from my friends along the course kept me moving. I took sixth and finish with the second fastest time, and I was happy for the two silver medals I received, but nothing beat the appreciative look in Bill Kennedy’s eyes as he took me aside and said, “Thanks, Johnny.”

Shortly thereafter, the Y let me go. Even at $11 I was becoming too expensive, and they fired me so they could allow members a chance to work off their dues behind the locker room cage. With nothing better to do I hit the road. But a most fortunate thing happened: I received counsel that was to guide me toward a life long career.

Dengis, who was also unemployed, hitched with me. I had decided to join up with C.C. Pyle’s commercial cross-country runs. “Cash ’n Carry” we called him. A real fly-by-night operator. Cash ’n Carry operated a running circuit up and down the East Coast, which he rigged. As his troupe pulled into a town, Cash ’n Carry would have already stationed himself in front of the local saloon taking bets. “Miraculously” the runner who lived closest to that town won that day’s elapsed time prize, except, of course, when the odds made it more practical to “tilt” the race to the man from East Oshkosh. Still, it was a job, and I was on my way to sign up with Dengis and I stopped at Al Monteverdi’s. Well, Monte blew up.

The Amateur Athletic Union had been formed in 1888 for the express purpose of curbing unscrupulous promoters such as C.C. Before then, athletics beyond college competition had come under the control of those who exploited them for profit. It was not uncommon before 1888 to find promoters who would announce prizes of substantial worth to attract both the athletes as well as huge crowds. Upon collection of gate receipts, however, the winners of the race might discover that the promoter had departed with the prizes.

All this is contained in a 1937 book entitled The Encyclopedia of Sports by Frank Menke. Other promoters, advertising a “strictly amateur” meet, would donate a trophy to the winner in full view of the audience, after which the promoter and victorious athlete would meet in some sheltered spot. The winner would give back the trophy, get cash, and the promoter would start shining up the trophy to award to some other “amateur” at a later promotion.

Since these “meets” offered the only outlet for both noncollege and postcollege men to compete, the AAU, which recently was regrouped as the Athletics Congress, was created to remove non-professional sports from all taint of exploitation. In other words, to make running “pure,” to place it beyond the clutches of the likes of C.C. Pyle.

“Don’t throw your amateur status away on a crook,” Monteverde told me.

Monty, as we called him, held the official record for walking across the United States: 79 days, ten hours, and ten minutes from New York to San Francisco. He was 69 years old when he accomplished the feat. In the course

of his walk, he wore out the two 25-year-old aides he had hired to drive beside him.

“T’m broke, Monte,” I said, as I toweled off after a hard workout on the track Monte had built behind his house. Dengis picked the wax out of his ear. Monte, a veteran of 110 marathons, fixed me with both steel gray eyes.

“Running will be good to you in time,” he said, and he walked back into the house. “Don’t be a damn dope.”

Before long, Monte became a prophet. Back in Boston I was standing in the offices of the United States Shoe Machinery Company applying for a job when one of the young officers recognized me. “Semple,” he said, “you’re just the man.”

“T am,” I said, more as a statement than a question. By this point, I was no longer innocent.

“We’ ve got a bit of a problem, Semple. I need to establish a road race. The general manager was entrusted me with responsibility for putting on an event at the carnival United Shoe will hold on the lawn this spring.”

The fella was smiling at me; I could see he wanted the information for free.

“Tm applying for a job,” I said.

His smile disappeared.

“What I’m saying is I’’d love to help you out.”

He made the connection because he said, “Oh,” and he took my application from a fat pile his secretary had amassed, and he walked into a paneled room. A moment later he signaled for me.

During the meeting, the employment manager was called in, and I pitched my idea to a group of four executives: “I can form a club for you,” I said. “I’ll bring the national championship to United Shoe, just as I did for the Y in Lynn. But I want a job.” I mentioned that I was a carpenter, but the employment manager shook his head. “We’re all filled with carpenters,” he said. “Can’t expect an opening for a year. Maybe 18 months.”

“T’ll sweep the floor,” I said. “I’m hungry, I’ll do anything.”

“You’re hired,” the four said, nearly in unison.

I was assigned to the die department where I had to learn how to sharpen cutting dies which were used to stamp out leather for making shoes. They estimated that it would take me six months before I became proficient enough to go on piece work. I made the fantastic beginners rate of 40¢ an hour for a 40hour week. I took home $16, but it was a job and soon I was able to pick up four extra hours on Saturday mornings washing the floor in the shop. It was better than pick and shovel work in zero degree weather, which is what I had been doing since the Y had laid me off.

I contacted several of my ex-YMCA runners and enlisted others in the factory who had run for Beverly High School. Before long I had assembled a

Jock Semple JUST CALL ME JOCK Mi 157

damn fine team, and we made our debut at the North Medford 20-miler in March. Maybe it was the steady job. Or the new accommodations I was able to afford in a boarding house, or the load I felt lifted from my shoulders after Ino longer had to sleep on my brother’s daybed, but I found myself at the front of the pack. The race came down to a three-way contest between Old John Kelley, Dengis, and myself. By 17 miles, Kelley pulled away—wearing a pair of S.T.A.R. Streamlines—but we won the team championship. That propelled us toward Boston, which we won, and finally toward the Nationals in Washington, D.C.

There our United Shoe team defeated 14 of the top teams in the world, including the Finnish-American and German-American clubs, which boasted two greats, Mel Porter and Paul DeBruyn.

I was fit to be examined. One day a letter came to the Shoe offices from a Harvard doctor, Dr. Dill, who expressed an interest in testing me in his Fatigue Laboratory as a “specimen.”

I weighed 150 pounds stripped. Wires were attached over my heart, diaphragm, and at two points on my back. The machine, which resembled an escalator, was switched on and I performed: first the speed was set at four mph and I ran for five minutes. My pulse rate rose to 120 beats per minute. Then I had my nose clogged with a gadget. Following a ten-minute rest, Iran again for five minutes while the machine was kicked up to seven mph. The machine was sloped, which simulated uphill running.

After another rest, my pulse registered 50 beats per minute, which Dr. Dill characterized as “extremely fit.”

I could have told him that without all the torture.

Worse, they didn’t pay me but they did feed me. I sat at a table with a group of Harvard boys and ate potatoes and eggs at faster than 60 mph.

The Olympics eluded me again in 1936, when I had my citizenship but not the ability.

One perk did remain, however: In 1937 DeMar got himself into a spat with the AAU over expense money. Six months earlier my United Shoe team had captured the team title again at Boston, while I finished ninth, and I was tapped by the AAU to replace Clarence on the Pan American team. The AAU claimed that DeMar had written a letter to the Washington Star, the sponsor of the Pan American trials, asking expenses based on his performance in the race. The funny part of it was that Clarence had an image as a model amateur. He was, and I’d defend DeMar to the last, but he did write the letter. He told me he was mad at race officials who had secured expensive accommodations while assigning the runners to dormitories. Modern runners such as Rodgers and Don Kardong have nothing on DeMar when it comes to ventilating righteous spleen.

Itook seventh place at the Pan American Games on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Texas. The marathon, the climactic event, was run at 8 p.m. to avoid the heat. Fat chance. The course, a curious one-and-a-half-mile loop around the stadium, was lit by floodlights. God, it was hot. And water was ever more conspicuous for its absence. Every time we passed a fountain at the entrance to the stadium, I plopped in and splashed about. I took a dozen dips and I lost time, but I didn’t die.

I got married. It is fitting that my feet should play a role, but I was dancing one night upon my return to Boston and as I sat down to have a punch I found myself sitting next to a gorgeous Scottish girl. I knew right then that I was going to become her future husband. “Hi,” I said, but she didn’t answer. Betty is shy, but she’s still the most beautiful girl ve ever seen.

Jock and Betty Semple.

Jock Semple 159

We were married two years later in Allston, outside Boston. For sentimental reasons I asked the preacher to read us the vows while Betty and I turned toward a window which faced east. It was New Year’s Eve, and at exactly 7 p.m. (midnight in Great Britain) I said, “I do,” as Big Ben chimed in my mind’s ear.

That was it for 1938 and my bachelorhood as Betty and I rang in 1939, a watershed year that was to see me make the second most important connection of my life.

“Things aren’t going so well at Shoe,” I told Walter Brown after my team finished second at the Nationals in 1939. “Some of the bigwigs aren’t pleased that we didn’t win, and I will not be part of an outfit that does not respect a man’s giving a race his all.”

Walter knew what I was talking about. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said, and with that I disbanded the United Shoe team and shortly thereafter regrouped the team under the banner of the BAA Unicorn.

We did well, until the war came. I was working at the shipyards in South Boston. I missed only one day’s work. Even when the team traveled to Yonkers, I’d pile everybody back in the car on Sunday after the marathon and we’d drive all night so the boys could get to work by 7 a.m.

Then came Pearl Harbor, and with that I took a run down to the recruitment office.

“Can’t come in,” said the sergeant at the desk.

“Why not?” I said.

“Flat feet,” he said.

I looked down, and by God he was right!

“Aren’t you Johnny Semple, the marathon runner?” asked the sergeant behind him.

“T want to join the Gene Tunney program,” I said. “I want to be in the Navy. These dogs have run almost a hundred marathons and they have carried me around the world the equivalent of two times. America’s in the war now, I want to fight, and I won’t take No. Besides, who’s going to see my feet?”

“Let him in,” said the second sergeant. “He looks like the kind who plans to die with his boots on anyway.”

CHAPTER 6 Still, I loved being in the thick of things.

“Jock, anyone can rub his hands up and down a hockey player’s back. That kind of trainer is a dime a dozen. Go back to college. Get your sheet of paper. Become the real thing,” Win Green, the Bruin’s trainer, told me after I was released from the Navy in 1945.

While lying on my back in Saipan and thumbing through a copy of a Boston paper I had found an article about ex-athletes who had made careers for themselves in sports. I had that idea, too, but I knew I never could get into running as a track coach because I had never been to college. While stationed at Samson Naval base in Geneva, New York, I had helped drill the raw recruits, so I had experience. There I met Bill Kennedy again after many years, and he suggested I should use that experience to become a physical therapist.

Thanks to Win Green, I went back to school. Green sent me to Walter Brown, who had just created the Boston Celtics and Walter called over to Boston University for me. Though classes in the physiotherapy department had already begun, Walter got me a job as a carpenter at the school while I waited to be enrolled for the next term.

I can’t say enough for Walter Brown. Carpentry jobs at BU didn’t pay enough for a married man to live on, so Walter arranged for me to complement my salary by picking up a couple of bucks at the Garden. I guarded doors, and that kind of thing, but Walter made sure that I got the doors way up high so I could bring a book and study at night.

“Wanderlust Walter” they called him. His father, George V. Brown, had helped create the Boston Marathon in 1897, and Walter’s son, George, still shoots the gun. The Hopkinton area was picked as a site for the start of the race, not only because the course from west to east into Boston resembled the Greek marathon course, but because George Sr.’s farm was out that way. When George Sr. died in 1937, Walter at the age of 32 became not only president of the BAA but also general manager of the Garden/Arena Corporation.

Walter, who died at age 59 in 1964, was a promotional genius, in addition to being a very gentle man. Certainly he was world-renowned as an international sports figure. Even before he succeeded his father at the Arena, he had established a reputation for himself by coaching the United States hockey team to its first world amateur championship in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1933. In 1940, he was named president of the Arena and Boston Garden. Over the years he conjured many successful promotions: it was Walter’s idea to bring winter sports indoors at the Garden, and he built a huge indoor ski jump which attracted the world’s best skiers. In 1932 Walter discovered Sonja Henie while on a tour through Sweden with his hockey team. Almost from the moment Henie performed for an American audience at the Garden, she was received as a star, and her name became a household word. Walter created the Ice Capades, and later he created the Celtics, who were to bring him so many disappointments in the beginning.

Ultimately, the Celtics became a monument to the man, but in the late 1940’s Walter had to fight with Garden Corporation board members to keep them from folding the team. For five years the Celtics dripped red ink, before

Walter finally succeeded in luring Red Auerbach, under whose coaching the Celtics became the world champions. But in truth the team survived only because Walter scraped the bottom of the financial barrel and purchased the staggering franchise from the disenchanted Garden directors.

Originally, Walter had disdained “bounceball.” He had been a Grade A hockey man exclusively. But after World War II he recognized people’s desire for an indoor game that could carry them through the winter between the football and baseball seasons, and with characteristic intensity, he set out to build the National Basketball Association. I’d get him on my rubdown table after he had spent a day upstairs on the phone with creditors. “How long do you think it’s going to take basketball to go over in this town?” he was asked by my patients on the table with him. “Five years, four if we can come up with a George Mikan,” he said as I applied the soothing oils.

Mikan, an early forerunner of the Kareem Jabbar big man, played for Minnesota. It did, of course, take five years. And then Walter’s plan only worked through luck of the draw which brought us Bob Cousy.

While I was recruiting my BAA team, I made part of my living at the Arena by taking the Celtics out for their pre-dawn run. Walter had just created the team and since he couldn’t afford a hotel for them, he kept the players bunked in the basement on cots. It was fitting actually: the Celtics couldn’t draw even their mothers to a game.

“Aww right, all you laggards!” I shouted into their gymnasium quarters every morning at 6 a.m. to wake them for a run around the Fens. A great bunch of guys, but with 22 wins and 38 losses their first year, they became the Eastern Division doormat, a niche they promptly retained for years.

Chuck Connors played for us then. Chuck would climb on my rubdown table and regale us with Shakespearean soliloquies, as well as renditions of “The Face on The Barroom Floor.” Chuck never asked for the infra red lamp on his sore knee. Instead, he had me give him ultraviolet in the face. “I have an audition,” he said. Which made no sense to me until Chuck moved to Hollywood. There he put in a pitch for a part and landed the title role on the “Rifleman” series.

In 1949 I had accepted Walter’s invitation to go to the world games as United States hockey team trainer. A year earlier I had traveled to Europe with the team for the Olympics, a job I was to take again in 1952. My arena had burned down, and I wasn’t making money any other way.

Ireturned in 1950 for the end of the Celtics season, and Iresumed my duties as visiting team trainer. At that time, teams in the league couldn’t afford to bring their own trainer on the road, and for 17 years I served as the visiting team trainer at the Garden. Only the Ft. Wayne Pistons and New York Knicks brought trainers. The Pistons were incorporated with a company that made

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In 1989, two runners set off to become the first to run from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney and back—in mid-summer. Lottsa luck, fellers!

Send $22 in US funds (shipping/handling included) to: Rich Benyo, Box 161, Forestville, CA 95436, USA

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Jock Semple -”CSUST CALL MEJOCK 163

airplane pistons, so they wrote off losses that most of the other clubs were sustaining at that time. The Knicks were owned by Madison Square Garden, a lucrative corporation, so they operated in the black.

Today when I look on the bench and see the trainer taking care of the players, I’m astonished. They work hard in the dressing room, but it’s easier for them now with boys sitting on the bench, picking up jackets, taking out towels for the players and serving water. In the old days I was all alone. When a player went in and another came out, I covered him with a jacket and put another over his knees and legs because the ice underneath the floor sent a chill up through the boards. They never handed the towels back to me, but dropped them on the floor and I’d bend down and retrieve them all night. It wasn’t easy by any means, and the double-headers made it worse. I’d get to the Garden at six o’clock to tape the first team, then go out to the bench. By the third period Thad to run back to the dressing room, get a boy to watch the team, and start fixing up the players for the second game. If an emergency occurred, I’d run back out to the court.

After the second team was taped and ready to go, I’d hurry back to the bench for the conclusion of the first game. Then it would be back to the dressing room to cut the tape off, administer first aid to any injuries, and sprint back out for the second contest.

I loved it, but the real ordeal came when I had a triple-header: three teams in town on one night with none of them carrying its own trainer. For example, if the Minneapolis Lakers, Philadelphia Warriors and Rochester Royals were scheduled, I was in trouble. I had to run between both dressing rooms, tape one team, then the other. During the first game, I sat with one team and commissioned a volunteer, that is, a local high school or college student, to sit with the other squad. We had a trio of kids who alternated the job. Little did I know it, but I was training troops of boys for the Federal Express Mail Service.

’ll tell you, it was hectic. But I got the same money for three teams as I got for one. Things weren’t going well at the gate and I appreciated all that Walter had done for me. I had my private business, which paid me about $30 a week, and I just couldn’t see asking for more money. When I look and see today how much better conditions are, I feel like a pioneer. Sacrifice cleanses the soul, or some such saying. I had to believe it or I would have dived off Walter’s big ski jump.

One year the Celts made it to post-season play and, although they didn’t go all the way, the team picked up a few extra dollars. I had to wait a year for my money because Walter used the playoff sum to pay off debts that had piled up that season. I will say that those fellows—Sharman, McCaully, Cousy, Brannum and the others—never said a thing about the wait. Contrast that to some of the players today. I won’t say all of them are guilty, but too many worship money

as a god. I admired the Celtics for not saying “peep” about the delay in their paychecks. As for me, I wouldn’t have traded a cent for all the experiences I had. My share, $145, is not a princely sum compared to what they get today, but we were a team then, even those who played for the other side.

In 1950 the Chicago Stags ran into a heavy financial burden and were forced to drop out of the league. The league decided to send their three top players—Max Zaslofsky, Andy Phillip and Bob Cousy—to the Knicks, Philly Warriors and Celtics. But the teams couldn’t reach an agreement on who would get which player, so they dropped three names into a hat. New York picked Zaslofsky, a local New York City boy, Philly got Phillip and Boston selected Cousy.

At that time, the Celtic brass wasn’t exactly enamored of the choice. Little did they know. Cousy spent his first year as a sub, but when he cracked the starting lineup he proved to be the savior of the sport. If ever there was a man made for basketball, it was Bob Cousy: just over six feet tall, he had the physique of a 6-8 man, large hands, feet and terrific upper legs. Still, his greatest asset was his peripheral vision. He had cat’s eyes. He could see action behind him that enabled him to make breathtaking behind-the-back passes.

One afternoon Couz came in for a massage, to get loose for a game that night. He fell asleep on one of my tables as another of my patients walked in. “Hi, Bob,” the fella said, but Couz didn’t answer. The next time I saw this fella he told me he thought Couz was a snob. “Bob didn’t say a word,” he said. I told him Bob was asleep. “But his eyes were open,” the fella reported, and I had to explain that Couz had protruding eyeballs that made his eyes look like they were open. I remember an example of Cousy’s eye-opening play:

With a couple of minutes to go the Rochester Royals had a four-point lead over the Celts one day. Bobby Davies dribbled for the Royals, trying to kill time when suddenly Couz battled the ball away and drove in for an easy basket. Couz came right back and stole Davies’ inbound pass, scored again, and the game was tied. Seconds later Boston took possession again and won the ball game.

Well, this was unforgivable, Rochester’s squandering a four-point lead, especially in the days before the 24-second clock.

At the final buzzer the fans took the roof off the Garden. I rushed into the Rochester dressing room and grabbed the orange drinks I served the players. I piled them on a tray and kicked open the door to get through. Bang! The door came right back at me. The drinks went flying and the edge of the tray smashed into my forehead, slashing my brow. The culprit who slammed the door back at me, accidentally of course, was Les Harrison, coach and owner of the Royals, who had just finished bawling out his team. The next day I picked up the Boston Globe and saw that Clif Keane, like most of the other writers, had

added color to the incident. In his own inimitable way, Clif wrote: “Jock Semple was entering the dressing room with refreshments whistling ‘Roamin’ in the Gloamin’ when boom, up went his tray, down went Jock, over went the orange drink…”

With all due respect to the great players down through time, I believe that Bill Russell revolutionized basketball. The Celtics won 11 World Championship titles in 12 years, beginning in 1957, largely due to the efforts of Bill Russell. Russell had led the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal at the 1956 Olympics before he joined the Celtics, but from the moment of his arrival he introduced something new: the blocked shot. He made an art of pounding down the ball. Then he would grab it and start the fast break, which became the Celtics trademark. The appearance of Russell forced many pivot men out of the league, but one thing was true: the league never was the same again.

Ihad some fun at the side of the court. At one game I got into a row with ref Jocko Collins, and the ensuing fracas brought publicity to a sport starving for It.

In a game with Syracuse, the Celts were leading by one point when ref Sid Borgia disallowed a Boston basket and that set Red off. Sid would take no guff, though, and he slapped Red with a technical. Still, Auerbach wouldn’t stop and Borgia threw him out of the game. After a to-do on the floor, Red left. And I entered. I stormed up to Collins and blasted him about Paul Seymour, the Nats’ coach’s behavior, asking why Seymour hadn’t been thrown out of the game for a similar argument earlier. Jocko didn’t like that and he followed me into the dressing room at intermission where he grabbed me around the throat. Big John Kerr of the Nats sprinted over and picked Collins off me. But I was fuming. I started screaming at Collins through the referee’s door, “You can’t do that to me, Collins. You can’t do that to me.” I was wrong. Collins opened the door and attacked me again, ripping my clothes off before it was broken up.

These lighter moments brightened my days with the Celtics, and made the $10 I received palatable.

I got less than that for my efforts in putting on the Boston Marathon: spell it ZIP. In those days Garden employees did the work.

Still, I loved being in the thick of things. Iran my last marathon when I was 50 years old, and for tradition’s sake, I ran at Philadelphia over the Sesquicentennial course. Since that day I have limited myself to working in an official capacity—which I can say is much harder than running.

Just Call Me Jock will continue in our November/December issue. Jock meets John J. Kelley and sees the future of the Boston Marathon.

DC Road Runners Club Presents the 42″! Annual Washington’s Birthday Marathon & Marathon Relay

RRCA Maryland State Marathon Championship Race

@Sunday, Feb. 14, 2003 10:30 a.m.@ Greenbelt, Maryland @

Entry Fee: $25 for entries postmarked by Feb. 5. $30 for all entries after Feb. 5.

A 3-person team Marathon Relay will also be conducted.

The Course: The race will start and finish near the Greenbelt Youth Center at 101 Centerway in Old Greenbelt. The USATE certified course consists of three scenic loops.

Race Packet Pick-up will be held in the Greenbelt Holiday Inn lobby Saturday, Feb. 14 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Race day pick-up will start at 8:30 am. at the Youth Center. Parking is available at Southway & Crescent.

Weather: The average temperature at the start time is 40°. Be prepared for winter weather running, and dress appropriately.

Awards to first overall and master, Male and Female

Age Group awards – 1st, 2nd, and 3″ place.

Long Sleeve T-Shirts for all entrants.

Kiawah Island Marathon

Scenic, Remote, the Island Paradise Nearly Has It All.

‘COURTESY OF KIAWAH ISLAND MARATHON

rae ah –

Lig THE KIAWAH ISLAND a ~ MARATHON

Vee setting, but not where you might think.

If, upon hearing the name “Kiawah Island,” you conjure up images of palm trees, hula dancers, floral leis, volcanoes, and pineapples, you might need to pull out a map and calibrate your latitudes and longitudes. Despite the images of exotic Pacific island sunsets and grass skirts, Kiawah Island is 21 miles southwest of historic Charleston, nestled just off the South Carolina coast.

But you can rest assured that although Kiawah Island is easily accessible to the entire southeast quadrant of the United States by car and the rest of the country by plane, it is still a world away, featuring one of the more spectacular and lush resort areas ever established on a barrier island.

Kiawah Island Marathon Attn: Lori Lacy 12 Kiawah Beach Drive

Kiawah Island, SC 29455

PHONE: 843/768-2780 FAX: 843/768-6022 E-MAIL: lori_lacy@kiawahresort.com WEB SITE: www.kiawahresort.com/marathon RACE DIRECTOR: Dylan Jones YEAR RACE ESTABLISHED: 1978 (then known as The Island Marathon and held on the Isle of Palms until 1987, when the location was moved to Kiawah Island) SANCTION: USATF (#SC92033BS) START TIMES: 8:00 a.m. for full & half; 8:05 a.m. for 5K COURSE CLOSES: after eight hours COURSE RECORDS:

Open men: Terry Stanley, 2:21:24, 1983

Open women: Patty Fulton, 2:51:02, 1999

Masters men: Paul Okerberg, 2:36:13, 1998

Masters women: Anne Reed Boone, 2:56:49, 1986 PRIZE MONEY: none MARATHON AWARDS: “Proud Pelican” awards are presented to the top 5 overall male/female finishers and the top 3 overall male/female masters finishers. Plaques are awarded to the top 3 finishers in the following age groups for both sexes: 12 & under, 13-17, 18-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, and 75 & over. Medals are given to all runners completing the full marathon anda finisher’s certificate is mailed following the event. TIE-INEVENTS: Kiawah Island Half-Marathon, Kiawah Island 5K. Note: The 3,000 limit for this race includes all three events. NUMBER OF VOLUNTEERS: 100 MARATHON FINISHERS IN 2001: 928 MALE/FEMALE FINISHERS: 61 percent male; 39 percent female COURSE MARKINGS: every mile

September/October 2002 KIAWAH ISLAND MARATHON 169

WATER/AID STATIONS: Approximately every 2 miles, Water and lemonlime Gatorade as well as bananas and oranges are served. Portable toilets at start/finish and every 2 miles along course.

MEDICAL AID STATIONS: Approximately 4, 8, 17, and 21 miles. Medical tent at start/finish area. Medical personnel scattered throughout course.

FUTURE RACE DATES: (Saturday race) 14DECO2, 13DEC03, 11DEC04

ENTRY COST FOR 2002: $45. Race applications available in mid-September; the race fills by mid-October.

GETTING THERE: Charleston International Airport is a pleasant 30-mile drive from the front gate of Kiawah Island. From the airport, pick up I-526 West and take it to the end. From there, turn right on Savannah Highway and go south for about 4 1/2 miles. Make a left on Main Road, which, over the next 17 miles, first turns into Bohicket Road, then Betsy Kerrison Parkway. This is a beautiful stretch of road, and you’ll see lots of Spanish moss hanging from the tree limbs and blue herons wading in the water. Make aleft onto Kiawah \sland Parkway, and 2 miles later, you’re at the front gate of Kiawah. Make your first right after the welcome gate to get to the Kiawah Island Inn. Villa check-in is two mile east. For those who wish to drive to the race, Interstate 26 goes right into Charleston and can be reached from Interstates 95, 20, 85, and 77. Pick up |-526 West, and follow the above directions. If your starting point is closer to the coast, you may be better off picking up Highway 17 toward Charleston, and then following it to a connection with 1-526.

Today, Kiawah Island is a haven for recreational as well as nature-loving fanatics, as it is home to two world-class tennis facilities and five golf courses, living in harmony with 14 varieties of mammals and over 200

bird species, all within its 10,000 acres of verdant vegetation.

Kiawah Island also provides over 10 miles of uninterrupted, pristine white sandy beach, virtually guaranteeing that shell collectors will fill

September/October 2002

their buckets with souvenirs of the sea before the weekend is done.

All these elements, plus a flat and fast marathon course, contribute to an unforgettable running weekend and a marathon that Runner’s World has ranked highly twice. In its 1995 article “Fast Train to Boston,” Runner’s World ranked it Sth in its top 10 list of fast Boston Marathon qualifiers. A couple of years later, it also made the top 10 list of destination marathons, described as “marathons where you can enjoy both a great race and a great vacation.” Marathon & Beyond also gave it a high ranking in its best marathons list, placing it 11th.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

In 1978, while marathons like New York and Chicago were flourishing, luring elite world-class fields with large purses and fast courses, an unpretentious upstart known at the time as the Island Marathon put its stake in the ground with its inaugural running, which barely cleared 100 runners.

The four-loop course around Isle of Palms, South Carolina, was the collaborative brainstorm of the Charleston Running Club, which felt as a club that Charleston needed a good marathon. On November 11, 1978, the first running of what is now the oldest active marathon in South Carolina, directed by John Dunkleberg, was held and saw 113 runners cross the finish line. Robert Schlau, who later

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went on to be one of the world’s top masters runners, won in a time of 2:25:42. The women’s winner that year was Shay Slayton, with 3:23:39.

Those first years were lean for marathon registrants, and the number of finishers exceeded 200 in only 3 of the first 10 years. But Isle of Palms politicians thought the island was too small to accommodate even that many runners, and they began to put the squeeze on the club. So in 1988, the Charleston Running Club, led by race director Chuck Magera, started shopping around for a new home for its marathon. The club was greeted with open arms by Kiawah Island. The marathon moved in 1988; it has since flourished as heartily as the plush vegetation that lines the course.

For those who like nice round numbers, it is interesting to note that as Kiawah Island prepares for the 25th running of the event on December 14, there have been exactly 10,000 finishers in the history of the marathon. Thus, the first finisher in this year’s silver anniversary running of the race will also be the first finisher of the next 10,000 to cross the line. It is, however, unlikely that it will take an additional 24 years before number 20,000 crosses the line. That’s the way itis when a marathon grows from 113 finishers in the inaugural year in 1978 to averaging nearly 1,000 finishers a year over the past 5 years. That number would be much higher except for the fact that the race closes as soon as total registration reaches 3,000 for the

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Must See/Must Avoid

MUST SEE

Kiawah Island’s beach. No less an authority than noted beach expert Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman, working with the Travel Channel, earlier this year named Kiawah Island as having one of the 10 best beaches in the country. On a Travel Channel program in February, Kiawah Island was ranked ninth and was the only top 10 beach outside of Hawaii, California, North Carolina, or Florida. In addition, Kiawah Island’s beach was named “best wildlife getaway beach” in the country. The 10 miles of uninterrupted beach might just be the perfect locale for your light jog the day before the marathon or for a gentle stroll after the race while you’re waiting for the Saturday night seafood dinner.

Kiawah Island golf courses. If you are as avid about golfing as you are about running, you will probably never want to leave the island. You have five exquisite courses to choose from, and with designers such as Pete Dye, Gary Player, and Jack Nicklaus, you can be sure that they will be both challenging and beautiful with the backdrop of Kiawah Island. Golf Digest has placed 3 of the courses on its list of “America’s Top 75 Resort Courses” — more than any other resort community in the country, and Conde Nast Traveler recently named Kiawah Island one of the “Top 50 Gold Resorts Worldwide.” Kiawah’s “Ocean Course” was the host course of the 1991 Ryder Cup.

Kiawah Island tennis courts. Golf isn’t the only world-class cross-training option on the island. Its tennis facilities are also world renowned, boasting such high accolades as being ranked fifth in the country in Tennis Magazine’s “Greatest U.S. Tennis Resorts,” while TennisResortsOnline.com ranked it seventh best in the country. Of course, you may not feel like taking the risk of twisting an ankle the day before the marathon, and the thought of lunging for a second serve the day after the marathon may not be your idea of fun, so one of your activities while on the island may just be planning a return trip.

Charleston carriage tours. A trip to Kiawah Island would not be complete without an excursion to nearby Charleston, a city so rich with history it’s hard to know where to begin. That’s why the perfect start to a visit to Charleston might be one of the many carriage tours. While listening to aknowledgeable guide pointing out the city’s highlights as you traverse the city, you can plan the rest of your day based on whatever piques your interest.

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combined races: marathon, halfmarathon, and 5K. The three events are all held on the same morning.

A BRIEF ISLAND HISTORY

The Kiawah Indians (pronounced KEE-a-wah) were the original inhabitants of the island and were known for their hunting and fishing prowess. They are presumed to have lived peacefully on the island but ended up being no match for the one-two punch of newly arrived European settlers and their diseases, such as small pox and measles, and the Kiawah died off before the end of the 17th century.

In 1699 George Raynor, a suspected pirate of the Captain Cook clan, was given title to the island by the Lords Proprietors, but the Raynor family’s ownership was transitory, and in 1719 the island was purchased by John Stanyarne.

The island changed hands several more times before finally gaining some stability in ownership when the Vanderhorst family owned most of it in the mid-1700s. General Amoldus Vanderhorst, a Revolutionary War

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hero and two-time mayor of nearby Charleston, was the original Vanderhorst owner. The Vanderhorsts shared ownership of the island for several generations with another family and became the sole owners in the late 19th century. The Vanderhorst mansion still stands, complete with graffiti scribbled by Union soldiers during the Civil War.

The Vanderhorst family owned the island until 1951 when, in a real estate coup reminiscent of the procurement of Manhattan Island by the Dutch for a paltry $24 many years earlier, C. C. Royal, a lumberman, purchased Kiawah Island for an equally paltry $125,000. Just 23 years later, his heirs sold the same piece of property to a resort developer for $18.2 million, and the Kiawah Island we know today began to take shape.

Since then the island has evolved into a scenic backdrop to “One of the most naturally beautiful USATF-certified courses on the East Coast.” (This is according to the race application.)

In 1993, Virginia Investment Trust bought the portions of Kiawah Island that comprise Kiawah Island Resorts.

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Along with the golf courses and tennis complexes, the resort also oversees the 150-room Kiawah Island Inn, the 21-acre Night Heron Park, and nine restaurants and lounges, and also manages a rental program consisting of nearly 600 villas and luxury private homes. Kiawah Island Resorts also has produced the marathon since it was moved to the island, while the Charleston Running Club still manages the course on race day. The vast majority of marathon participants contact Kiawah Island Resorts for their weekend accommodations, as many of the villas available through the resort are within walking distance of all the race activities.

WHAT TO EXPECT ON THE COURSE

The weather on the island can be very unpredictable, especially in December.

The temperature can be near—or below—freezing at the start, or it could be in the 60s with high humidity, with the mercury climbing to near 80 degrees by the time the eight-hour limit is approached.

That’s what happened in 2001 when many of the marathoners struggled through the second half of the race. Since Kiawah is a barrier island, there is also the potential for sustained strong winds blowing off the water.

It is highly recommended that potential entrants tap into www.weather.com and check out the

weather forecast before heading out for the island.

The race starts and finishes near the East Beach Conference Center with a simultaneous start for the marathon and half. The 5K starts from the same area about five minutes later. Last year, for the first time since the race moved to Kiawah Island, the course was changed to two loops of the half-marathon course. For 2002 the course might be slightly modified, but it will still remain a twoloop traverse of the island. The changes between 2001 and 2002 will occur at the start/finish area and will likely benefit the runners, who were tightly packed at the start and remained bunched up for the first couple of miles, making it challenging for Boston qualification hopefuls who needed a perfect race to have achance.

The terrain is mostly flat, which would indicate the potential for fast times. And if the conditions are right, fast times are to be had; however, there are quite a few weaves and turns along the course because the 26.2 miles are run ona limited surface area. The first half of the marathon is run with the half-marathoners, and the pack thins out by more than half when the half-marathoners turn for home while the marathoners continue on for their second loop.

Starting from the conference center, the course uses much of the island during its journey as it heads out on Sea Forest Drive for a short time before angling right onto Kiawah Island Parkway. Before the first mile

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