This is not a back-in-the-day story. Well, okay it is, but it's not an "uphill-both-ways" story. I know I am starting to sound like Bennett. I'll stop.
Last night's Millrose Games - the 100th anniversary. I was sitting in a box that I was fortunate enough to get due to a great friend in the right place to make it happen. We were talking about it being the 30th anniversary of Kevin Byrne's truly legendary 4:08 win in the high school mile. I mentioned to Joe Weber that I didn't know if I would recognize Kevin if I saw him after all these years. I had no sooner gotten that out of my mouth when I saw Kevin with his son and daughter standing there right in the box. We both stopped and realized that we did recognize each other! How in the world did this coincidence happen?
I was just talking to our old coach, Mike Glynn about Kevin and was disappointed that he couldn't make the coach's "retirement" celebration (I'm 55 years old and I still can't call him anything but "coach" or "Mr. Glynn"). We spent the better part of the meet talking about the past, his run, where his son would be starting high school, analyzing Tauro and Webb and Soloff's races. Later on, I happened to be talking to someone and mentioned Rob DeFilippis, who will be Jr's coach. Kevin overheard us and went and dragged Rob's sorry butt upstairs. Rob and I and Ken Ellis who was also in the box and is the very brainy Men's LDR Chair for USATF NJ have made a lot of connections and built friendships over the past few years. Very serendipitous stuff, for sure.
Before that we had been at the bar at Mustang Harry's watching all the faces go by, recognizing a lot…Marty Liquori, Marcus O'Sullivan…and many that we couldn't put a name to. As usual the Villanova crowd was upstairs having their pre-meet celebration and meal. I later realized that Byrne and his son and daughter actually had walked right past us, because I recalled his son's RBC jersey but I had not recognized Kevin!
Most of the talk there was about the meet and past meets, and a lot of "is this the last one?" One of the Power Memorial crowd, Joe Barbary, joined us. Joe and I went to NYU together, worked together a whole lot later and were each other's best man at our weddings (second time around, okay?). Across a lot of miles and through many years we remain close. The McNiff brothers (2:10 and 2:26 BITD, and Howie outran the great Matt Centrowitz in a 2 mile once) were there too.
After Harry's, to the meet, dropped off some tickets with some kids and went inside. The box was nice, mainly because it allowed us to socialize easily, BS with impunity and move around (free food and beverage didn't hurt a bit either). This was a really good version of the meet. No more of the seemingly endless procession of college relays. For one thing, they don't run there much with the Collegiate Invitational the next day at the Armory speedway. Where would you rather try for a national's qualifier? Who ever gets to train on an 11-lap track? But still a good version of the "later-day" Millrose Games.
The meet had lots of high points…the ones I mentioned, the women's pole vault which was right in front of us (I know, I know, middle and distance running is what counts but what distance guys can't get into the women's pole vault?). And hey, how often do you get to see a masterly performance of that kind? Isinbeyeva = Bubka. Amazing. The women's 3K was a good one; not a great race, but you don't get a chance to see a runner of Dibaba's magnitude very often. Low point – would they ever be able to put that track back together? Even after they did, we could see from up high that the lane lines didn't line up and were waiting for someone to trip over an exposed edge.
After the meet Barbary called and said to meet him and the Power crowd at "an Irish pub" on 8th between 33rd and 34th. I asked him the name and he said he didn't know – it was an Irish pub, just find it. When we got there it indeed had the "an Irish pub" in big letters over the window. Hard to miss.
Seemingly whole Power crowd was there, except for Matt who was sleeping after his American team's 4 x 8 win at Millrose and in preparation for Matt the younger's 1000 at the Armory the next day. Hey, this stuff is hard on the coach and dad, you know?
Let's see…the Lovett Brothers, Pete and John…1:54.4 and 1:52.1 yards and authors of many monster legs on fast relays. 7:40-point on a cinder (dirt and sand probably) track in 1969. Matt's younger brother, Jerry. Chauncey Marsh – 50-flat/1:53. A guy whose name I can never recall who ran 46-something in college. On and on. Surprisingly, not a lot of talk about the old days or at least not as much as you'd have thought. Lots about the meet and Matt's chances on Saturday against Williams and Mostrag. The fine 4:10 the week before in Boston. Another night-high light when Barbary walked back from taking a leak and told us that he had been surrounded by 3 hostile women who wanted to know why he had (unwittingly) used the women's room. Priceless.
A lot of talk about the ominous possibility that this might be it for Millrose.
A lot of talk about that all night. Scary possibility. Sure, the meet is an anachronism. The track is too slow, the fields depleted. Not a lot of colleges any more. They used to make the meet a local as well as international favorite. When I started going to these things in the early 60s (I was VERY young), you couldn't get a ticket for weeks before. No more. Crowds haven't been great for a while - but still, an indoor meet in New York. Where would all the old guys go to BS together? The Collegiate Invitational? Nice meet; not the same tradition.
And you know, there were undoubtedly others like us there from Long Island and Westchester and upstate but it's not just a New York area thing. There used to be meets like this all over the country. Cleveland, Detroit, even Philly. Millrose is just the best and biggest because, let's be honest, this IS the best area in the country and none of the others can compare but in their own little ways…
Honestly, it is not just about a place for us BITD guys to go to catch up with each other. There's a tradition being lost here and it has to do with the new kids too - the high school kids competing now. Are the new meets at the Armory going to be around long enough for these guys to reunite 30 years from now? Will they be able to build that tradition? Track and field athletes, the real deal ones, develop a tightness that I haven't seen duplicated in any other sport, which is not to knock any of them. These meets provided a place to go to reconnect to each other. I want to see THAT continue. Hey, if these high school kids now can do that with their Millroses – the Hispanic Games, Collegiate Invitational, whatever – it doesn't matter which, they win.
You suffer and sweat and puke (if you never puked, you never ran hard enough) and win and lose and help each other, waiting just a tiny bit longer for that baton because you can see your ¾ leg is hanging a little. You build something that you don't really ever think about - you just feel it - and it comes back like yesterday when you see those guys again. Hell, I'm a New Jersey Catholic school kid…the Power guys were not my connection – Andy Artola, Jack Conheeny, Pete Luongo – those were my history but the connection was made with the Power guys because of Barbary, and because we all feel it, even if we can't express it as I am struggling to do now. It's still there when I go back to the very infrequent Paramus Catholic reunions. And events like Millrose renew it for all its decrepit traditions and habits. I want these athletes running today to be able to feel the same thing, because it is something that will mean more and more as life goes on than the drawer full of old medals and singlet you can't possibly fit into any more (I still can). They deserve it too.
Soloff and Lovett and Forys and Centrowitz and Tauro and Rowan and Higginson and Carle and Walsh and Speirs and……and you know what, it's not about just the elite athletes, the killers it's also about the 52-second quarter milers and the ones that go to college and run for four years and sweat it and love it. It's about all of them and they shouldn't lose it.
Is the reason that I am out on the track on a 23 degree Sunday morning doing repeats at my advanced age really about breaking 19:00 for 5K? Really?
- this story is dedicated to the memories of PB, Brian, Ben, Mara and Grace; those that ran and those that never had a chance to.