LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

My Story On Running, Coaching, and Parenting

Matt Centrowitz with Nathan Williams and Chris Kwiatkowski

Self-Published, 2017

Available now on Amazon.com-keyword: Centrowitz Book

Review by Peter M. Walsh

This is the “Like Father” side of the Centrowitz story and it reads like a very fast mile.  Matthew Centrowitz was born poor in the Bronx, New York.  His mother was a hard working angel and his father a disappearing ghost.  His Irish and Jewish background shouts the streets and gave him the survival skills to hide pain and make a companion of hunger.

 Our story begins and ends at the Rio Olympics and why not?  The 1500 meter final with young Matt on the track and Mathew ‘the elder ‘ in the stands, is one of the most memorable hi-lights of the 2016 games.  It just might enhance the reading experience to hop on the web and replay this momentous race before reading this thanksgiving to track and family.  It will certainly put the reader in motion, running along the life trail and tales of the patriarch of the “first family of American Track and Field”.  Cenrtrowitz, the elder, offers up a studied recipe with all the bitter ingredients that elevate the divine sweetness of sublime victory.

Centrowitz may seem gruff and crusty, but he is a master jeweler in recognizing the elegance that lies just underneath the uncut stones of experience.  His wife, Beverly Bannister (a foretelling name), was a 2:08 half miler, his daughter, Lauren, is a former Stanford all-American runner, his daughter, Marissa, who might be in charge of aches and pains, is a graduate of Drexel Nursing. And then there is the kid “Like Son” Matt who has carried on the family tradition to the gold standard of Olympic running.  But where Centrowitz comes from and how he got to Rio, is the story.  The story of a young boy discovering a talent, and fighting for the chance to share the glory with the world.

Centro takes us on a run through his High Schools, Andrew Jackson Public in the Bronx, and Power Memorial Catholic in Manhattan.  We enter Manhattan College for a jog and travel full tilt to Oregon.  Later it’s a fartlek to Georgetown and finally the long run as head Coach at American University.  We are introduced to coaches, surrogate fathers, legends and figures from the past.  The Three Bills and a Phil of Oregon, a Christian Brother Bielen , Pre,  Kiprop and yeah, an Olympic roommate now called Caitlin Jenner. 

But it is when the author takes us up to the McKenzie River Trail in Oregon that he strikes poetic “I didn’t know you could smell, taste and feel a run”.  He understands and more importantly believes that “runners live with the clarity of time”.  He now is able to play the student to his Socrates “just call me Bill” Dellinger.  His mantra becomes “to finish every workout exhilarated”.   Oregon is now his beloved Yankees, “a culture that is organic, not formulated”.  The kid from the Bronx with a rugged past, now possesses a spirit he has learned, siphoned and created, and is able to share with the reader his McKenzie epiphany and life living vision.  He has found the father and the father is himself; an Olympian, a husband and a coach.  So get the book and don’t forget to hop on the web and play the race!