Gary Winckler doesn’t say much. You can typically find him standing cross-armed, watching and taking notes. He is a tall man whose visibly grey hair is covered by a cowboy hat, his feet clad in boots. He looks out of place coaching the University women’s track meets. His words are few and far between unless he’s provoked, in which case he will talk at length and explain everything he says.

The head coach of the Illinois women’s track and field team is a self-described “student of coaching.” Winckler uses numerous techniques and his extensive knowledge of conditioning to get the most out of his athletes.

“You have to want to be a student of coaching,” Winckler said. “Those who are really good at their profession are doing some work on the side. They’re learning, they’re constantly learning.”

Winckler’s philosophy involves finding quality athletes who are coachable and have the desire to succeed, rather than relying on recruiting highly-touted athletes who aren’t willing to work.

“I’ve never been a big proponent of coming out and giving a big pep talk to people,” Winckler said. “As an athlete I didn’t appreciate that, and as I coach I don’t want to do that. If you really want to succeed, I don’t care if you’re Perdita Felicien, Yvonne Mensah or Tonja Buford-Bailey, you want to succeed because of inner drive.”

Winckler’s athletes can see this approach coming from the start of the recruitment process.

“In his whole recruiting process, he’s not always up there looking for the number one in the nation,” senior Yvonne Mensah said. “He’s looking for people with a lot of potential in them. His main goal is to bring out as much as he can in each and every one of us.”

During his 22-year Illini coaching tenure, Winckler has been named the Big Ten Coach of the Year five times in both indoor and outdoor track and field. He has also been awarded NCAA Coach of the Year three times in his career. The honors are not the only measure of Winckler’s coaching skills – he has also earned the respect of his peers.

“‘Wincks’ is a coach’s coach,” said Gary Wilson, Minnesota’s former head coach. “There isn’t a more brilliant track mind in the nation or the world. People know that, and they come to him to learn. He can get the very, very best out of what he gets; taking good and very good athletes and developing them into world-class ones.”

The cerebral coach has a plan for almost everything. He prepares daily regiments for the women’s training, monitors diets and uses specific training guides so that the women “peak” at the right time. Winckler’s to-the-minute itineraries are legendary in the track and field community, even for practices. He travels across the nation speaking at track and field seminars about his techniques.

“Everything from top to bottom is on (the itineraries),” assistant coach Tonja Buford-Bailey said. “The warm-up, the warm-down, actual training session, core work are all there. It’s a very, very detailed list.”

Winckler is well aware of his tendencies.

“I’m known for good organization and my planning,” Winckler said. “But, with careful planning you get good results. I’m going to put together your training plan and evaluate honestly how you are doing.”

Even with careful planning, however, Winckler realizes that responsibility needs to be present for the planning to be effective.

“I try to instill responsibility in the young people on my team,” Winckler said. “We’re all accountable, and we all have to be responsible to our family and teammates. We try to make it so people are responsible for their actions, their decisions and taking care of business.”

Studying athletes’ biomechanics and analyzing their physiology to make them as efficient as possible is all a part of the system. Even so, Winckler thinks he could still be a better technician and planner.

His athletes have discovered how his meticulous nature pays great dividends in helping them succeed.

“Before I would just run and jump,” junior high jumper Mariesa Greene said. “But this way, I can run and jump, and actually know what I am doing. (Performance analysis) actually helps me to think about it; not so much to where it is distracting, but so much where I can honestly focus, hit the right spot, at the right angle and with the right posture.”

Winckler has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. As a “student of coaching,” he takes learning seriously. The constant work he does is not only to guard against complacency, but to constantly force him to better himself. “You have to want to work,” Winckler said. “You have to want to go to the seminars and read the books on biomechanics. You have to make yourself better every year. When you do, everyone around will be better too.”

Buford-Bailey has felt the direct effect of Winckler’s coaching. Buford-Bailey joined the Illini as a hurdler in the late 1980s because she wanted to be coached by Winckler. After her career at Illinois, she went on to become a three-time Olympian, medaling in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

“I’ve been with Coach since I was 18,” Buford-Bailey said. “And I am still learning from him. As a player you don’t see how much work that he does to make everyone better.”

The hard work, planning and coaching style aren’t just being felt by players. They reverberate throughout the coaching community.

“Wincks doesn’t leave anything to chance,” Wilson said. “He’s so good at what he does. I don’t even like to be in the same the room with him, he makes me look dumber than I am.”

Coaching Accolades

• 5 Big Ten Outdoor Coach of the Year honors (1988-89, 1992, 1995, 2005)
• 5 Big Ten Indoor Coach of the Year honors (1989, 1992-93, 1995, 1996)
• 3 NCAA Coach of the Year honors (1984-85, 1989)
• 10 Big Ten Championships
• 169 Illinois All-American Selections
• 206 Big Ten Champion Athletes
• Has coached 13 Olympians, including Tonja Buford-Bailey (Bronze Medal, Atlanta 1996) and Perdita Felicien (Gold Medal 2003 World Championships)