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Once Around is Enough: Circling the Globe and Chasing the Wildest of Dreams with Track and Field’s Most Successful 400-Meter Coach
Clyde Hart – who spent 56 years coaching track and field for Baylor University – has directed his pupils to 17 Olympic medals and four world records over the decades. But would you believe that might be the eighth or ninth-most interesting thing about the man?
Hart’s incredible life journey carried him places he never expected to be. From teaching at Little Rock Central when the famed “Little Rock Nine” events played out in 1957, to being in downtown Dallas when President John F. Kennedy, Hart has often had a front row seat for America’s most memorable moments.
While universally acknowledged by his peers as the most successful 400-meter coach in track and field history, Hart also by sheer happenstance found himself employed as the speed coach for the U.S. Women’s Hockey Olympic Team, and working with a Breeder’s Cup-winning racehorse. To put it one way, Clyde Hart might be the real-life Forrest Gump.
A natural-born storyteller, Coach Hart takes readers on a captivating ride in Once Around is Enough.
Hart’s incredible life journey carried him places he never expected to be. From teaching at Little Rock Central when the famed “Little Rock Nine” events played out in 1957, to being in downtown Dallas when President John F. Kennedy, Hart has often had a front row seat for America’s most memorable moments.
While universally acknowledged by his peers as the most successful 400-meter coach in track and field history, Hart also by sheer happenstance found himself employed as the speed coach for the U.S. Women’s Hockey Olympic Team, and working with a Breeder’s Cup-winning racehorse. To put it one way, Clyde Hart might be the real-life Forrest Gump.
A natural-born storyteller, Coach Hart takes readers on a captivating ride in Once Around is Enough.
287 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 8, 2025
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June 4, 2025
Heartwarming look back of a storied track coach’s career. I didn’t run under Coach Hart but he was still coaching 400-meter runners at Baylor when I was there. It reminded what it felt like to be proud of being part of that program. What a legacy.
This could have been more in-depth to reveal Coach Hart’s feelings, or shared more challenges along the way—it’s basically a lot of anecdotes about various athletes and coaches—but I will say that’s very true to all of my interactions with my own high school and college coaches. It’s reductionist, sure. Every story’s moral back then was “follow my instructions and you’ll be able to achieve your running goals.” Running, and life, proved more complex, but there’s not really space for that in the track world where the winners are lauded and the losers fade away from mention.
Still, Coach Hart’s passion shines through the pages.
This could have been more in-depth to reveal Coach Hart’s feelings, or shared more challenges along the way—it’s basically a lot of anecdotes about various athletes and coaches—but I will say that’s very true to all of my interactions with my own high school and college coaches. It’s reductionist, sure. Every story’s moral back then was “follow my instructions and you’ll be able to achieve your running goals.” Running, and life, proved more complex, but there’s not really space for that in the track world where the winners are lauded and the losers fade away from mention.
Still, Coach Hart’s passion shines through the pages.
Displaying 1 of 1 review