Show Me ‘the Money

The History of Prize Money in Road Racing.

By GAIL KISLEVITZ

T HE HISTORY of prize money in road racing is a complex tale filled with tragedy, politics, threats, money, sex, quid pro quos, the International Olympic Committee, and much more. Sounds like a plot from a John Grisham novel—or a recent past-president’s two terms in the White House. But it isn’t fiction. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Tales from the road racing circuit pre-legitimate prize money are rampant, especially in the 1970s and 1980s when elite runners were getting tired of being treated as little more than indentured slaves of the almighty AAU, the Amateur Athletic Union.

When Grete Waitz came to New York in 1978 to run her very first marathon (and along the way set a world record), she walked away satisfied but without accent in prize money. In fact, she had to borrow twenty bucks for cab fare to the airport. “I was just happy they covered my travel expenses,” she said.

Bill Rodgers has a similar tale: “I had just won the 1975 Boston Marathon, setting a course and American record. Fame finally came my way, but I was still broke. The next year I was invited to run the first out-of-park New York City Marathon and drove my beat-up wreck of a car down from Boston, taking the back roads because I couldn’t afford the tolls on the turnpike. After winning the race, I went back to my car, and it had been towed. My running buddies had to take up a collection so I could get it out of the pound and drive home.”

In contrast to their “no-frills but provide the thrills” running back then, today’s winners of the New York City Marathon can expect to take home up to $300,000 in prize money and time bonuses as well a car.

ENGLISH ARISTOCRACY SETS THE PACE IN AMERICA

The roots of road racing in the United States stem from nineteenth-century England. Collegiate runners from the English public school system (the elite system) held competitive events crisscrossing the English countryside following

a paper trail. Known as a “paper chase,” they were competitive races primarily held between the upper-class schools such as Oxford and Cambridge Universities. The runners were known as “harriers” and besides being called “paper chases” for the paper trail left by the “hares,” they were also referred to as “hound and hare” races.

The prestigious prep school harriers didn’t have to run for money; they ran for the honor of the competition and would not degrade themselves with even the thought of taking money for their talents.

This patriarchal system came to the United States at the end of the nineteenth century under the auspices of the AAU, founded in 1888. The AAU attempted to keep working-class people out of athletics by eliminating any way to make a living through the sport. The founding officers were mostly members of America’s elite school system, the Ivy League, who also believed in running for honor—not money. Their rules specified that under no circumstances could an athlete compete for monetary gain; they would be amateurs, not professionals. But then, due to the family money passed down from one generation to the next, they didn’t need to make money.

The AAU governed with ironclad jurisdiction. Not only did they govern American amateur sports, they were guardians of the door to international competition, including the Olympics. At the very first Olympic Games, held in Athens in 1896, the Boston Athletic Association (BAA), which was governed by the AAU, sent 10 runners from their club to the Games.

At the time, the BAA was an autocratic sports club that accepted only members from the upper crust of society and barred the working class from their ranks. To belong to the club and be chosen to attend the Games was the mark of a gentleman, signifying they were above requiring monetary compensation for their efforts. The runners financed the trip from their own rather deep pockets.

These Draconian rules of the AAU stayed in place for more than 80 years. While other sports like baseball, basketball, and golf were beginning to go professional and pay their players, the AAU held steadfast to their anti-reality rules that flew in the face of the emerging world.

When Jesse Owens returned to the United States a hero after winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, he was impoverished. Although he was an Olympic hero who stood up to Hitler, he wasn’t allowed to do endorsements or accept sponsorship as per the AAU rules—and as a black man living under Jim Crow laws he was still relegated to sit in the back of the bus. He couldn’t get a decent job. He became so desperate he agreed to race horses for money, that is, to run against them. He knew that accepting the money damned him from all further AAU events, but he had reached such a destitute state that it was not a difficult choice.

“For a split second it dawned on me that here was a very wealthy man in a suit with stock in AT&T telling me to put back a pair of $35 shoes I couldn’t afford to buy on my own. It was a feudal society in the worst way. We were the footmen to their aristocracy. Our job was to perform but not get rewarded.” —John J. Kelley

Another target of the AAU was marathoner Clarence DeMar, who wrote about a humorous run-in with New England AAU (NEAAU) officials at a July 4th race in Massachusetts that they had not sanctioned. The newspapers gave an account of the race, listing him as finishing second, his brother Robert third, and a Charles DeMar taking fourth. They all received letters from the NEAAU indicating that they were suspended indefinitely for running in an unsanctioned event. The only problem was that there never was a Charles DeMar, until many years later when Clarence’s wife presented him with a son. In his autobiography, Marathon, Clarence puts it this way: “Owing to some reporter’s slip (and sloppiness on the part of the AAU), our poor baby was fired out of the AAU 19 years before he was born.” DeMar was reinstated 3 months later.

AAU AUTHORITY WAS OMNIPOTENT

John J. Kelley grew up under the unquestioning supremacy of the AAU. According to Kelley, “We were taught from the cradle never to question or oppose the axiomatic powers that be. If you wanted to run, you stayed the course. In 1947, I was 16 years old and a member of one of Connecticut’s hottest high school cross-country teams. We were so proud to be runners. I juggled my entire life just to run—college, jobs, marriage, my teaching position—everything was a hurdle to cross and overcome just so I could run.

“We ran because we loved the sport and had the necessary tunnel vision that blocked every other aspect of life from view.”

The AAU was, literally, the only game in town. If you wanted to run, you cowtowed to their rules. But just who were these men in the high castle?

AAU officials came from mostly exalted backgrounds: wealthy corporate types who never had to worry about money or consider where their next meal might come from.

Kelley recalls winning a 10-mile road race in Salem, Massachusetts, back in the 1950s. The array of prizes included suits, shoes, boots, and a few lamps. Just about to begin a teaching position and nearly broke, John jumped at the chance to grab the pair of leather loafers. The next thing he knew, an AAU official was telling him he could not accept the shoes because their value exceeded $35, which made the prize unavailable to AAU members.

“For a split second it dawned on me that here was a very wealthy man ina suit with stock in AT&T telling me to put back a pair of $35 shoes I couldn’t afford to buy on my own. It was a feudal society in the worst way. We were the footmen to their aristocracy. Our job was to perform but not get rewarded,” Kelley stated.

John was so obsessed with not breaking an AAU rule that when he was invited to run a race in southern Connecticut over Thanksgiving weekend, he had to decline as he didn’t have enough gas money to drive home to New London from Boston and take the detour to attend the race. He wrote the race director explaining the reasons for his decline. A few days later he received $5 in the mail to cover the extra gas. But John was still concerned that he might be breaking an AAU rule and agonized for days over whether he should accept the gas money.

THE BOSTON ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION RULES THE ROAD

Fresh from their success at the 1896 Athens Olympics, the BAA decided to put on their own marathon. Tom Derderian’s historical book, The Boston Marathon, gives vivid details of the famous marathon, starting with its first run in 1897.

“The Boston Marathons run in 1897, 1898, and 1899 were not little, humble affairs but big sporting news in Boston. In the first decade of the twentieth century, marathoners became major sports heroes in the world. They were the explorers, test-pilots, and astronauts of their era, boldly running where none had run before, and in their perceptions and the public’s, risking their lives and future health to do it.”

Eighty years later, the Boston Marathon would play a pivotal role in the history of prize money as the sport underwent a supersonic boom in allowing legends like “Boston Billy” Rodgers and Olympian Frank Shorter to use their fame, combined with perfect timing with the burgeoning running boom, to change the face of “amateur” road racing forever.