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| Tom Farrell, John Perry, and Dave Perry 1966 This picture came across our desk recently, thanks to John Perry, the man in the middle, who also credits Darryl Taylor for sending it to him. I had run against the Perrys when I was at the U. of Oklahoma. In 1964 at the Albequerque Invitational indoors, along with Tom Von Ruden and James Metcalf, they had a break through race on the boards and began dominating the event, eventually setting a world record outdoors. I was struck by this photo showing the quality of a good cinder track. No one appears to have put many marks on it yet that day. The viewer can almost feel those long spikes digging in and holding and projecting the body along with a little bit of cinders kicking up and tickling the follower's shin bones. Where, when, what was the result? Those questions formed in my aging brain. John was able to answer some of those questions in a second email seen below. George Brose "I just received a photo that I had never seen before and forwarded it to you OU guys. It was taken it 1967 at Mt Sac (I think). Most of the guys from the Big 8 were running for the 49er Track Club. However, a bunch of guys didn’t live in Los Angeles at that time. Some had new jobs or were finishing school. For example, Mickey Miller lived at Stillwater and Dave Crook lived in Lincoln. Mel Zahn, who ran the club at that time just used his home address or some other athlete’s address for the out of town guys. The AAU was a real stickler for the residence requirement which basically kept track runners who lived anywhere but California (Striders, Santa Monica Track Club and 49’ers), New York, Houston or Chicago from joining a team and being able to compete." "Anyway, the AAU banned the 49’ers from competing as a team but we were still allowed to compete as individuals. At that time, the 49ers (name came from Long Beach State College 49’ers and the original runners were from Long Beach State) had become the dominant club in track and had just won the Indoor AAU where they used to keep team scores. Anyway, we ended up getting kicked out Of the AAU and Mel Zahn got a lifetime ban for “cheating” on the residence requirements." "I don’t even remember this race but I think that MT Sac had to have prelims in some individual races because all of 49’er relay teams were scratched from the meet. I guess that explains why I’m wearing a USA Team uniform (from 1966 Finland Tour) and David’s wearing OSU even though he graduated in 1965." "When that photo was taken, David and I were still the two fastest “varsity” 880 runners in Big 8 history with both us us running 1:47.7 at OSU. Ryun was a freshman when he ran his 1:44.9 at the USTFF Meet. Then he ran 1:46 and change for an 800m later on in 1966 at Los Angeles." "That track looks pretty good, I’m not even making a big hole but a few cinders are flying." |
I didn't find the beer drinking pic John refers to, but I did find this great shot of Gerry Lindgren that Darryl Taylor posted. Number 109 is John Lawson of U. of Kansas who is one of our readers. John was NCAA cross country champion in 1965 beating Doug Brown of Montana.. Can someone please identify the Santa Monica runner?
