Comfortably seated at a table in a bagel shop, the bearded man with the penetrating gaze, the power of persuasion and two national championships buried in his pocket is trying to explain the ways of winning. The whys and wherefores of winning. "What's the difference," he asks, sucking down an iced tea, "between the guy who wins the race and the guy who loses?"

He thinks he knows the answer, applicable to, as he puts it, "my own little sliver of athletics." The big slivers, too. And, in a general sense, almost any other walk of life. He's eager to share his secrets. Be they fact or fiction. Whether anyone should believe or implement them, his record counts as heavy evidence in the affirmative. Jeff Arbogast's little sliver is boys and girls cross country and track and field at Bingham High School. But it transcends just that. In the 1990s, his teams have won five state championships in cross country, two in track, along with the two national titles as designated by Harrier magazine, the most recent of which came to his 1999 girls cross country team.

Midway through his 20 years at Bingham, Arbogast tapped into winning's wellspring. Before that, the Miners were a bit of a joke -- by trial and error. "I squandered two or three teams that anybody with half a brain could have won a state championship with," he says. "But through that, I learned and learned." And now coaches and athletes from around the country, and from as far as Australia and Africa, want to learn, too. The ways of winning.

The Bingham Way.

That is what Arbogast calls it. His conglomeration of philosophies -- physical, mental, emotional, and psychological -- borrowed individually from various sources and compacted collectively into a trophy case so full, a dossier of awarded college scholarships so dense, he now spends nearly two hours a day, year round, answering queries and correspondences from friends and foes in-state and out.

"The bombardment has begun," he says. "There are schools in all 50 states training their kids the Bingham Way. Using our own training philosophy against us. But the tougher our opponents are, the tougher our kids have to be to beat them. We don't have to worry about whether they're going to beat Bingham. If we train [opponents] to run faster, our kids will get faster. We want to share with everybody everything we can. That's the ultimate."

Interesting Match: Actually, Arbogast is an awkward and unlikely answer man.

He hardly fits the profile of waify running guru. At 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, he and running seem to be, at best, untidy and, at worst, ill-suited. In fact, he looks as though his expertise might best be with the consumption of the bagels and tubs of cream cheese stacked over his shoulder at the eatery.

He looks more like a cross between Fred Flintstone and Brigham Young than Kip Keino and Frank Shorter.

But, just as his philosophies teach and preach, appearances aren't worth jack. It's what emanates from within that makes, measures, and motivates the competitor. Not that the 43-year-old Arbogast can move easily through the 10,000 meters himself. "I run maybe three miles a day," he says. "Otherwise, I would weigh 300 pounds."

Moreover, his long-term background in running, at least first-hand, is minimal. It consists primarily of, in Arbogast's words, "as a kid, running away from my brother after giving him a melvin."

His second-hand path to understanding running, then, was circuitous and serendipitous. It came out of the blocks in an unusual manner -- when his father took him, as a teen-ager, pistol shooting in Utah's outback. Arbogast's family moved to Utah from Illinois when he was 4, settling in Rose Park. His father, mother, and brother loved the vastness of the mountains and desert. His father set an old can on a stump and taught Arbogast to shoot, leading to a tryout with West High School's shooting squad, coached by an ex-military shooter named John Nowell.

"He was compassionate," Arbogast says, "but driven."

Which is to say, he was maniacal in his dedication to target shooting, at the high school level up through the pinnacle of national competition. Nowell trained some of the best rifle marksmen in the West.

"He steered me into an idea, a notion that whatever you do, do it the best you can," Arbogast says. "Even to where you become the best in the world."

Arbogast tried. After taking the Utah high school target shooting title in 1974, and accepting an appointment at the Air Force Academy, he made it into a select national group of top marksmen. Eventually, he retired from shooting, but, at his prime, he started running as a means of lowering his pulse rate to increase ever so slightly his accuracy and aim at the range. He left the Academy after nearly two years to complete his college work at the University of Utah, where he studied English education.

After graduating in 1980, Arbogast took a job as a teacher at Butler Junior High in Sandy, but, shortly thereafter, was snatched by then-Bingham principal Bob Day, who told the green educator he wanted him to teach English at his school, as long as he would coach the cross country teams, too. "I did," Arbogast says. "And I still do."

Although, later, he also took over the track teams, initially, he had no clue what he was doing. "In high school sports, if a school wants a football coach, there's a huge interview process," Arbogast says. "In track, they yell down the hall at you, 'Hey, you sap, wanna be the track coach?' If you say, 'Yes,' you're in for life."

No matter the mistakes. "I made plenty," he says. "Never anything injurious to the kids, but . . ." The learning commenced.

Arbogast attended seminars and clinics and studied like a mother. He familiarized himself with running mechanics and training techniques. And, eventually, began soaking up information from a panel of national experts, specializing in areas such as exercise physiology, bio-mechanics, exercise pediatrics and sports psychology. Next, he got acquainted with the training methods used by many African athletes, which downplay the importance of "peaking," and stress the impact of compartmentalized year-by-year development, or, as Arbogast refers to it, "yearly macro-cycles."

Simply put, macro-cycles are various regimens split into four parts, utilized at varying times of year -- build strength by running long distances over the summer, build speed by easing off distances during racing seasons.

Mind Game: Before we all slam our heads on the breakfast table from road warrior babble or feel strangely and suddenly compelled to slip on a pair of Nikes and lycra shorts and gazelle around the neighborhood, here is the most profound part of Arbogast's lessons learned, the ways of winning, the difference between the guy who wins and the guy who loses.

It's . . . in . . . the . . . mind.

"Talent is a part of it," Arbogast says. "But internal motivation and drive is a key. I work with trying to improve those internal motivators. I explore them and tweak them. A lot of the improvement in our athletes comes from emotionally charging a kid to drive, to be dedicated to excel. We build self-esteem, use positive imagery and visualization of proper practice and performance techniques, relaxation. The mental aspects are big."

Arbogast says young distance runners often look for excuses to give up and get out. He confronts that, in part, by arriving at the school's weight room at 4:30 each morning, waiting for his athletes to come in at 5. "Kids get an emotional read on you as their coach," he says. "If you don't want to be there, they know that. If you're effervescent and excited, they will be, too."

In short, he says he attempts to make hard training cool, often taking his runners to challenging and exotic courses around the Wasatch Front. He meets with his runners individually, looking for what flips their switch, for their motivators, then, he flips them, promising that the long-term payoff will come.

It has for many Bingham distance runners, including Charity Catmull, a senior on this year's team. Catmull was the slowest of Arbogast's runners as a sophomore. But she finished seventh at the recent state cross country meet, and 11th and 33rd at two elite national meets.

"I've accomplished my goals," the 17-year-old says. "And Arb helped me realize those goals. You have to be committed and you have to work hard, but, however committed you are, Arb is more committed. He's at the school at 4:30 every morning and doesn't leave until 7 each night. His whole life is dedicated to us. It's a full-year thing."

All a part of Arbogast's inspire-motivate-educate agenda.

"His program did it all for me," says Catmull. "I averaged [running] 10 miles a day over the summer, went to about seven miles during cross country season, and, now, I'll go to around six miles a day during indoor and outdoor track seasons."

Building Blocks: Every year, those miles, according to the plan, are meant to add another floor to a growing skyscraper, as opposed to building, in the American track tradition, to a peak, as in a pyramid model. Arbogast took these ideas from Weber State Coach Chick Hislop, who follows the rudiments of many of the Africans' running philosophies. Build, don't peak.

"That's why so many of our runners do well in college," says Arbogast. "They don't burn out. Since 1990, we've had 51 athletes get college scholarships. This year alone, five of our runners have full scholarships, and we haven't even gotten to track season yet."

Roger Buhrley, who has coached track and cross country at Davis High School for 14 years, says there are jealousies among some prep coaches because of Arbogast's ridiculous success, but adds that respect is high for him on account of not only his growing collection of wins, but also his innovative motivation techniques and hard work. And his willingness to pass along whatever information he has.

"His ideas work," Buhrley says. "He has good athletes at Bingham, but at almost every school there are a lot of cross country athletes running around the halls. They just don't come out to run. Jeff's do. Plus, he shares with me, and others. He doesn't hide what he knows. He's looking to improve the sport."

Some consider Arbogast too much of a zealot.

He even considers himself a bit "over the top."

Not only in his enthusiasm for coaching, but also teaching.

"My English class is a three-ring circus," he says. "I have a certain zest for it."

Once, while teaching a unit on letter writing, Arbogast had his students write prominent people ranging from actor Vincent Price to Libyan leader Mu'ammar Gadhafi. One student actually received a personal correspondence back from Gadhafi.

"Mom and Dad were a bit disheartened to see a box from Libya coming home," says Arbogast. "They were wondering what was going on."

Arbogast characterizes what's going on, both in his classroom and on his teams, thusly: "I'm passionate about what I do. I'm intense and driven. I just want to make a difference. I want to leave a dent. There's some degree of ego in it. But I remember what I learned from Nowell all those years ago. 'Do it the best you can.' That's what I'm trying to do."

As a result, Bingham's trophy case is full, the scholarship dossier is dense, and the question about why one guy wins and one guy loses is answered.

"It's extremely satisfying," the bearded man says, patting his stomach, having sucked down his iced tea. "Challenging, but satisfying, watching kids succeed. It is the ultimate."