Bernard Lagat wants to stay with Wildcats after impressive first year on staff

Bernard Lagat had been called a lot of different things: Olympian. All-American. World champion. At Washington State, his alma mater, he is simply “Lagat,” which translates to legend in any language.

A few weeks ago, Lagat was called something totally unfamiliar: Coach.

“I feel like I’m still an athlete, so when someone would say ‘Hey, Coach,’ I sometimes wouldn’t respond,” Lagat says with a laugh. “But then it was, ‘Oh, wait, that’s me.’”

Lots of prominent Tucson athletes have become coaches: Terry Francona, Adia Barnes, Steve Kerr, Stacey Iveson. But few broke into the coaching business like Lagat, the 46-year-old five-time Olympian who moved to Tucson 19 years ago and soon won the 1,500-meters silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

A few days before Thanksgiving, Lagat was named the interim cross country coach at Arizona, replacing his coach of 25 years, James Li, who chose to retire; Li recently moved to Shanghai, where he now coaches elite distance runners.

Until that day, Lagat’s only coaching was that of his son, Miika, a freshman at Rincon/University High School, and a few of Miika’s friends interested in running. But Miika has since become an emerging tennis prospect and Lagat’s coaching days appeared to be over.

The timing couldn’t have been better. For the first time since his Olympic debut in 2000, Lagat is not absorbed by trying to qualify for the Summer Games. He doesn’t view his quick introduction to coaching as anything related to his title of interim coach.

Asked if he would like to be hired as Arizona’s full-time cross country coach, Lagat didn’t hesitate.

“I would, I’d like this to be long term,” he says. “Funny, if you had told me about this even a year ago — if you asked if I could see myself coaching — I’d be like, ‘Ah, no.’ But that has changed 100%. I would love to continue. The job grows on you. I want to see my relationships with the athletes grow.”

posted Tuesday March 16th
by Greg Hansen