USA Track & Field umpires Carol and Jim McLatchie@@http://www.bendbulletin.com/archive/2004/08/14/bend_couple_crazy_about_running.html@@ never stopped running and helping when they finished their running careers. Jim McLatchie is one of the many local unknown legends within the running world.

From having coached three-time British Olympian Justin Chaston in the steeplechase to currently coaching teenagers with his wife at Summit High School in Bend, Ore., he has and continues to do a lot for the sport of track and field.

“I never get paid for coaching, I just volunteer out of hobby,” Jim said.
He was born in 1941 in Muirkirk, Scotland. After winning a national cross country championship in Scotland in 1963, he came to the U.S. on an athletics scholarship from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. That same year, Jim placed second in the U.S. Cross Country Championship behind the one-mile world record holder at the time, Tom O’Hara.
“I was leading the race till the last 100 meters,” Jim said, “and I thought ‘Well, I got it,’ and Tom O’Hara got me in the last 20 meters.”
In 1975, he moved to Houston and started the Houston Harriers running club. The club was made to provide post-college runners with an avenue for formal training and competition. Jim has coached seven world champions (including his wife) and several Olympians.
“Then I just started coaching, more energy in that,” he said. “My running suffered because it’s tough to coach a lot of kids and run at the same time.”
His wife, Carol, met him in 1979 when she was getting more involved with running in Houston. She noticed the club’s success and wanted to be a part of it.
“I spotted him and saw how well all his athletes were doing and asked him to coach me,” she said.
Carol went on to become the 1988 U.S. 10,000-meter national champion, qualified at that distance for the 1988 Olympic Trials and qualified for the Olympic Trials marathon three separate times. She was one of the athletes in the first-ever women’s Olympic Trials marathon in 1984, where she placed twelfth.
When she moved into the Masters competition, she continued to succeed. She won two world championships in the 5,000 and held the previous American 30 km record at 1 hour, 54 minutes.
The McLatchies stay involved with track and field by volunteering as coaches at Summit High School. Having these two elite runners on staff, the high school’s track team has done fairly well in the year they’ve been volunteered there.
“We’ve won the state meet the last six years,” Jim said.
Along with volunteering as high school coaches, the McLatchies volunteer as USATF officials. Jim has been volunteering as an USATF officials official for 50 years, and Carol has been for 32 years. They are both USATF certified umpires. Their job is to watch the track meets and make sure everyone has a fair field of play.
“We’re like deterrents — (the athletes) know we’re there,” Carol said. “We keep it fair.”
Even though they are the eyes on the field, they don’t have the final say. Their calls have to be written up and reviewed by other officials and by the Eagle Eye camera recording the races.
“We’re just part of the series, we don’t individually have the power,” she said.
“If we see something, we have to respond,” Jim said.
Being an official means you must be fair to everyone, he said. The University of Oregon women’s 4×100-meter team didn’t make it to the NCAA Championships last year because one of the runners stepped out of hand-off zone. Jim was the umpire at that particular transition zone.
“The girl that did it came up and said to me ‘You caught me,’ and I said ‘You were two yards out of the zone.’ She said ‘You’re right, I was,’” Jim said. “I mean when you’re seeing it, you don’t see who it is — you see they’re past the zone, and you raise the flag.”
After seeing the crowd getting on Jim for the call, former world record-holder in the decathlon, Dan O’Brien, joked with Jim a few weeks after the disqualification at another meet.
“The funny thing about that one was, (O’Brien) was doing some commentary in the infield,” Jim said, “and he come up to me and said ‘McLatchie, I’ll give you a hundred dollars if you keep the flag down.”
Carol enjoys working with Jim and the officials on the field.
“It’s fun,” Carol said. “Since he coached me, he’s an awesome mentor. Our group of umpires here (have) a total wealth of knowledge; it’s fun to hang with him and them.”
Carol and Jim love officiating, and they wanted to give back to the sport they’ve been a part of for so long.
“We’ve always been doing something,” Jim said. “And if somebody needs help, we pitch in.”