Asimilar record of longevity has accompanied another institution—namely, the marathon, an event created as a special one-time-only novelty race to honor the host Greeks during the revival of the Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. Today, well over half a million people around the world annually compete in marathons. This year the marathon celebrates its 101st birthday.

Aside from the Olympic Marathon held every four years, the most famous marathon in the world is run in Boston every April. It could be argued that the importation of this marathon event to Boston in the wake of the 1896 Olympic Games by members of the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) played a major role in keeping the marathon alive. Something, after all, was needed to sustain the event during the four years between the Games in Athens in 1896 and the Paris Olympics in 1900. Boston filled the bill.

The marathon captured the imagination of the times, and its first running on April 19, 1897, was front-page news, in spite of a field that numbered a mere 15. The race was won by John J. McDermott of New York in 2:55:10. McDermott had also won the first marathon held in the United States the previous autumn—a race from Stamford, Connecticut, to the Knickerbocker Athletic Club at Columbus Circle in New York. Under atrocious conditions, McDermott won in 3:25:55.

Of the 14 U.S. athletes who sailed to Athens in 1896, four were Princeton men from the New York City area, and five were members of the BAA. The powerful New York Athletic Club, considered to have the best athletes in the world, refused to send any to the Olympic Games in Athens. In spite of the club’s refusal to help field the first U.S. Olympic team, the small contingent of Americans still dominated the sprint and middle distance events. However, the one American entered in the marathon, the BAA’s Arthur Blake, did not medal. But the obvious physical challenge of running nearly 25 miles and the subsequent drama of Spiridon Loues’s win in the Olympic marathon branded itself in the minds of the New York and Boston athletes and fans.

And with their enthusiasm and their influence with the U.S. sporting press, the BAA made certain that their marathon took on a life of its own—a life that most certainly has had its ups and downs through the decades, but a life that was vibrant enough to elevate the Boston Marathon starting line at Hopkinton to the status of 25th largest city in Massachusetts (9,191 residents plus 38,000 transients) on April 15, 1996, in what the BAA billed as the “100th” running of the race.

Of course, Boston 1996 was not the 100th but the 99th running, as author and Boston Marathon veteran Tom Derderian explains in the lead story of our special Boston section. Derderian, a hard-core racer and statistical stickler, is not alone in declaring a false start for the celebration of the 100th. But Tom also

freely admits that he greatly enjoyed the largest moving block party in the history of the world. :

Tom’s definitive 664-page book on the Boston Marathon wouldn’t fit in our special section, so we asked Scott Hubbard of Michigan to write a concise history of the race, summarizing each year in 25 words or less. We picked Scott because of his encyclopedic knowledge of long-distance running. Scott has never attended the Boston Marathon, but we felt that lapse kept him free from undue influences and prejudices. The only potential for prejudice is that in college in Michigan, Scott competed against 1983 Boston winner Greg Meyer.

In the wake of Uta Pippig’s most heroic and courageous come-from-behind win at the 1996 Boston Marathon, it seemed appropriate to ask Mike Sandrock to give us a major profile on the German star. We didn’t want a quick 1,500word summary of her life; we wanted a piece that gives insights into what makes Uta so willing, even eager, to do the long and hard miles in training, to do whatit takes to win the big ones. Mike has the advantage of living in Boulder, a running mecca, where Uta lives a good part of the year.

In reviewing Boston winners, it became apparent how few West Coast runners had enjoyed the feel of winner’s laurels on their heads. Could there be a distinct disadvantage for runners travelling from the West Coast and Hawaii to Boston to compete? Dr. Roger Smith, who lives and works in California but ‘who grew up in the Boston area and is an expert on jet lag and sleep problems, offers ways runners crossing multiple time zones can level the playing field at Boston.

And finally, no special Boston section would be complete without consulting Johnny (the elder) Kelley, who’s completed more Boston Marathons than any other runner in history and who won the race twice, in 1935 and 1945. We asked Johnny to relate his most unforgettable marathon, and he threw us a curve. The man most closely associated with Boston, the 1996 grand marshall himself, contends that his fourth-place finish at the 1962 Yonkers National Marathon is his most unforgettable race. In the course of his piece, we also learn that marathoners too often overlook the accomplishments of 1957 Boston winner Johnny (the younger) Kelley, who won the grueling Yonkers race nine times in a row.

Here, then, is our tribute to the marathon in general and Boston in BS particular, as they roll like juggernauts into their second centuries.

March 1997 THE “REAL” 100th BOSTON MARATHON ® 11

SPECIAL BOSTON SECTION

Boston’s Pseudo “100th”

ASIA SOR RS SR

How the BAA Jumped the Gun and Why They Got Away with It

By TOM DERDERIAN

T HE BOSTON Marathon celebrated its “100th” running in 1996 with a well-hyped, very long party, which at times stretched to over 13 miles. It was the largest mobile birthday party in world history, and certainly the fittest. The statistics are staggering: 37,500 carefully-selected runners, 1.5 million spectators, 13,000 tubes of petroleum jelly, 105,000 gallons of water, 10,000 trash bags, 60,000 PowerBars. We could go on, but the party was premature.

The serpentine line of runners that wound through suburban Massachusetts toward downtown Boston panted and partied joyously. Was the event successful? Doubtless, it was. Unfortunately, the 1996 race was a monumental false start for celebration. It was definitely not the 100th. Repeat. Not the 100th! Everyone back to Hopkinton! The real 100th running of the Boston Marathon is scheduled for April 21, 1997.

The venerable Boston Athletic Association (BAA), which considers itself the keeper of the Boston Marathon flame, did not flunk math. It knows perfectly well how to count the years since the first great race on Patriots’ Day, April 19, 1897. Arunning event has taken place every year for 100 consecutive years, but the race held on April 19, 1918, in the midst of the Great War, was a 10 X 2.5mile relay race, not a marathon. Here’s what happened.

THE KHAKI-WHITE RELAY

On February 3, 1917, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany and by early April declared war. On April 19, 1917, New York’s Bill Kennedy won the 21st Boston Marathon in 2:28:37.

For its part, the BAA announced that it would do everything possible for men in the service. The BAA’s contribution to the war effort turned out to be

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the cancellation of their marathon for 1918. It was replaced with a military relay. The BAA did not make the silly rule that turned the relay from an athletic event to a publicity stunt. The military decided that the racing soldiers would wear their full service uniforms and carry batons with a patriotic message inside. The rules had two effects: They made the race amockery, and they made it very difficult for the military relay teams to run well.

Navy men wore their whites, with spit-polished, high-laced boots and spats; big collars with thin blue stripes; and a navy blue kerchief. The Army teams wore regulation khaki: shirts with buttons, collars, and cuffs; and pants with belts and flap pockets.

In this “novelty marathon,” as the Boston Evening Transcript called it, each member on 10-man teams ran roughly 2.5 miles. The exchange zones were marked with red shields for Army and blue shields for Navy. Sixty automobiles transported the runners. All had undergone military training that stressed calisthenics but not running. Few were in serious running shape.

Only one of the 140 men in the race had run the marathon before—Al Harrop of Fall River, Massachusetts, who had finished seventh in 1911 in 2:32. A handful of others among the 140 had been decent runners in civilian life.

The “race” was a farce, a procession of fatigued men in dress uniforms, each running alone carrying a baton down the middle of the road. The event was neither a race nor a parade. Few spectators lined the course, and for the first time in years automobile traffic was not a problem. The race simply did not generate spontaneous public interest. The teams ran so slowly that Harrop’s 1911 time would have beat all but six of the relay teams. Clarence DeMar, who won the 1911 race, would have been able to beat all of the teams. The entire sham proved to be neither good athletics nor good public relations for the services involved.

In the wake of the military relay fiasco, the BAA could have set things right, but it chose not to. Once done, it was easier to leave the mistake in place. Each subsequent running provided an opportunity to rectify the miscount, but at every running, that opportunity was ignored. Each year it became more difficult to fix the error. The BAA would have had to risk embarrassment and admit their mistake publicly that the “22nd” Boston Marathon was not a marathon but a relay race. Historically, the BAA has not found it easy to admit mistakes.

Tom Derderian BOSTON’S PSEUDO “100th” ® 13

A HISTORY OF HUBRIS

Hubris has driven the Boston Marathon since its inception and drives it still. The hubris of the BAA is a pride that is simultaneously attractive and dangerous. From the establishment of the BAA in the late 1880s to the $25 increase in entry fee for the 1997 race, a degree of insolence and arrogance and sometimes even swagger has characterized the BAA institution. This pridefulness is not a reflection of a specific individual but more of the institution itself. This haughtiness is attractive because it is the mystical spark that ignites runners and spectators alike and keeps the race alive—and special. But the danger of pridefulness is that it can blind an organization to progress.

Birth of the BAA

The BAA confidently entered the world in 1887, when prominent members of Boston society met in the offices of Robert F. Clark to formulate plans for anew athletic club. They chose the unicorn as their symbol—the mythical single-horned horse, the quintessentially unattainable beast. The BAA was not begun as a running club but as a club for wealthy men who wanted “to encourage all manly sports and promote physical culture.” The very bluest of the Boston bluebloods joined—the Adamses, Saltonstalls, Lowells, Cabots, and Lodges.

A Palace to Athletics

The BAA’s magnificent clubhouse on Exeter Street was a shrine to the club’s success and a symbol of wealth and power. In May 1887, ground was broken for the clubhouse, which featured amazing amenities—the best indoor swimming pool and track in the country, Turkish baths, billiard rooms, a wine room, a cigar

The BAA clubhouse, completed in 1888.

BOSTON ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION

room, and windows adorned with red tapestry curtains. Like lords, members could drink and smoke while luxuriating in overstuffed chairs and gaze at walls featuring the best of the taxidermist’s art. But in the 1930’s the country—and the BAA—fell on hard times. Over-invested in the stock market like so many of its members, the BAA lost its buildings and most of its other holdings, such as its golf course, boathouse, and shooting range. Stripped of its empire, the BAA clung tenaciously to the symbols of power.

An Exclusive Race?

The passage of half a century did not add wisdom, humility, or economic security to the organization. World War II did to the Boston Marathon what World War I had done. Potential runners were now soldiers. The BAA did not cancel the marathon, but the 1945 field was down to 67 men, froma high of 285 in 1928. Through the 1950s the BAA and the race teetered near economic death. Fiery Scotsman Jock Semple and refined but nonetheless passionate Will Cloney held together with a shoelace what was left of the marathon. The once elegant offices of the BAA now resided in a closely guarded cardboard box in Semple’s massage room at the old Boston Garden.

Semple ruled the BAA’s cardboard box empire like a junkyard dog. His intolerance of anyone who disrespected the marathon or its runners surfaced again and again in the coming decades, sometimes with embarrassing results.

Semple and Cloney bluntly discouraged the uninitiated and unprepared from running the race. They rightly feared that the marathon might degenerate from an athletic event with Olympian ideals to a freak-show street parade. With saintly zeal they defended the elite status of the revered but ravaged Boston Marathon. Runners still paid no entry fee. The race was penny poor, but to Semple and Cloney, noble as gold.

Women were simply not allowed to enter. It was unthinkable; that is, until Roberta (Bobbi) Louise Gibb ran the race unofficially in 1966. And, who can forget the 1967 race, in which Kathrine Switzer (running with an official number assigned to K. Switzer) was nearly injured as Jock Semple tried, literally, to knock her out of the race. As he lunged to rip off her number, Semple had shouted, “Get the hell out of my race.” After the dust had settled, Cloney commented, “I’m terribly disappointed that American girls force their way into something where they are neither eligible or wanted.”

By the early 1970s the Boston Marathon fields had grown to over 1,000. A method to limit them—beyond Jock’s crusty arbitrariness—had to be adopted. The introduction of qualifying times kept the numbers under control. Boston became the first and only road race beyond the Olympic Marathon to limit its

Tom Derderian BOSTON’S PSEUDO “100th” ® 15