are special.
His teams won 10 Triple Crowns by sweeping the Big Ten cross country, indoor track and outdoor track titles in the same school year.
He was named coach of the year on 33 occasions by various parties, including once by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association in 2007.
He produced 183 All-Americans, 163 individual Big Ten champions in track and field as well as 11 NCAA titlists in six events.
He also worked with five Olympians and 279 Academic All-Big Ten selections.
"I don't even think you could put into words the type of career he's had," said Chris Solinsky, who owns a school-record five NCAA individual titles on the men's side.
"He has been one of the most humble coaches I've ever known, with a list of accomplishments a mile long, yet always giving credit to his assistants and his athletes," said Joe Detmer, an All-American in the heptathlon and decathlon.
Nuttycombe hired his cross country coaches, but then gave them the reins. Smith manufactured a pair of NCAA titles, while Schumacher and Byrne won one apiece.
"They did the coaching," Nuttycombe said of the trio. "I did the hiring and made sure they had the tools they needed — be it scholarships or whatever — to do what they needed to do.
"I took a great deal of pleasure in their success, which, in turn, was our success."
Nuttycombe struggled a bit to define his one-of-a-kind career when he retired in 2013. Five years later, not so much.
"What an honor it was to have the opportunity and, looking back on it, it was pretty damn special to be able to do what we did," he said.
"In the heat of the battle, year after year after year, you know you're doing a good job and you're having some success. But after you step back from it for a while, you realize how special it was.
"You miss it, but that's okay. I think it was a good point for me to step back and do some other things in my life."
Nuttycombe, a USTFCCCA Hall of Famer along with his father, Charles, still helps out the Badgers when needed, typically working with vaulters and multi-event specialists, but he does it on an invite-only basis.
He laughingly noted that assisting Byrne, the director of men's and women's track and field and cross country, and his staff is a lot like being a grandparent.
"I get to do now all the best parts of the job without all the things that you did because it was the job that aren't as pleasurable," Nuttycombe said.
There's no doubt that the single biggest moment in Nuttycombe's rich career came that March night 11 years ago.
Solinsky won the 5,000 meters and finished second in the 3,000; Demi Omole placed second in the 60; the distance medley relay of Craig Miller, James Groce, Joe Pierre and Jack Bolas finished second; Detmer and Tim Nelson placed fifth in the heptathlon and 5,000, respectively, while Stu Eagon ran 13th in the 5,000.
It all added up to 40 points, allowing the Badgers to finish with a five-point edge over runner-up Florida State.
"It was almost disbelief," Nuttycombe said of the milestone. "I remember personally being almost shocked that that could actually happen because as much as I wanted it to happen, as much as we had been top three or four several times, to get to that point was almost surreal."
When the title was clinched, Groce gave Nuttycombe a long embrace, saying over and over, "We got one for you."
Nuttycombe had that kind of impact on his student-athletes.
"He had the ability to connect and that's what I think led to his success," Solinsky said. "It didn't matter if you were a sprinter or a jumper or you were a distance runner or a vaulter. It didn't matter the discipline. It didn't matter the background. It didn't matter where you came from.
"Nutty could connect with you and make you feel part of that family. And that family atmosphere was honestly, in my opinion, the reason for all the success.
"You knew that he loved you. You knew that he cared about you. He wanted you to be a great athlete, but he wanted you to graduate with an amazing degree."
Before Joe Thomas became a NFL standout with Cleveland — a likely first-ballot Hall of Famer as an offensive tackle — he was a top shot putter for the Badgers in 2004 and '05.
"He's really good at reading people and understanding the best way of getting to them," Thomas said of Nuttycombe.
"He's definitely a fun, great guy to be around. But he's really serious about his profession.
"You get this really jovial, laidback feeling from Ed almost all the time as long as his guys are working as he's asked. But all of a sudden it'll be the Big Ten meet and we'll be having our meeting the night before and he can be very serious and to the point."
How important was that NCAA title to Nuttycombe's legacy?
"I needed it for me. I wanted it for me. I wanted to know that that was possible," he said.
"It wasn't a matter of legacy or anything like that. It was a personal thing for me. It's a moment you dream of as soon as you step into that position."
During a subsequent team dinner, there were toasts from joyous voices and a general sense of exuberance. Throughout the meal there was a constant.
"I remember his smile," Detmer said of Nuttycombe. "It was from ear to ear."
Schumacher, who now coaches elite distance runners on behalf of Nike's Bowerman Track Club, said Nuttycombe was an underrated leader whose greatest gift was patience.
"He's got such a calm and laidback personality," Schumacher said. "But on game day he was in there ready to fight with the best of them.
"I was a young coach who was not very patient and Nutty's genius came in his patience, his ability to focus on the things that mattered most.
"As a person, you don't see many better than him."
When Solinsky, now an assistant coach at Florida, was enshrined in the UW Athletic Hall of Fame last year, Nuttycombe was his presenter.
"He's a major, major part of why I got into coaching," Solinsky said. "Every day I make decisions going, 'How would Nutty do this?'
"If I could do it half as well as he did it, it could lead to great success in my career."
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UW Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2018
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