Coe Doesn't Want to Boot the Russians and Kenyans

In this article from Reuters you will note that Sebastian Coe is not in favor of banning Russia and Kenya from international athletics competition.  He prefers engagement to stimulate change rather than isolation.   Very good but how do you engage and change a culture of deception?  We shall be looking over the IAAF shoulder on this one.

The article also notes that Coe was a VP of the IAAF for eight years prior to taking over this Fall.  Well, how do you operate in an organization at that level for that long without becoming aware of the skullduggery going on?  Either you were just sitting there doing nothing or you were part and parcel? Which was it?  Didn't you smell the rotten fish, Seb?

Well,  the WADA report is out, all 323  pages of it which I have not and may never have time to read and digest. The salmon are still running in the Puntlege River.  I have my priorities.   However British news reports are having a field day pillorying Sebastian Coe, Olympic Chanpion, Peer of the Realm, and Organizer of the 2012 Olympics.  It is truly hard to believe that the man was tight with Lamine Diack the past eight years and never knew what was going on in the IAAF regarding doping fraud.    Fortunately for Kenya they received a reprieve in the WADA report. However I doubt they are completely off the hook.  There is a call for the IAAF to suspend Russia from the next Olympics, but this still is far from a done deal.  The impact on the Olympics either with a Russian ban or allowing Russia to compete seems from this angle to be a no win situation.  I fall back on my earlier suggestion that there be two classifications in all contests,  'tested, found  clean' and 'untested who cares?'.



WADA report  Here is the report  all 323 pages for your perusal.  Maybe it should be called
What a Report!

See what the Daily Mail Online has to say in this article by Martin Samuel
Coe Comprimised?

Eugene World Championships Called into Question by Swedes  another Daily Mail Online article questioning the cleanliness of the awarding of the 2012 WC's to Eugene.  If this is even remotely factual, my question would be not how much Diack got to award the event to Eugene, but who was the money coming from?

Science of Running 7 Thoughts on IAAF  Here you get seven thoughts on the situation by Steve Magess.


Ten Thoughts on WADA Report  from Ben Bloom of The Telegraph.  You get three extra thoughts on this one.

Guardian Owen Gibson  This piece written by Owen Gibson writing for The Guardian  seems to make the most sense.

And in closing, I'm attaching a picture I found in the book by Life Magazine   "The Olympics from Athens to Athens.
 This shows the first Olympic Village in Paris 1924.  It looks like a refugee camp,, a Hooverville, or a migrant workers' camp circa 1930 in the San Juaqin Valley.  Bet the big boys in Paris at the IOC hostel weren't living like this.  Leads one to see why the athlete has always been the pawn for the enjoyment of businessmen and les grandes fonctionnaires of world sport.  Let's not forget that Avery Brundage had to push hard to keep the US team going to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin when there was a populist movement to boycott the games,  and his friends the Nazis didn't forget Avery's hard work when they awarded Brundage's construction company the contract to build a new German embassy in Washington DC before WWII.  And to close my arguments,  if cheating is not endemic in Russian sport, how does Premier Putin score 7 goals in those pick up hockey games we occasionally see on the telly?

Mike Solomon and Mickey Mathews of the Kansas Jayhawk track and field and cross country alums asked us to post this announcement.


Hello Former KU Track Jayhawkers, We are planning a reunion for the 2016 KU Relays April 20-23. We are working with the Track Office, K Club, and the Alumni Society to host a reunion for former Track and Cross Country runners and to honor two of KU’s most outstanding Cross Country and Track Coaches. Combined, Coach Easton and Coach Timmons produced these impressive numbers for the University of Kansas: 7 NCAA Championships, 70 Big Eight Conference Championships, 20 Olympians, 109 All-Americans, and their athletes set 20 World records and 14 American records. We are also planning to have a meet and greet gathering at Tom Rupp old school house on North side of Lawrence on Friday April 22, after the Relays. We would like to get a tentative count of how many are interested in attending the Relays, and how many would be interested in us trying to block a group of rooms at one of the hotels. If you are interested, please respond with an email address to 

Mike Solomon, msolomon235@gmail.com, 
or 
Mickey Mathews, mmathews1@juno.com 

If you know of any other former KU athletics whose email address does not appear below, please forward this email to them so they may also respond. We are making this an email tree. Hope to see you there!

This from the website Go Feet

This is a rehash of an earlier posting  (V 4 N. 18) on our blog.  But it needs to be repeated now and again for those who have forgotten and for those who have just started reading Once Upon a Time in the Vest.   This should occupy your Thanksgiving weekend and maybe through Christmas.

   Houston McTear died Nov. 1. He was 58.    That sentence, of course, will prompt the immediate question (unless you are over 50 or a track geek): Who is Houston McTear?    We will tell you as best we can, although McTear is a book, not a sports column.    In the late 1970s, McTear was the fastest man in the world, a title best bestowed on Olympic 100-meter champions. It worked for Jesse Owens, Bob Hayes, Carl Lewis. Now, for Usain Bolt.    McTear never even got into an Olympic starting block. In 1976, he was stopped by a hamstring injury. In 1980, he was stopped by Jimmy Carter’s Olympic boycott.    Nevertheless, McTear was a national sensation.    On May 9, 1975, a star prep runner in Florida, he clocked 9.0 seconds in the 100-yard dash. That tied Ivory Crockett’s world record at the time. No matter that it was hand-timed and that the 100 yards would soon be less relevant because they ran 100 meters in the Olympics. It was still spectacular, and it made national headlines.    McTear lived in rural Florida, and stories often described his home as a shack, housing a family of eight in one room.    He described his most joyous childhood moments as racing the local train and beating it.    Soon, lacking a high school diploma and any interest in history or calculus, McTear was gathered up and brought to California. He had several godfathers in this endeavor, all talking about his education and most thinking about the 10% agent fees generated by Olympic stars.   Muhammad Ali read about McTear and bought his family a new home inFlorida. A fast-talker named Harold Smith — not his real name, but more on that later — persuaded Ali to start a track club in his name, finance it and make McTear the centerpiece. Ali did, and the fun had just begun.   Ron Allice drifted into the middle of all this. Allice is nationally renowned and retired two years ago as USC’s track coach. In the McTear days, he was working in track’s middle class, coaching at Long Beach State.    “I had three scholarships,” Allice says now. “I was pulling elephants out of hats.”    So, when Smith asked Allice to borrow a starting block for McTear’s training at Santa Monica City College, Allice said yes.    “I was tantalized with the thought of getting Houston McTear,” Allice says.   Starting blocks led to bigger things. Allice ran meets for the Ali Club at Cerritos College, with its 12,000 seats and long straightaway, with a gate to the street on one end.    “We’re one-third through one meet,” Allice says, “and the gate flies open. Three limos drive right in and down the straightaway. They stop, Ali and his entourage get out, walk over and sit in the officials’ chairs. The officials threaten to boycott. The meet stops and I run around to fix it.”    Smith also enticed Allice into running several indoor meets. Smith (Ali) paid $65,000 to have a wooden indoor track built and shipped. After a couple of years, with Al Franken’s Sunkist meet dominating in L.A., Allice’s indoor track-managing career ended. The expensive track was stored in the Long Beach Arena. When that space was needed for the ’84 Olympics, it was moved to a storage unit.   Soon, when there became a market for the track and it was owned by a bank    — more on that soon — the bank asked Allice to get it, thinking they’d get $90,000 for it. Allice went to the storage unit and found no track, just lots of dry rot.    All this time, McTear had been well taken care of. Smith had provided a West-side apartment and lots of cash. McTear later told a reporter he had about $400,000 in the bank.    But one day, the police came and gathered up Smith, whose real name was Ross Fields and who had conned his way from the East while seeking a career as a boxing promoter.    A con man wanting to be a boxing promoter? Who knew?    It turned out that Harold Ross Fields Smith had embezzled $21.1 million from Wells Fargo Bank.    McTear stayed around. Track dreams gave way to a cocaine habit. He said later he was going through $200 to $300 a week on cocaine. He also spent 29 days in jail in 1988 on a drug-dealing charge.    Soon, nothing was heard from Houston McTear. Smith was in jail. McTear had gone through all his money and was homeless, living on the beach in Santa Monica, for about three years.    Later in 1988, a Fort Lauderdale News & Sun Sentinel reporter found him and described that as follows:    “Houston McTear, 31, squints to the south as he sits on a bench, streaked with bird dung at the end of the Santa Monica Pier.”    When asked about Smith, McTear said little, other than to identify some rich coincidence. “I had all my money in a Wells Fargo Bank,” he said.    Through Allice and one of his recruits, McTear eventually met a woman, married her, had children, tried a track comeback that failed and drifted again for a while. His marriage broke up and his wife returned home to England with the children.    Eventually, McTear met Linda Haglund, a Swedish track star, when she was coaching at Santa Monica City College.    They married, moved to Sweden and, by all reports, have been there, for more than 20 years. McTear died of lung cancer.    Smith may still be around. He served as a boxing consultant after his release from jail, and eventually acquired enough prominence to have Don King call him a “crook.”    With the passage of time, Allice has been able to enjoy memories of those days. For all the work he did, he was paid exactly zero.    “I hadn’t talked to Smith in years,” Allice says, “and then, one night, the phone rings and it’s him. He talks like we are long lost friends. He says he is going to jail the next day, but he’s having a big going-away party.    “And he invited me.” bill.dwyre@latimes.com   Twitter: @DwyreLATimes

Ask anyone today who is the greatest University of Oregon track and field athleted ever, and Steve Prefontaine comes up.  Steve was an inspiration to many and was out there in front of millions of track fans and no doubt can honestly lay claim to the greatest Duck of all time.  Yet if you ask the fans about Otis Davis, the response most generally will be, "Who is Otis Davis?".

Davis was without doubt one of Bill Bowerman's greatest pieces of track coaching.  A 26 year old basketball player and Air Force veteran  who walked on to the team on a lark and found a niche in the 400 meters by process of elimination.  In 1960 he was third in the Olympic Trials in the 400 meters, and with only a few warm up events between the trials and the games, he went into the 400 finals in Rome and came away with a win and a world record.  He followed that up with a second gold medal in the 4x400 meters.   So if one looks at Pre's Olympic production against that of Otis Davis, Davis wins, game, set, and match.

Davis was honored at Eugene this Fall and brought back to the campus for the first time in 20 years.  He is 81 years old, worked for many years in education in New Jersey.  He grew up in Tuscaloosa, AL where he had no chance to prove himself at the University of Alabama in the days of segregation.

Writing about Davis this week, in the Eugene Register Guard, Chris Hansen produced this gem about Otis Davis.

Otis Davis

This just came in from Gary Corbitt.

Guo Jie who competed in the discus in the 1936 Olympics for China passed away this week.

Guo Jie stayed on the mainland after the 1949 revolution and survived the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.  

From the South China Morning Post by Wendy Wu

This story came from the Associated Press today Nov. 17

If you're tired of reading the doping stories coming up on all the Track and Field websites, then subject number two seems to be this coming Saturday's NCAA Div. I championship.  But what about the little guys?  Looking back on a site created for the NCAA by Kirk Reynolds on history of Division III, you will also find reference to the period 1958 to 1973 when there was a group called the College Division as opposed to the University Division.  This was obviously the Littles vs. the Bigs.  Many great runners and performances came out of that College Division meet that was held annually at Wheaton College west of Chicago.  At first it was a small collection of Midwest colleges that attended the meet, but it began to grow until finally all sports in the NCAA were reclassified into DI, DII, and DIII.   I don't know where they drew the line between those groups, was it size, or athletic scholarship, or was it the prestige of counting yourself amongst schools such as the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Washington University in St. Louis, and Carleton in Minnesota?  In 1973 the college sports gods decided there would be three new designations DI, DII, and DIII, and College Division cross country ended.  Somehow Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois was the designated host of the meet.  Initially most of the participating schools were from the Midwest, but then occasionally a West Coast team like San Diego State or Humboldt State would show up with a couple of studs.  San Diego would win the meet three consecutive years.  Then a New England Team such as Wesleyan with Amby Burfoot and Jeff Galloway came to the meet and flew their colors.  There were no qualifying standards or rules.  If  the coach felt it was worth a trip, you went.  Maybe he was able to save some money during the season, maybe he could convince the A.D. he could put the school on the national map.  Maybe he had a wealthy friend who financed the trip.  It was loosey goosey in those days. Better still he might have had a second job selling steak knives or bibles door to door.  I say 'he' because there were no female coaches or athletes in those yonder days.  You could squeeze a seven man team and a coach in one or two of those big Chevy or Ford station wagons.  You spent the day on the road at 80 mph and 30 cents per gallon gas and rent four  $8.00 motel rooms, then drive back home all day and all night after the meet.  In those days, the College Division race was on a Saturday, and if your guy got in the top five of the race, he could run on Monday over in East Lansing, MI in the University Division race.     The last year it was in East Lansing was 1964, so it may have become more of a logistical challenge to make the two meets.   Arjan Gelling of U. of North Dakota was able to very succssfully pull off the double in 1967 winning the College Race and getting second in the University race.  He also won the USTFF meet that year.    I remember a runner from Wheaton,  Dan Henderson placing in the top ten in the DI race as late as 1978.

Kirk Reynolds, NCAA historian for Division III has put together the national championship cross country results  at

DIII and College Division Cross Country.   (Click on the purple words, guys).

Just browsing through those results, a person of a certain age can spend a nice hour remembering those days,  finding the names of old friends and competitors,  reliving some of those races and seeing how the sport has evolved over the years.  Some of those schools in the College Division are now forces to contend with in DI and DII.  The majority have remained DIII.  Some have changed their names  Kansas State Teachers to Emporia State,  some have disappeared.  Some reached their zenith and then retreated.  Kentucky State and Central State of Ohio two African American majority colleges fit that description.

I'll try to go through each year and see what I can pick out of the results that brings back a memory to me.  Perhaps you will see other stories you would wish to recount.  How many of these guys went on to be movers and shakers in a multitude of fields?  Any Nobel laureates from those U. of Chicago teams or best selling writers?  Cross Country races were our playing fields of Eton.

All these events were at Wheaton, IL until 1975 when the event started moving around the country.
Weather conditions, number of teams, and number of teams and runners with top three are listed.  There were some men who really made their mark on our sport as you will see below.  See some I missed?  Have a good story about one of them?  Let me know.

1958   
Nov. 15,  50 degrees and rain  13 teams  95 runners finishing, 4 miles
1. Northern Illinois 90             1. Paul Whitely  Kans. State (Emporia)   20:45
2. South Dakota St. 93            2. John Gutkneckt Ohio Wesleyan           20:49*
3. Central Michigan 107         3. Ed Vander Heuvel Cent. Michigan      20:53

*in a year to come , Gutkneckt would represent the US in the Russian dual meet at 10,000meters

1959
Nov. 14, 30 degrees, 4" snow on course, 20 mph winds,  11 teams, 90 finishers, 4 miles
1. S. Dakota St.     67                1. Paul Whitely Kans. State (Emporia)         23:01
2. Kans.St Emp.   75                 2. Richard Anderson   Winonoa  WI             23:10
3. Wabash            78                 3. Les Hegedus   Central St. Ohio                 23:40*
4. Central St. OH 87                43. David Wee   St. Olaf   MN                       23:40**
11. MIT              314    MIT had less than stellar day, they were working out the Big Bang theory in the motel last night.
* Les is covered in an earlier posting Les Hegedus story
** David is on our mailing list and a regular reader of this blog

1960
55 degrees, 21 teams, 137 finshers  4 miles
1. Central St. OH     72                       1. Mulholland      Loras College          20;28
2. Mankato St.        109                      2. Shirey               Slippery Rock         20:34
3. S. Dakota St.     111                      3. Ed Winrow       SUNY Buffalo         20:35
                                                          4. David Wee        St. Olaf MN             20:46
                                                          5. Les Hegedus     Central State OH      20;51
                                                          6. James McFadden  NE Missouri         21:10 *
*James is another guy on our regular readers list.   His brother Jerry is another and a major contributor of pictures and comments. Jerry was a 4:05 miler, and finished second for Missouri in the Big 8 mle in 1963.
Central State , a team from a traditionally African American college dominates the establishment.  Hegedus was an American Hungarian, and there was a Frenchman also on that team.

1961
Weather conditions unknown 16 teams, 118 finishers   4 miles
1. Southern Illinois     33               1. Mulholland    Loras                   20:06
2. S. Dakota St.          82                2. Joe Thomas  S. Illinois             20;12
3. Slippery Rock       113               3. Helgeson   N. Dak. St.              20:13
                                                       4. Les Hegedus  Cent. St. OH      20:30
                                                      10 Jim Dupree  So. Illinois           20;52*
* Jim Dupree several times represented US in international meets as an 880 man, about 1:48.
He was fourth at the 1960 Olympic Trials for U New Mexico, then transferred to S. Illinois that summer.  Amazing race for a middle distance runner.

1962
weather not known,  20 teams, 146 finishers,  4 miles
1. Central St. OH    77                               1. Les Hegedus  Central St. OH   19:59
2. Northern IL         96                               2. John Camien  Kan. St. Emporia   20:06
3. Kans. St. Emporia 119                           3. Ireland Sloan Kan. St. Emporia   20;08
                                                                   7. Ed Winrow   SUNY Buffalo        20:49*
Ed Winrow would go on to be a great competitor on the roads in years to come.

1963
55 degrees 10mph wind, 23 teams  160 finishers   , 4 miles
1. Kansas St. Emporia     94                            1. John Camien    Kan St. Emporia     19:16*
2. Akron                          174                          2. Ireland Sloan    Kans. St. Emporia     19:29
3. S. Dakota St.               179                          3. Patterson           Mont. St.  19:57
* Camien would finish second in the University Division to Villanova's Vic Zwolak.
 A great day for the wide open spaces.

1964
Nov. 14  63 degrees, 23 teams, 169 finishers,  4 miles
1. Kentucky State       95        1. Ed Schneider  NE Missouri       19:43.9
2. NE Missouri          105       2. William Moore Cent. St. OH     19:44.8
3. St. College of Iowa 164     3. Gene Takle   Luther College      20:02
                                              99. Ken Sparks  Ball St.                  22:36*

Again another team from a traditionally African American university.  The only surprise here is that Jim Kemp their great sprinter was not on that team as he had a very wide range of running ability.  Interstingly they came to the meet with only five runners.
*Ken Sparks would become a noted 880 runner for the Chicago Track Club as well as an exercise physiologist through the Human Performance Lab at Ball St.

1965
28 teams, 228 runners (the West Coast is getting into the meet now) 4 miles
1. San Diego U.     55                            1. Gene Takle    Luther College     19:38
2. Eastern MI        164                           2. Dennis Boehler  West. IL          19:41
3. Valparaiso  IN  207                           3. David Hefferen  S. Dak. St.       19:55
                                                              8. Ed Watt  NW Louisiana                       *
                                                             21. Robert Fitts  SUNY Cortlandt   20:39**
The West Coast boys skunked the Midwesterners in their first appearance at the nationals.
*  Finally a rep from the Deep South
** Fitts another exercise physiologist to be,  coached at SUNY Cortlandt by none other than Dave Costill who would go on to Ball State in a couple of years and create the world famous Human Perfomance Lab.

1966
Nov. 12, 40 degrees, 40 teams, 286 runners, 4 miles.  Hey the West Coast saw how San Diego dominated last year and decided to come out in greater numbers.

1.  San Diego St.     58                     1.  Robert Fitts  SUNY Cortlandt        19:40
2.  Western IL        184                    2.  Ambrose Burfoot  Wesleyan          20:03*
3.  Eastern MI        203                    3.  Dennis Boehler  West IL                20;09
                                                         5.  Gary Tuttle   Humboldt St.             20:11
                                                        14. John Galloway  Wesleyan              20:26**
                                                        47. Russell Pate  Springfield                20:57***
                                                       130. Bob Lewis  North Central IL        21:35****
                                                       164. Joe Piane   Loras                           22:06*****

* Burfoot future 1968 Boston winner and long time writer and author on subject of racing.
** Galloway future Olympic marathoner and running writer/entrepreneur.
*** Pate, future exercise physiologist and very good road runner in the 1970s
**** Lewis  Long time successful coach at Frostburg State MD
***** Piane  Long time successful coach at Notre Dame U.
What a year and another shellacking by San Diego St.

1967
Nov. 11, 54 degrees  46 teams, 321 finishers, 4 miles
1. San Diego St.    66                                 1. Arjan Gelling North Dakokta   19:33*
2. Cal. St. Pomona 133                              2. Grant Colehour Eastern KY     19:39**
3. Ball State           191                              3. Greg Bagley  San Diego           19:55
4. Arkansas St.      218                              37. Chuck Koeppen Ball St.          20;39***
                                                                 120. Bob Lewis North Central IL   21:26
* See Arjan Gelling  would cross over and get second at the University Div. meet as well
as winning the USTFF meet.  See earlier posting  Arjan Gelling
** In 1969 Colehour would finish 4th in the University Divison race.
***Koeppen would run in Olympic marathon trials in 1972 and is long time HS coach in Carmel IN.

1968
42 degrees , 45 teams, 313 runners,   Meet goes to 5 miles.

1. U. of Nevada      56                          1. Maruice Benn  Nevada       24:54
2. Eastern IL          119                         2. Dave Robbins  Portland St. 25:14
3. Mankato St.        151                        3. Troy Roberts  Western IL    25:18
                                                              4. Gary Tuttle  Humboldt St.   25:26
                                                              5. Arjan Gelling N. Dakota     25:30

1969  
Nov. 15  50 teams, 357 runners
1. Eastern IL    84                  1. Ron Stonitsch   C.W. Post       24:53
2. East MI       146                  2. John Cragg St. John                25:06
3. Chico St. CA 228               3. Arjan Gelling North Dak.       25:14
4. Humboldt St  240              4. Bill Scoby Humboldt               25:38*
* Is this the guy who would become known as "Mad Dog" Scoby tearing up the roads in the 70s?

1970
Nov. 14, 41 degrees, , 47 teams,   5 miles
1. Eastern MI  100                                    1. Mark Covert  Cal St. Fullerton  25:13*
2. Cal. Fullerton 124                                 2. John Cragg  St. John                 25:17
3. Cal St. Davis                                         3. Gordon Minty Eastern MI        25:23
                                                                  8. Tim Tubb  Cal. Fullerton          25:37*
**Tim Tubb another one of our regular readers.
                                     
1971
Nov. 13, 50 degrees, 51 teams, 389 finishers,  5 miles
1. Cal Fullerton      47                          1. Mike Slack  North Dakota St.   24:19
2. North Dak. St.    81                          2. Tim Tubb Cal Fullerton            24:34
3. Eastern MI         109                        3.  Mark Covert Cal Fullerton       24:38
                                                            10. Steve Foster  Ashland               25:03*
                                                            29. Tom Fleming Wm. Patterson   25:32**
*  ** Both Foster and Fleming would go on to be first class road runners in the 1970s.
1972
59 teams 413 finishers,  5 miles
1. North Dakota St.  84                1. Mike Slack    North Dak. St.   24:36
2. South Dakota St.  143              2. Daniel Moynihan Tufts           24:40*
3. Cal St. Fullerton   158              3. Chris Hoffman  Fullerton       24:46
                                                     4. Gary Bentley  South Dak. St   24:50
                                                     5. Wayne Saunders  U. IL Chicago Circle  24:52**
                                                     6. Chuck Smead  Humboldt St    24:53
                                                    10. Steve Foster   Ashland            25:03
                                                    12. Tom Fleming  Wm Patterson 25:05
*   famous daddy?
** All time highlight of U. IL Chicago Circle?

1973
Here's where it gets weird.
This was the last year of the College Division, but also the first year of Division III.  Well the meet did seem to be getting larger each year.  Was it getting too unwieldy for the organizers or was it just a response to the formation of DIII across the board for all sports?  Why then did they run two meets,  same day, same place?  Any answers from our readers?   Was it because we got out of Viet Nam this year and were still feeling ambivalent about everything?

College Division 1973
Nov. 10, 30 degrees, 26 teams, 194 finishers, 5 miles.   The results refer to this race as the 16th year of Division 2.    Division 2 was only created this year, I guess the writer made a mistake in calling the College Division thusly.

1. S. Dakota St.  88                     1. Gary Bentley S. Dakota St.   23:49
2. SW Missouri  93                     2. Charles Duggan Springfield  24:09*
3. Eastern IL      99                     3.  Joe Rukanshagiza   Sienna    24:10**
4. N. Dakota St 102                   92. Ron Tabb   Central Missouri 25:58***
5. Western IL    161                  106. John Shull  Wright St. OH   26:15****
6. Chico St.      180
7. Cal. Northridge 205

* *Joe is first African to appear in the top three of this race.
*** Ron would be heard from a lot on the roads in the future.
**** John is protege of a new coach at Wright St.,  Bob Schul, 1964 Olympic 5000 champ.

Division III 1973
Nov. 10 30 degrees , 33 teams ,  250 runners, 5 miles.   Again, this race appears to have been run same place, same date as College Division.   Last time this ever happened.
1. Ashland    62                             1. Steve Foster   Ashland   24:27*
2. SUNY Albany  172                   2. Glenn Behnke  North Central IL 24:35
3. North Central IL 172                3. James Shrader  SUNY Albany   24:38


The 1974 results do not list where the meet was held. But we now know it was again at Wheaton.   In 1975 it was in Boston, MA in Franklin Park and has continued to move every year since.  

Some additional info about the meet history is seen below taken from Kirk Reynolds' site.
Of interest is what College or DIII runners faced logistically to run the DIII and DI on the same weekend.

Division III runners at the Division I meet

                                                         
                                                           

Mal Whitfield,  Ohio State University, USAF , 3 Olympic Gold Medals a Silver and a Bronze  passed away on November 18, 2015 at the age of 91.  Whitfield was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II,  flew 27 missions as a tailgunner in the Korean War, was an NCAA Champion in the 880 for Ohio State University, and winner of the Sullivan Award for the country's top amateur athlete.   After he retired in 1956 he became a Goodwill ambassador for the State Department for 34 years.  He was also a professor of Physical Education in Nigeria.

The following piece appeared on the IAAF website today.

TWO-TIME OLYMPIC 800M CHAMPION MAL WHITFIELD DIES AT THE AGE OF 91

From Gary Corbitt's Site Today, Gary notes the achievements of Steve Machooka who ran for Cornell back in 1961.  He may well be the first Kenyan to run for a university in the US.  Steve won the IC4 Cross Country meet in 1961.

1951 Syracuse Wins NCAA Cross Country Championship

For those of you living in the Gainesville, FL area, this announcement is to remind anyone
of the annual run to remember Barry Brown, one of the greats of American road racing back
in the 1970s.  Barry and his son were also one of the few father and son combos to both run
a sub 4 minute mile.

Gary Corbitt just sent us this piece on a couple of Thanksgiving day races.   FYI.   Note first distance race that women officially ran in the US in 1961.   I'm sure that England was way ahead of the US in this as I've seen some film of women's cross country there in the 1920s.    Oldest Thanksgiving race west of the Alleghenies is the race from Newport, KY to Cincinnati, OH.  I'll be running a solo on this non-Thanksgiving Day in Canada.   All the best to all of you on this occasion.
George Brose

Manchester, New Hampshire, 1961 Diane Lachausse and Julia Chase receive discouraging words from Race Director  Pete Wigern.  Their expressions say it all.

Bone Marrow Donor Project

Earl Young's Team

Earl Young who most of you remember as an Olympic gold medallist (4x400 Rome) and quarter miler extraordinaire is a survivor of cancer thanks to a bone marrow donor.
He is now part of the above project to register 10,000 potential bone marrow donors.

Consider this opportunity as a gift that is more valuable than anything you can buy in a store or online this Christmas season.

Thank you,

George and Roy

We received word tonight that former 440 World Record holder Adolph Plummer has passed away.
Pete Brown, Mr. Plummer's friend and former teammate has written about Adolph in the past, and we feel it is Pete who is best equipped to memorialize Adolph Plummer on our pages.  We celebrate this great man.    George and Roy



From Our Friend Pete Brown

I shared the pride of being Adolph's teammate from the time I first met him
rooming across the hall in Coronado Dorm in the fall of 1959, the night of
the great WR on May 25, 1963 and throughout his life. A statue to Adolph
seems like a splendid idea and Julia and I will contribute with pride. We
send deepest sympathies to Adolph's loving wife Carolyn and all family
members.

I am enclosing a recap of Adolph's track career I wrote a couple of years
ago for a track blog. The times are astounding even today, and we are
talking cinder and dirt tracks. Please note that Ed Lloyd was in the WR race
with Adolph that night, giving him an extra appreciation of how fast it was.
My two page report goes back to Adolph's upbringing in Brooklyn, his
introduction to the sport of track while serving in the Air Force and some
astounding achievements in track you may not be fully aware of. We truly
sorry to lose this wonderful teammate, educator and friend.

A special thanks to John Cordova for his steadfast friendship with Adolph
and Carolyn.

Pete Brown, class of 1963

That World Record University of New Mexico Track Reunion Adolph Plummer front row kneeling in White Sweat shirt Pete Brown kneeling in front row left side Wayne Vandenberg just over Pete's left shoulder A LOOK BACK: FIFTY YEARS AFTER ADOLPH PLUMMER’S AMAZING WORLD RECORD OF May 25, 1963 by Pete Brown The Western Athletic Conference, formed in 1962, featured a number of very good track teams, among them University of New Mexico and Arizona State U. The first ever WAC outdoor track championships were held at Tempe, AZ, on Goodwin Stadium’s black cinder track on May 24-25, 1963. The finals were held on a warm and windless evening, perfect for the long sprints, with the stands packed and all eyes on the start of the 440 yard dash featuring an Olympic style long straightaway. The sterling field had stars Ulis Williams of ASU in lane three and Adolph Plummer of New Mexico in lane four. Based on past meetings and PRs, Williams went to the line that evening a slight favorite. When the crowd finally hushed and the gun went off, Plummer took the lead, passing the 220 in a quick 21.7 with Williams close behind in second. As a teammate and close friend of Plummer, I took a special interest in this race. I attended my first big meet in the LA Coliseum at age 11  in 1950 and had been an avid track fan ever since. Along with a host of my teammates, the excitement of this particular 440 race proved to be the highlight of our careers. It most certainly proved to be that for Plummer, who at age 25 was ready for a never-to-be forgotten race.   Born January 3, 1938, in Brooklyn , NY , Adolph did not involve himself in any organized sports as a youngster. He joined the USAF three days after graduation from Manuel Training HS in his hometown. While stationed in Tripoli , Libya , in 1957, Adolph would run to work every morning with a friend who was the North African AF sprint champ. When they broke into an occasional sprint, the friend could not keep up, and urged him to come out for the track team with promises of visiting Greece , a place young Adolph had always dreamed of seeing, as a reward for merely running some 100 yard dashes. It beat hell of out of normal AF duty for a lowly enlisted man. By the spring of 1959, Plummer had progressed to the Air Force championships in Denver and soon after posted a 21.0 220 in a heat in the AAU meet in Boulder , his PR at the time. Several colleges showed serious interest and Adolph, along with half-miler Jim Dupree, chose UNM in Albuquerque . I met them while rooming right across the hall in Coronado dorm. Seemingly carefree, Adolph quickly established a reputation as team comedian. Workouts were, for the most part, a place where a captive audience was bombarded by an endless stream of his New York style quips and jokes. However, by the close of his sophomore year of 1962, he had managed to establish himself as a force to be reckoned with by winning the NCAA 440 in Philadelphia in 46.2 and getting third in the AAU in hometown New York in 46.8 behind high school standout Ulis Williams’ 46.3. Williams would become Plummer’s chief rival within two years.  His junior year of 1962 featured great duels with Earl Young of Abilene Christian. Adolph started showing world class speed that season, although it took him at least 60-70 yards to get rolling. At Abilene Christian on April 14th he ran a wind-aided 20.0 and four days later beat the great Henry Carr in Tempe in 20.3. On May 11th in Albuquerque , in front of what most onlookers estimated to be a crowd of at least 12,000, Adolph defeated Young, both running 46.6, but lost the 220 by a step to Dennis Richardson in 21.0. His most memorable performance of the season was at the Skyline Conference meet in Denver on May 26th where he won the 440 in 46.2 and anchored the mile relay to second place, making up 35-40 yards in a split of 44.4. Coach Hugh Hackett had a reputation of being very precise with the stopwatch and was miffed when T&F News chose not to print that mark---unable to get their heads around a carry that fast. Adolph went on to get 5th in the AAU meet in Walnut on June 23rd in 46.4, won by the then unbeatable Ulis Williams in 45.8. Plummer’s senior year arrived in 1963. Married with a young daughter, he showed a more serious attitude about his studies, but still wisecracked through the few workouts he chose to attend. Coach Hackett found a way to get him in shape however, running Adolph as anchor in the 440 relay (a new event for dual meets in 1963), the open 440 and 220 and anchoring the mile relay, week after week. UNM pointed only to dual and occasional triangular meets and participated in none of the big relay carnivals at Penn, Drake and Mt. Sac . Winning a big dual meet in early April was fully as important to Hugh Hackett as any national meet in June.   Plummer ran both relays and posted 46.2 and 20.7 marks in Abilene on April 20, 1963. In Albuquerque on May 10th, again against Abilene Christian (rival Earl Young had graduated), Adolph ran the same four event slate with 46.7, 20.3 marks and a 46.3 mile relay anchor. A week later, in the Coliseum Relays he ran a 44.7 mile relay split. Those of us close to the scene were sure something very big was about to happen. Constant speculation of what Adolph was ultimately capable of occupied the thoughts of teammates, fans, friends and more than a few opponents. Going back to where this account started, the final 220 yards of the climactic showdown in Tempe on May 25th, it was obvious that being in lane 4 and on the outside of Ulis Williams that night was all important for Adolph who knew it was now-or-never to run his race. And run he did. By the 300 mark Williams was unable to maintain the blistering pace. Plummer literally ran away from him, maintaining perfect relaxation and leg speed in winning by a full eight yards. Coach Hackett came running out of the stands on the backstretch, watch in hand, yelling “44.9; 44.9”. The fans, many of whom had stopwatches as well, knew that history had just been made. A long period of time ensued, punctuated by endless hugs for Plummer and celebration in the stands, before the results were finally announced with high drama: “In 4th place Tobler, BYU, 46.5; 3rdplace Freeman, ASU 46.2, second place surpassing the current world record, Williams, ASU 45.6 and first place, with a new world record of 44.9, Adolph Plummer, University of New Mexico.” Eight tenths had been shaved from the 440 record of Glen Davis, and Plummer had run the equivalent of 44.6 400 meters, three tenths under that existing record. Fifty years have passed and many of us wonder what kind of time Adolph would have been able to achieve given a rigorous training regimen, use of resistance training for added strength, state-of-the-art nutrition, modern shoes and most important, today’s synthetic running surfaces. From this writer’s point-of-view, he would have been able to compete with anyone who has ever run the event, world record holder Michael Johnson included. We’ll never know, but speculating is always fun. Thank you, Pete

Yesterday we announced the passing of Adolph Plummer.  In the few hours since that release,  Adolph's teammates have been communicating with each other and some of these comments and especially these exceptional photos have surfaced from those conversations.  Planning is already underway to erect a statue in honor of Mr. Plummer.  Thanks especially to Rene Matison and Pete Brown for the photos below.

Adolph Plummer and Earl Young     Wow!!!  Ever see two more relaxed quartermilers? supplied by Rene Matison

Repeat Performance, this time against  Dennis Richardson (or Earl Young?) waiting for confirmation supplied by Rene Matison

Adolph Plummer, Ed Lloyd, Jim Stewart, Joe Garcia, Art Carter supplied by Rene Matison

Arizona State vs. University of New Mexico Ulis Williams holding off Adolph on the Mile Relay supplied by Rene Matison

Holy Cow 6850 spectators for a dual meet?  I bet the basketball coach was jealous. supplied by Pete Brown

220 on old Zimmerman Field March 25, 1962 New Mexico v. Brigham Young Plummer Lane 4,  Jim Whitfield Lane 2 Larry Kelly Lane 3 Zimmerman Field was last used in 1962 for Track and Football supplied by Ray Mathison Supplied by Pete Brown