October 2015

Track and Field Writers of Contents America

(Founded June 7, 1973) P. 2 President’s Message PRESIDENT P. 4 2016 TAFWA Awards Jack Pfeifer, 6129 N. P. 6 TAFWA Book Sale Lovely St., Portland, OR 97203. Office/home: 917- P. 7 Peter Walsh and the Inwood Community Group 579-5392. Email: P. 8 FloTrack Among Top 20 Media Companies in the USA [email protected] P. 9 World Women’s Athletic Lists Book Still Available VICE PRESIDENT P. 10 Kenyan Sprinters Fail Doping Test at Worlds Doug Binder. Email: [email protected]. P. 11 Phoebe Wright And The Science of Running Phone: 503-913-4191. P. 12 The Flying Carlewisimo TREASURER P. 15 USTFCCCA National High School Coaches Awards Tom Casacky, P.O. Box P. 17 4288, Napa, CA 94558. Phone: 818-321-3234. P. 26 Ihab Abdelrahman El Sayed: The Pharaoh of Throwing Email: [email protected] P. 28 Eva Mantell’s Tribute in Art to Her Husband, Merrell Noden SECRETARY/ P. 30 Allie Ostrander Golden at 31st World Mountain AWARDS CHAIR Running Championships Don Kopriva, 5327 New- port Drive, Lisle IL 60532. P. 32 Noah Scherf. Extraordinary. Home: 630-960-3049. P. 34 Sandi Morris - Hey Lufthansa, We Want Our Poles Back!! Cell: 630-712-2710. Email: donkopriva777@ P. 35 Notre Dame Alums Gift for Construction of Track Stadium aol.com P. 37 Sarah Sumpter Loses to Cancer NEWSLETTER EDITOR P. 40 Leaves Portland, Enrolls at Fordham, Wins Bronx Kim Spir, University of Cross Country 5K Portland, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., P. 41 Franklin Field Renovation Update Portland, OR 97203. P. 43 Worlds Ticket Prices Too High To Handle? Work: 503-943-7314. Email: kim.spir@gmail. P. 45 Vin Tries To Elevate The World Indoor Track & Field com Championships Above the Sport’s Problems FAST P. 47 Oiselle Partners With Yale University Athletics Dave Johnson. Email: P. 50 Marathoner Stephan Shay’s Tricked-Out Crib On Wheels [email protected] Phone: 215-898-6145. P. 53 Ron Hill P. 63 2016 Portland Worlds Indoor Track To Host Pre-Event Meets in WEBMASTER Michael McLaughlin. NW Warehouse Email: supamac@comcast. P. 64 Partial Fixtures List net. Phone: 815-529- 8454. Ash Creek Preserve, Monmouth, Ore. Site of the 2015 NCAA Division II XC West Regional President’s Message

Eugene and the NCAA Championships We have brought up the problem of press parking in the vicinity of Hayward Field in recent issues, and Phil Pierce, who handles these championships for the NCAA and is a TAFWA member, graciously responded privately.

Phil said that he is preparing a report on press matters for the championships and will do his best to address our concerns.

Meantime, TAFWA has secured 12 parking spaces at the Lutheran church on 17th, across the street from campus, for the 2016 NCAA meet. These will be available exclusively to TAFWA members for $20 -- $5 a day – on a first-come, first-served basis. Further details to come.

2016 TAFWA Events We are planning four get-togethers for next year –

• Thursday evening Feb. 18 – Winter Awards Banquet, Coogan’s Restaurant, 168th and Broadway, . This is two days prior to the . • Sunday morning March 20 – Social event for members of TAFWA, FAST and ATFS in Portland, Ore., site of the World Indoor Championships. That is the final day of competition. This will be held at Cathedral Park Place, in North Portland. • Friday morning June 10 – Annual Awards Breakfast, Gerlinger Hall, Oregon campus • Olympic Trials, Eugene – Date not yet selected, TBA. Will be held at a private home near campus.

Obituaries TAFWA feels obligated to report on the passing of our past members and others who work in our pro- fession, and we make every effort to do so.

We do not feel it is our role to print the obituaries in our Newsletter of past competitors. While we ad- mire these people and respect their accomplishments, there are many such events every month. These are generally reported in other media.

TAFWA Awards for 2015 The criteria and deadlines for all of our annual awards are again printed in this month’s Newsletter. Please note that some of the deadlines have been moved up by four months to Jan. 1.

This is because we plan to give out some of our awards again next year in New York in February. This will be based in part on where the winner is geographically located, to facilitate their presence.

We do not know at the present time which awards will be presented in New York and which in Eugene in June.

2016 FAST Annual Latest update is that we remain optimistic that next year’s book will be completed in February and available in time for the US and World Indoor Championships, both of which will be held in Portland,

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 2 - October 2015 Ore. If you wish to be a compiler for this season, please contact Tom Casacky ASAP.

Book Sales TAFWA has surplus copies of past FAST and ATFS Annuals along with other publica- tions. It is time for us to clear out some of this backlog.

A notice appears in this month’s Newsletter for certain titles available @ $5 each. If there is sufficient interest, additional years will be available in future months. These come from a supply in NYC. If there is no interest, they will be sold off.

There are additional copies in Portland. These will be put on sale to the general public on Saturday, Dec. 5, at the annual Christmas Sale at Cathedral Park Place, 6635 N. Baltimore St. in St Johns Portland, Oregon.

Unsold copies will also then be made available to members.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 3 - October 2015 2016 TAFWA Awards

Recognizing excellence in track & field journalism, announcing, photography, film & video, blogging, broadcasting and books in 2015 as well as ongoing cooperation with the media

General information: These awards will be presented in February 2016 in New York and June 2016 in Eugene for work in 2015 unless otherwise noted. Self-nominations are allowed. Please include nomi- nee’s name, address, e-mail address and phone.

James O. Dunaway Memorial Award For excellence in track and field journalism, both in print and online

Award Chair: Jack Pfeifer ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: January 1

Sam Skinner Memorial Award For ongoing cooperation with the press

Award Chair: Don Kopriva ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1 Note: Submit name of nominee and a brief narrative

Announcing Awards For excellence in track and field announcing Scott Davis Memorial Award: presented to a current announcer Pinkie Sober Award: presented to a retired announcer or posthumously

Award Chair: Dave Johnson ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: January 1

Rich Clarkson Photography Award For excellence in track and field/cross country/running still photography

Award Chair: Jack Pfeifer ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1 Note: Submit an electronic portfolio with a minimum of 10 photos and maximum of 20.

Bud Greenspan Memorial Film & Video Award For excellence in track and field/running film & video production

Award Chair: Nancy Beffa ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: January 1 Note: This award will recognize outstanding achievement in film or video on track & field or running during 2015. Criteria: contact Nancy Beffa for details. •Submissions are judged based on innovation, impact and creativity; •Entries must have been released, televised or copyrighted in 2015; •Must be at least 25 minutes in length;

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 4 -October 2015 •Submit 5 DVD copies of the film or a link to the work online.

Adam Jacobs Blogging Award For excellence in online personal writing on track and field, cross country or running in 2015

Award Chair: Parker Morse ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

Armory Foundation Book Award For the leading book published in 2015 on track and field, cross country or running

Award Chair: Peter Walsh ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: January 1 Note: Please submit three copies of the book for review to Peter Walsh, Coogan’s Restaurant, 4015 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10032

Cordner Nelson Memorial Award For a body of work writing about track & field and running.

Award Chair: Peter Walsh ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: January 1

H. D. Thoreau Award For excellence in track & field broadcasting

Award Chair: Jack Pfeifer ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: January 1

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 5 -October 2015 Book Sale The following Annuals are available first-come, first-served exclusively to TAFWA members.

Price is $5 per book, $5 shipping & handling per order

Indoor Track ATFS International 1978 1992 1990 1982 1993 1991 1984 1994 1995 1986 1995 1997 1990 2005 2000 1991 2012

FAST Annuals US Juniors 1986 1995 1983 1986 1987 1996 1984 1987 1989 1998 1985 1988 1993 1999 1996 1994 2012 US Dec/Hep 1988

US XC 1980 American Athletics Annual 1984 1989

Place orders by email only [email protected]

Payment by check to Jack Pfeifer, 6129 N. Lovely St., Portland 97203, or by Paypal to [email protected]

All proceeds to TAFWA. Additional titles will be available in ensuing months.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 6 - October 2015 Arlene Schulman Inwood Community Group UPTOWN LITERARY NEWS:

Along with running the world famous Coogan’s on 168th Street in Washington Heights for the last 30 years, owner Peter Walsh, a terrific singer and playwright, amassed an important collection of Anglo- Irish Literature.

His collection consists of an inscribed first edition copy of the W.B. Yeats first published work and one of 750 copies of the numbered, unsigned first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Peter collected 125 items which cover Irish political history as well as 19th and 20th century literature.

He donated his collection, the Peter Mallon Walsh Collection, to NYU’s Center for Irish and Irish- American Studies, Glucksman Ireland House. A toast to Peter for preserving literary history and mak- ing it available for all!

The event, held yesterday afternoon, to honor his contributions included Black Irish Identities: A Sym- posium, a reading by writer Colum McCann, a discussion of Black and Tan Harlem, and a performance by the Tara O’Grady Trio.

As noted in the program, “Peter once attributed his success to the following: ‘It’s an Irish-Catholic bar where a Jewish doctor comes in to recite from a Protestant poet in a Dominican neighborhood, next door to Harlem - that’s New York at its best.”

Here are some photos from the event.

TAFWFA Book Awards Chair and Coogan’s owner Peter Walsh shown above right

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 7 - October 2015 http://www.flosports.tv/flosports- ranks-among-top-20-media-companies- in-u-s-in-inc-magazines-annual-list-of- americas-fastest-growing-private-com- panies-the-inc-5000/

FloSports Ranks Among Top 20 Media Companies in U.S. In INC. Magazine’s Annual List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies – The INC. 5000

AUSTIN, Texas (Aug. 20, 2015) – FloSports was named to the 34th annual Inc. 5000 ranking of the na- tion’s fastest-growing private companies released on August 12. The Austin-based sports media company placed among the Top 20 companies nationwide within the “media” category. The Inc. 5000 list represents the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy—America’s independent entrepreneurs.

“We are thrilled to receive this national recognition from Inc. Magazine,” FloSports co-founder and CEO Martin Floreani said. “Like the athletes we cover, we are aggressive in our approach to providing sports fans with the content they crave in the sports they are most passionate about, whether through live streaming, owned and operated events or original content.”

The Inc. 5000 list highlights the nation’s most successful private companies and has become the hallmark of entrepreneurial success.

“The story of this year’s Inc. 5000 is the story of great leadership,” Inc. Magazine President and Editor-In-Chief Eric Schurenberg said. “In an incredibly competitive business landscape, it takes something extraordinary to take your company to the top. You have to remember that the average company on the Inc. 5000 grew nearly six-fold since 2012. Business owners don’t achieve that kind of success by accident.”

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found athttp://www.inc.com/inc5000.

FloSports has seen significant growth within the last year, raising $11 million, including an $8 million invest- ment from Causeway Media Partners, and has doubled their network of sites. Dedicated sites under the Flo- TAFWA Newsletter - Page 8 - October 2015 Sports banner include: FloTrack, FloWrestling, FloElite, MileSplit, FloSoftball, FloGrappling, FloMuscle and Gymnastike.

For more information, visit www.flosports.tv. ### ABOUT FLOSPORTS FloSports, an innovative sports media company based in Austin, Texas, offers authentic content and a new world of coverage that true fans have been waiting for. Focused on three areas – live programming, original content, and owned and operated events – the company takes fragmented communities and provides them the platform to connect with the sports they love.

Through live streaming of premiere events, original video programming, weekly studio shows, branded enter- tainment, and event creation and execution, FloSports is changing the game for the sports, the athletes and the fans.

FloSports owns exclusive broadcast rights to in-demand events, and broadcasts more than 25,000 hours of live sporting events each year. From a content standpoint, FloSports has 1 million+ videos in their library. FloSports features the #1 webcasts per sport, high-quality, in-depth documentary series and 5M+ athletes ranked within their respective sports.

Current verticals under the FloSports header are Grappling, Bodybuilding,Softball, Elite Fitness, Wrestling, Gymnastics, and Running, includingMileSplit.com.

World Women’s Athletics 100 Best Performers Year Lists 1911-1962

To all current Members,

We have received eight copies of the new fourth edition of World Wom- en’s Athletics 100 Best Performers Year Lists 1911-1962, by ATFS Mem- ber Janusz Wasko and his colleague John Brant. This nearly-500-page book is exactly described by its title: Lists for every year for every stan- dard event, 100-deep wherever possible – a tremendous work of statisti- cal research, revised and much-expanded since its previous versions.

The book is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Regrettably, we can only provide it to eight of you, but copies are available from Janusz at [email protected]. Your cost is postage alone: about $5 in the US, about $27 for overseas first-class air. The charges will appear on your January 2016 subscription invoice.

“Tom Casacky”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 9 - October 2015 http://sportsnewsarena.com/two-kenyan-sprinters- fail-doping-test-in-- Two Kenyan sprinters fail doping test in Beijing

By Evelyn Watta | Aug 26, 2015

BEIJING - Barely a day after she improved on her own Kenyan 400m record, Sportsnewsarena.com has learnt that Joyce Zakary and African 400m hurdles silver medalist Fran- cisca Koki may have failed doping tests that came to fore soon after their qualifying runs here in Beijing.

Francisca Koki lines up for the women’s 400m hurdles heat. (Photo by Getty Images/IAAF)

The two leading Kenyan sprinters both tested positive for a masking agent for an unknown substance, possibly Nan- drolone and may have been informed of the tests just hours before Nicholas Bett won ’s first medal in the 400m at the ongoing world championships.

Athletics Kenya’s Chief Executive Officer Isaac Mwangi, did not confirm or deny the tests.

Joyce Zakari(right) wins her heat on Monday.(Photo by Getty Images/IAAF)

“Any matter touching on doping is a matter of confidentiality until proven and the right procedure is followed. I will meet with the team management and the IAAF and see if I have any more information besides this,”he said adding that the Kenyan runners like most of other athletes in Beijing have undergone vigorous testing since they arrived last week.

“The doping here has been vigorous and all our athletes have been tested I think some even up to four times so far.”

Zakari, 29 topped her heat in 50.41 seconds and was primed to be one of the finalists in the women’s 400m pending her qualification from the semi finals which she unexpectedly skipped. The runner has been in fantas- tic form this season. She thrilled with a 51.14 seconds run last July at the Safaricom Kasarani stadium in the women’s 400m erasing Rose Waithera’s 31-year old mark of 51.56 seconds in the 1984 Olympic final.

Koki on the hand was washed out in her qualifying heat finishing a distant seventh in 58.96 the second slowest time from the heats.

It was way off her personal best, the Kenyan record she set last year at the African championships in Morocco. She lowered Rose Tata-Muya’s 55.94 mark set in 1991 at the All , two years before she was born.

Joseph Kinyua, the team manager said he was only informed during the technical meeting that: “She told the coach she had issues with IAAF.”

Seven years ago, Kenya Prisons Elizabeth Muthoka, the then national champion was banned for two years after TAFWA Newsletter - Page 10 - October 2015 she tested positive for Nandrolone. Muthoka had been tested at the 2008 national championships and was se- lected for the Beijing Olympics after she lowered the long standing national record to 50.8 seconds. Her perfor- mances were cancelled soon after and she was banned for two years.

The two Kenya Police runners failed tests puts the spotlight back on team Kenya whose preparations have been clouded by controversy following media reports in Germany and England. The reports allege that doping contin- ues in Kenya and that there was widespread corruption within the Kenyan set-up to cover-up positive tests.

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2015/08/episode-19-phoebe-wright-on-mindsets.html

Episode 19-Phoebe Wright on mindsets, struggles, and what it takes to run professionally Posted by Steve Magness

In Episode 19 of the Magness & Marcus show, we have a special guest in professional runner, Phoebe Wright. In an eye opening interview, Phoebe opens up about her running story. Starting off with what her mindset was going from walk-on to NCAA champion and how that mindset shifted once she reached the professional ranks.

Identifying it as having multiple Identity crisis’ in running, Phoebe talks about her strategy of “zooming in and zooming out” to handle the stress of running. By getting hyper focused, she can break stresses down into small but manageable bites, while using the opposite strategy of zooming out to see the big picture when faced with a different set of challenges.

Phoebe reflects on the struggles she experienced in transitioning from the college ranks to the professional side, calling the two levels a “totally different sport”, describing how she had to shift from a results orientated focus to a process orientated one in order to deal with the demands that professional running brought. When reflect- ing on advice for young professionals, she points out that the number one factor in achieving success on the pro- fessional level is attitude and environment. Unlike what most people assume, Phoebe puts “training” way down on the list and instead insists “Find the environment that completes you as a person,” or as Amy Poehler put it “Treat your career like a bad boyfriend.”

Before ending the podcast, Jon, Steve, and Phoebe discuss whether or not you have to live the “Runner/Spartan lifestyle” to make it on the professional level, or whether you can reach the highest levels with a degrees of bal- ance.

For any athlete looking at transitioning to the next level, or for anyone who wants an inside look at the reality and struggles of running professionally, this interview is a must listen to! Steve and Jon @stevemagness @jmarpdx TAFWA Newsletter - Page 11 - October 2015 http://www.wsj.com/articles/carl-lewis-doesnt-run-but-he-flies-on-aerial-silks-trapeze-and-trampo- line-1441643227 Carl Lewis Doesn’t Run, But He Flies on Aerial Silks, Trapeze and Trampoline

Carl Lewis prepares to do pull-ups on aerial silks at Vault studio, in Houston. Students climb the silks, which hang 15 feet from the ceiling, by pulling and crunching the body upward and wrapping the silks around a foot for leverage. JULIE SOEFER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Carl Lewis, victorious, with gold medal after winning the Men’s Long Jump competition at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.JOHN W. MCDONOUGH /SPORTS ILLUSTRATED/GETTY IMAGES

By JEN MURPHY | Sept. 7, 2015 12:27 p.m. ET

Carl Lewis, one of the most accomplished Olympic athletes of all time, never liked running. “I was a sprinter, not a runner,” says Mr. Lewis, who competed in four Olympic Games and won nine gold medals in the 100-meter, 200-meter, 4 x 100-meter relay and long jump events. “I don’t ever run anymore,” he adds.

Mr. Lewis does, however, still jump. At 54 years of age, Mr. Lewis says tumbling, trampoline and trapeze work have helped him maintain his fitness. “I’m not as lean as I was but I feel as good as when I retired in 1997,” he says.

Mr. Lewis had been biking to stay fit in retirement. But he felt motivated to step up his routine after attending his college reunion at the University of Houston last year. “I was shocked to see so many overweight, hunched-over classmates,” he says. “The only thing you really own is your body. I didn’t want to lose my physicality.”

Mr. Lewis, 54, performs a bird’s nest pose. PHOTO: FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Mr. Lewis says he found inspiration in a 75-year- old friend, Mary Cullen, who was taking aerial-silks

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 12 - October 2015 classes, where students climb, twist, spin, drop and contort themselves using fabric curtain sheets that hang from the ceiling. Last September, she invited him to join her.

“I’m hard headed so I skipped the beginner class and went straight to intermediate,” Mr. Lewis says. “I could do the pulling up movements. But the twisting and getting your head to go one way and your leg another was lost on me.”

A WORKOUT WITH LOTS OF TWISTS AND TURNS Gyrotonics Helps Restore Elasticity and Mobility

Ms. Cullen and Mr. Lewis have become workout buddies. In addition to silks class, they take Gyrotonics, a work- out that stretches and strengthens muscles by incorporating movements from yoga, dance, gymnastics, swim- ming and tai chi.

Mr. Lewis has been coaching pro bono for the University of Houston track and field team since 2013, and he brings his athletes to aerial classes twice a week. Occasionally, he says, his aerial feats elicit a “Wow, Coach,” from the athletes. “If I can do it, then they don’t have any excuses,” he jokes.

Mr. Lewis won four gold medals at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and went on to win five more at the Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta games. PHOTO: GILBERT IUNDT/CORBIS

“I think there is an overemphasis on weight lifting in track and field,” Mr. Lewis says. “Aerial is a different kind of strength workout. The emphasis is pulling, not pushing.” Mr. Lewis realized he’d move more easily in aerial classes if he lost weight. He started biking more and cut back calories. In one year he has lost nearly 25 pounds and now weighs 185, which is around his weight at retirement.

Mr. Lewis admits he was never a proponent of stretching when he was competing, but as he has gotten older he says he realizes the importance of flexibility. “My goal is to be able to do a split on my 55th birthday next July,” he says.

The Workout Mr. Lewis works out at Vault studio in Houston. Twice a week he takes aerial silks classes. Classes focus on climbing, which requires you to pull and crunch the body up the silk and then wrap it around your foot so that you can stand and repeat

Mr. Lewis might hold one silk in each hand, pike his legs straight out in front of him so they are parallel to the ground and then climb up the two ropes. The ropes hang 15 feet, and he has climbed 13 feet. “A few 22-year-olds have made it to the top. I’m still mad I haven’t,” Mr. Lewis says. “I’m working on it.”

One skill he has been working on is the “bird’s nest.” He holds a silk in each hand, inverts to a ball position, slides his shins up the ropes as he extends his legs toward the ceiling and arches his back.

One day a week he does trapeze. The first 30 minutes of class focus on stretching and core work, with 20 min- utes dedicated to skills and the last 10 minutes to tricks. Amy Ell, owner of Vault, says it took Mr. Lewis nearly a month and a half simply to be able to curl up and tuck his legs under the bar because he was so inflexible. Now, he might hook his knees on the bar and hang upside down. By the end of class, Mr. Lewis says, he has done a lot of pull-ups.

One day a week Mr. Lewis takes a tumbling class, and one day a trampoline class. He said both focus on stretch

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 13 - October 2015 Mr. Lewis climbs the silks, wrapping them around a thigh for leverage. PHOTO: FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ing for 40 minutes and tricks for 20 minutes. “It’s like being a kid. We’re doing handstands, cartwheels and round offs,” he says. He also does a weekly Gyrotonics workout. “It’s kind of like Pilates,” he says. “You’re work- ing out on a contraption with pulleys and weights and it’s stretching out the muscles and lengthening them.”

Mr. Lewis rides his bike for an hour five days a week, and he will ride 90 minutes to two hours on weekends. “Houston has tons of bike paths,” he says. “Its fascinating to see the city growing and gentrifying right before your eyes as you ride.”

The Diet Mr. Lewis has been an on-again, off-again vegan for years. He says his current diet is pretty consistent. Break- fast is two poached eggs, two slices of turkey bacon and grapefruit juice. He lives just a mile-and-a-half from the university so he goes home for lunch. He has a cook who prepares homemade soups such as green pea, lentil or sweet potato. Dinner is usually a vegetarian-based pasta such as spinach lasagna or vegetable-stuffed peppers. Sometimes he has linguine with clam sauce, minus the clams. He can do without sweets but says he is a sucker for good french fries and potato chips. If he snacks in the evening, he has mixed nuts and raisins.

The Gear “I still have a contract with Nike so I go to class styling in Nike gear,” he says.

The Playlist “I don’t listen to music and I don’t allow my athletes to have it on the track,” he says.

Editor’s note: More photos can be found by going to: http://www.wsj.com/articles/carl-lewis-doesnt-run-but-he-flies-on- aerial-silks-trapeze-and-trampoline-1441643227

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 14 - October 2015 http://www.ustfccca. org/2015/09/featured/berndt- jackson-named-ustfccca-nation- al-high-school-track-field-coach- es-of-the-year U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (UST- FCCCA) > Awards > Berndt, Jackson Named USTFCCCA National High School Track & Field Coaches of the Year

By Tyler Mayforth, USTFCCCA | September 8, 2015

NEW ORLEANS – One is the head coach at a high school where single-digit temperatures are the norm in the winter. The other recently entered her 36th year at a high school in the heart of Miami, Florida.

It may not seem like Aaron Berndt (Wayzata High School/Minnesota) and Carmen Jackson (Miami Northwest- ern/Florida) have much in common, but they share two distinct characteristics: They both love coaching. That passion – as well as success this past season – led them to being named National High School Track & Field Coaches of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA). Berndt was named the National Boys Track & Field Coach of the Year, while Jackson earned the National Girls Track & Field Coach of the Year honor.

The awards, announced Tuesday, were decided upon by a panel of experts from coast to coast. This is the second year of the prestigious honor, which is given to the year’s most exceptional coaches based on their teams’ and student-athletes’ performances during only the 2015 track & field season.

“Aaron Berndt and Carmen Jackson are both deserving recipients of the award and will continue the tradition of excellence started by last year’s inaugural winners Michael Fields and Dave Turnbull,” USTFCCCA CEO Sam Seemes said. “With the number of outstanding coaches in the high school ranks, the task of the selection com- TAFWA Newsletter - Page 15 - October 2015 mittee to name a single National High School Coach of the Year for each gender is extremely difficult.”

Berndt and Jackson were selected from among the state-by-state High School Track & FIeld Coaches of the Year announced in July.

Berndt recently completed his 10th season as head boys track & field coach at Wayzata High School in Plym- outh, Minnesota, where he also serves as a history teacher. Prior to becoming a coach and teacher, however, Berndt was an All-American mid-distance runner at the University of North Dakota, placing fourth in the 800 meters at the 2002 NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships.

Over the past four years, Berndt’s teams dominated Minnesota’s Class AA scene. This past season, the Trojans won their third consecutive True Team State Championship to go along with their second Minnesota High School League State Team Championship. The True Team State Championship is the highest team honor given in Minnesota – the only state in which that competition is held. It values the ability of a team to field a true ‘team,’ rather than two or three standouts that can dictate other state meets.

“Seven or eight years ago we made an effort to make our team more of a ‘team,’ if that makes sense,” Berndt said. “A lot of people look at this being an individual sport, individual event, individual race, but we really tried to focus on the team aspect and build a better environment. To win another True Team title shows that our guys continually buy in and ultimately that’s what you want to see as coaches.”

This True Team title might be more special for Berndt this season because his team earned the crown without a first-place finisher. The Trojans qualified athletes in 15 of the 18 events and 11 of their athletes competing at the meet scored.

“You want continued success and depth is a big part of it,” Berndt said. “You’ll have your top athletes, but often it’s that 50th guy on the roster who pushes hard to get on that True Team roster that makes the difference.”

From one multiple state-championship winning coach to another, Jackson carved herself an incredible niche in Florida state track & field history. Over the span of her 23 years as head girls track & field coach at Miami Northwestern Senior High School, Jackson has won 10 state titles, including one in 2015 that extended her pro- gram’s streak to seven consecutive crowns. Miami Northwestern decimated the competition at the 2015 Florida High School Athletic Association Class AAA Track & Field Championships. Jackson’s team set an all-time meet record of 155 points – one more than its total from 2014 – and nearly tripled the runner-up and third-place teams’ combined score.

Of all the state championships Jackson earned over her long career, the one she won as a senior in high school probably stands out the most compared to the rest. In 1975, the state of Florida allowed girls the opportunity to compete for state championships in varsity sports and the first one held was track & field. Jackson placed second in the 100-yard dash to help lead Miami Jackson Senior High School to a state title.

Track & field – and coaching, for that matter – means so much more to Jackson than just breaking records and winning state championships; to her it’s a “vehicle.” “This ‘vehicle’ called track & field can help open doors for young men and women that they might never have open to them otherwise,” Jackson said. “My goal as a coach is to help these kids recognize their potential whether it in track & field or any other aspect in their life, because I want them to have a passion.”

When asked what contributed to her success, Jackson said it was four-pronged.

“I had a great mentor, a fantastic staff that shares the same vision and no matter what – day or night – we’re in this for the kids,” Jackson said. “Lastly and most importantly you have to believe and be committed to the process. You have to eat, sleep and drink it.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 16 - October 2015 http://www.runnersworld.com/college/edward-cheserek- setting-the-record-straight

Edward Cheserek: Setting the Record Straight

With eight NCAA titles to his name, the junior is fast becoming a legend. But before the myth grows much more, he—and his teammates—want to clarify a few things.

By Michael Heald | MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2015, 11:42 AM | PHOTO BY CHRIS PIETSCH

On the first day of the summer term, during the lull between the NCAA and U.S. championships, a tour group gathers at Hayward Field’s northern gates. The guide is too busy giving the spiel about this being the best place in the world to run—showing off the plaques dedicated to its heroes—to notice a tiny black man in a yellow shirt gliding across Agate Street. Out of the dozen prospective students, only a tall blond kid sporting his high school cross-country T-shirt catches sight of the runner who has already won more NCAA titles than Steve Prefontaine. The blond kid puts his hand on his mother’s shoulder, and together they watch Edward Cheserek disappear down the block.

A week ago, in front of more than 11,000 fans, Cheserek twice unrolled his fearsome kick on the orange track inside those gates and put to rest any questions about whether he or his teammate was king of the NCAA.

Now, in the lobby of the Bowerman Building, Cheserek, 21, bumps into a recreational runner perhaps 20 years his senior. They launch into a conversation that is unintelligible to everyone else in the lobby, including Andy Powell, distance coach at Oregon. Behind a table, Powell waits to consult with his star, knowing that the older

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 17 - October 2015 runner, a university IT specialist, is from Tanzania. Toward the end of the conversation, Cheserek turns to his coach and shakes his head. “I’m losing my Swahili,” he laments. Despite having spent virtually the entirety of his five years in the U.S. in the public eye, Cheserek has remained an enigma. Some of this is intentional; he is usu- ally flanked by his teammates when he speaks to the media. And so his life has been regarded as a fairy tale— stories written about him can be boiled down to “impoverished Kenyan makes good in America”—and little is known about the complicated young man who is one of the most exciting talents in his sport.

“He does care what people think about him,” Parker Stinson, a former teammate, says, “but he knows he can’t control it. It’s like, If people are gonna hate me, like me, whatever, I might as well get what I want and keep win- ning titles.”

Today, Cheserek seems tired from his hot midday workout. He slowly climbs the bleachers of Hayward’s West Grandstand and takes a seat. His long sophomore season is finally behind him, and his focus, for now, is on his summer classes. In a deep, elegantly accented voice, the business major explains why he’ll be wearing Oregon colors for two more years. “You never know when it’ll happen,” he says, “but one day I’ll have to stop running, and I’ll need a degree to survive in this life.”

The fourth of seven siblings, Cheserek is the only member of his family to leave Kenya. Back home, one older brother is an engineer, the other in the military; his older sister is a teacher, his younger siblings are finishing their educations. All of them have given running a shot, but only Cheserek displayed the kind of transcendent talent and resiliency it takes to win races in the Great Rift Valley.

“My dad was a sportsman, too,” he says. “He used to run, a long time ago. You know how people get to this point with running? I think he just had to stop. Everyone in my family tried running. My oldest brother hurt himself and had to stop. My older sister stopped running in college. I could keep going…” When asked how he deals with the pressure of staying healthy for the long haul, he laughs and says that he trusts his coaches completely.

“And how about the pressure of just being…you?”

“Sometimes I try to act like I’m not an athlete,” he says. “Like I’m not trying to win everything. That I’m just a normal person, when I’m just walking around. When I go into class I just rock my normal stuff—my jeans. Not any running shoes around. And I’m happy.”

Pressure has been there since well before Edward Cheserek landed at JFK Airport in the summer of 2010. As a freshman in high school in Kenya, the 16-year-old frequently missed classes in order to help his struggling fam- ily look after their farm. A missionary group called Stadi za Maisha identified him as a candidate for a scholar- ship to St. Benedict’s Prep in , having sponsored their first Kenyan student the previous year. For Cheserek, the demanding application process culminated in an epic 60- from his hometown of Kapker to Kapcherop High School in Elgeyo Marakwet County to make it to the screening exam on time. The roads were washed out, driving was impossible; if he hadn’t run, he might still be in Kenya.

St. Benedict’s, a boys-only Catholic school in Newark, reportedly knew nothing of Cheserek’s prowess, even though he’d won Kenyan junior national titles in the and the 5,000 and 10,000 meters the previous year and was a member the Marakwet tribe, a subset of the Kalenjin tribe, the source of arguably the greatest distance runners on the planet.

“It’s unbelievable how the Lord brought Edward to Newark,” his high school coach, Marty Hannon, says. “I have no idea, except that the Lord provides.”

A basketball powerhouse—the Cleveland Cavaliers’ J.R. Smith is the latest Gray Bee to make a name for himself in the NBA—St. Benedict’s had had limited success as a track and field program until Cheserek arrived.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 18 - October 2015 Cheserek at Foot Locker, where he won twice.PHOTO BY BRUCE WOODER/PHOTORUN

“What a lousy business model,” Hannon jokes about the school where he’s taught math for 16 years. “It costs about $20,000 to educate a kid. Tuition is $9,000 or $10,000. Of that, virtually all the kids are on some kind of financial aid. Eighty to 90 percent of the kids are African-American or Hispanic. Many of them only have one parent at home—a mother who works until eight, nine, 10 at night.” Approximately 10 percent of the student body lives in a residence hall on campus. The majority are kids who are escaping unsafe living situations in Newark, but a handful of others, like Cheserek, have crossed the globe in pursuit of an American education. For the Kenyan, who had spent the entirety of his life living in a mud hut, the change of locale was dramatic, but not uncomfortable. “It is a boarding school,” says former high school teammate Darien Edwards, who ran with Cheserek on many relays. “There are other students going through the same thing you’re going through.”

Cheserek also found much-needed support in the assistant track coach at St. Benedict’s, Chelule Ngetich, who is also Kenyan. “From the beginning,” Cheserek says, “Chelule would have me over and his family would feed me Kenyan food. We have a very close relationship.” During summer vacations, Cheserek lived with Ngetich. In return, the teenager looked after his coach’s young children, helped out with chores, and for all intents and purposes, became part of the family.

Almost immediately after arriving in the States, Cheserek suffered a stress fracture and missed the first month of his sophomore cross country season. He managed to stay healthy after that, despite a demanding race calen- dar that sometimes saw him stepping to the line four times a weekend, not to mention a training environment that offered few of the low-impact options he now has in Eugene. “The track at St. Benedict’s is 200 meters,” Cheserek says, “but it’s not shaped like a real track. It’s only three lanes. The corners are too tight. Sometimes after workouts I’d feel it in my hamstrings, in my feet.”

In 2010 and 2011, distance running fans in New Jersey were treated to a series of memorable duels between Cheserek and twins Jim and Joe Rosa, the current Stanford standouts who back then were seniors at West TAFWA Newsletter - Page 19 - October 2015 Windsor-Plainsboro High School, located in an affluent community about an hour southwest of Newark.

“It wasn’t like now, where I think he’s unbeatable,” Jim Rosa says. “I always knew when I raced him that it was going to be incredibly tough. In cross country he always used to surge up the hills. And I would hang back a little going up and then catch him going down. We’d just keep making surges back and forth the whole time. In track he would make really big moves at unexpected times. He would open up miles in times I would run for the four- by-four. It was a little demoralizing.”

Later that year, Joe Rosa squared off against Cheserek in the mile at indoor nationals, when they were both an- choring their respective DMR teams. “I got the baton like 10 seconds before him,” Rosa recalls, “and we were out pretty quickly, and all of a sudden we hear the announcer saying that Edward Cheserek is right on our heels. It was a testament to how competitive he was, that he could catch up to some of the better runners in the country like that. But of course he had gone out way too hard, and we dropped him on the last lap.”

High school teammate Edwards—who once got into a tiff with Cheserek for telling him “not to run crazy” before a big race—marvels at how patient and under control his former training partner has become at Oregon.

“That was one of the biggest things we wanted to change for him,” he says. “Edward finally understands what his strengths are. I love watching him.”

“If you read some websites now,” Jim Rosa says, “it’s like, ‘Ches is bad for the sport, he just sits and kicks.’ I get mad when I read that. The kind of guy he is, he’s trying to maximize points for the team. I don’t think people understand just how team-focused he is.”

Not surprisingly, his coaches describe him as the ideal athlete—humble, yet fiercely dedicated to his teammates. “Every year,” Hannon says, “he chose to run the DMR at Penn Relays, to give his teammates a shot at winning. He never won an individual race at the Penn Relays. That’s how much grace and unselfishness he had.” St. Bene- dict’s won many titles with Cheserek anchoring; his coach considers him the best high school runner ever.

“No ego,” adds Oregon head coach Robert Johnson. “He’s always so willing to help.”

For all their praise, one quickly sees where the coaches diverge: Johnson has mentored more than his fair share of world-class talent at Oregon, whereas Hannon appreciates the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity Cheserek of- fered him. “You could argue that he is the best high school distance runner ever,” he says. “In 16 years of coach- ing, I’ve never seen anyone that could compare.”

Hannon’s enthusiasm seems excessive with Cheserek’s high school PRs. After all, Cheserek didn’t break 4:00 in the mile, and a sub-14:00 5,000 meters just doesn’t have the same cache. But if you consider the young runner’s zeal for competition, as evidenced by his simply unheard-of splits in relays (more than once, he opened the mile of a DMR with a 54-second quarter, bringing his team from way back into immediate contention) and the qual- ity of his two victories at Foot Locker, the best ever assertion begins to look more reasonable. Few were pre- pared, however, for just how dominant he has been over his first two years at Oregon. With eight national titles and counting, there is a growing air of inevitability around Cheserek. The tag of best ever seems likely to follow him until he makes his professional debut in 2017 and tests himself in a world-class field.

If that debut looks anything like his freshman year at Oregon, nobody should bet against the diminutive Duck. For those with short memories, think back to the lead-up to Cheserek’s first NCAA cross-country title, when the 5-foot-6 freshman scored a massive upset over Texas Tech’s Kennedy Kithuka, who is five years older. Slowed by mud and wind, Cheserek lost ground to Kithuka from about 5k to 7k and thought the race was lost. Then, buoyed by an unexpected tailwind, he pounced and defeated the older runner by 18 seconds, joining Bob Ken- nedy as the only teens to win the title in their first NCAA cross country championship races.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 20 - October 2015 PHOTO BY BRUCE WOODER/PHOTORUN

The signs were there from early in the 2013 cross-country season, but it took a while for his teammates to buy into the hype. “I didn’t think he was all that good,” Stinson confesses. Stinson was expecting to be the No. 1 guy on Oregon’s cross country team in 2013. “I was coming off the best summer training of my life,” he remembers. “In the first tempo workout that we did, I had to go five miles, which was one more than the rest of the team. And on the fourth mile, Edward gets to the front, and I didn’t know it at the time, that this was his move—he starts doing the thing.”

The thing is Cheserek’s only visible flaw as a runner: that moment at the end of a hard race when his form falls apart and his arms begin to do an increasingly wild shimmy. It happened most memorably when Arizona’s Lawi Lalang narrowly outkicked him in the NCAA outdoor 5,000 meters last year on his way to breaking a 35-year- old meet record.

“The paddles are coming out,” says Eric Jenkins, the two-time NCAA champion who recently signed with Nike. “That’s what we call it—because it looks like he’s swimming.”

“People have different forms when they’re running all out,” Cheserek says, without embarrassment. “We’re working on fixing it. It’s getting better, but if it works, it works.”

“So anyway,” Stinson says, “Ed was still a little overweight from the summer, and I had another mile to go, and I’d led this whole workout for him, and we’re on, like, Amazon Trail, and he’s running probably a 52-second quarter. And he’s like, looking back to see where I am. And I’m like, What an a--hole. I try to go with him and I can’t catch him. And this is a freaking tempo, and I have to keep going. After the workout, back at Bowerman, he goes, ‘What’s up, Bro? You die?’ And right then and there I was like, I don’t think I like this guy at all.”

Now only 122 pounds—8 pounds lighter than his racing weight at St. Benedict’s—Cheserek tells the story of his TAFWA Newsletter - Page 21 - October 2015 The Ducks celebrated the first of back-to-back indoor team titles in 2014.PHOTO BY KIRBY LEE/IMAGE OF SPORT first college cross-country season a little differently. “When I came to Oregon,” he says, “I tried not to put pres- sure on myself. ‘I’m still a freshman,’ I would remind myself. ‘I’m still learning how to race. Just listen to what Coach Powell has to say.’ He would hold me back in the workouts and tell me, ‘Never lead the workout, never lead the race.’”

“Later that season,” Stinson continues, “I remember this one workout in particular, mile repeats, which Edward closed in something like a 4:18 mile. I knew how good that really was, and I never talk to Coach Powell about stuff like this, but when I was cooling down, I went over to him and was just like, ‘Man, I don’t understand how I’m supposed to be able to do these things that I want to do, but I can’t even keep up with Edward.’”

Stinson, who notched his first sub-28:00 10,000 meters this spring and now runs for Saucony, attempts to ex- plain why this one workout changed so much for him.

“It was one of the very few times in my career I was humbled,” he says. “I usually have some sort of rational- ization in my head for why something didn’t work out. But seeing Edward do that, and knowing I was in good shape and that I should be happy with how I was running, I just had to talk to Coach Powell about it. And he told me right then and there, ‘I thought Edward was gonna be pretty good, but I think he’s gonna be better than Lawi Lalang. You can’t worry about him, Parker.’”

Jenkins, whose surprising victory over Cheserek in the 3,000 meters at indoor NCAAs this past March led to more questions than it answered, is a little more guarded when he speaks about the dynamic between the two of them. “It’s interesting, both good and bad,” he says, “knowing that the toughest guy to beat in the country is your training partner.”

“When Edward got here,” Stinson remembers, “he was just so quiet. So quiet. Eventually, once he started to

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 22 - October 2015 relax, he was just one of the funniest guys you could imagine. You can’t see it in his interviews. But when he’s around us—I don’t know how to explain it. He’s a jokester. Over time I realized that I really liked him. And was surprised I did. But man, that first title…” Stinson shakes his head and laughs, “People are so quick to forget, with all this stuff about how all Edward does is sit and kick, what that cross-country race was like against Ken- nedy. He got broken, he was gone, but all of a sudden he was back up there. He’s just a champion.”

Lazy reporters have persistently—and incorrectly—labeled Cheserek an “orphan.” When given the opportunity to set the record straight, he explains: “There was a kid at St. Benedict’s a year ahead of me, and he was from an orphanage. Eventually he went back to Kenya and didn’t come back to the States. But people misunderstood and got the two of us confused. Every time I see something in print about how I’m supposedly an orphan, I’m like, Who wrote this bulls---? It’s bothered me a lot. That’s why I don’t like to do interviews.”

In America, where the track and field media have long struggled with how to handle East Africa’s dominance of distance running, it’s more than a little troubling that the narrative so many have settled on for Cheserek is the simplest possible cliche: one more African kid who had “absolutely nothing” when he materialized in New Jersey.

“I get the sense that he was actually kind of rich in Kenya,” Stinson says. “Not in terms of money, but in terms of family. On the road, every time we’ve roomed together, he’s always on Skype talking to them about his races and school.”

As to why Cheserek has never corrected any of these journalists, consider the atmosphere he was thrust into just months after landing at JFK in 2010. “He was like a rockstar,” Hannon says.

“At meets in high school,” Jim Rosa says, “I remember kids going up to him, wanting pictures and autographs. And reporters trying to get close to him. That’s got to be so weird—you’ve just arrived in this country and you’re getting all this attention. I think about what that would be like—if someone were interviewing me in Spanish, how scared I’d be of saying something wrong.”

As soon as he began to make a name for himself, accusations about age cheating that plague any prep phenom from Kenya began to fly. On the LetsRun.com message board, there is an “OFFICAL [sic] Edward Cheserek Age Guessing Thread.” Another thread from 2011 asks, “What is the real Edward Cheserek story?” and goes on to state:

He was supposed to be an orphan—then he posts on his Facebook page asking for prayers for his sick father. Again supposed to be an orphan and this month he posts that he is headed back to Kenya to see his family... How does an orphan from Kenya just show up at the doorstep of a school in NJ anyway? Also if so much of his story is questionable have to start to question his age.

Every step of the way, rumor-mongers have ignored his youthful appearance, birth certificate, and other basic biographical facts in an effort to discredit his accomplishments. Cheserek’s anger at having been the target of so much uninformed racism is understandable, especially when he talks about his father.

“My dad was a huge influence,” he says about the cattle and sheep farmer who raised him. “After I won a couple races in eighth grade, when I was still totally new to running and still thought of myself as a soccer player, he was like, ‘Edward, I think we should send you to a training camp.’ Like a weeklong summer camp. I had been getting lazy about running that summer, because helping my family was too much work—so when I got to the camp, I was like, ‘Just do this.’

“That next year, freshman year of high school, I ran like 31 minutes for the 10K, maybe 14:30 for the 5K, 9:09 for the steeple. I was 15 years old. Suddenly there was this opportunity to go to St. Benedict’s and make it in the U.S. It all happened so fast. When my dad was getting sick, I tried to let him know what kind of times I was run-

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 23 - October 2015 ning over here in high school. I wanted him to know I had a future. I knew it then, that I could really do this.” Cheserek has only gone back to Kenya twice. The first visit was after his father, 61, passed away after a brief ill- ness in the summer of 2011, when Cheserek was about to enter his junior year of high school.

“It was so hard to make myself return to the States that first time,” he says. “I remember talking to my older brother about it, and he was like, ‘This is how life is. Finish your school. Take care of your future.’ I was there for only three days.”

When asked if there is anyone in Eugene who offers him a connection to Kenya, Cheserek shakes his head and sighs at the question. “Man,” he says, “I’ve gotten used to America, so I don’t have to worry any more about adjusting. I have my coaches, I have my teammates—we all just hang out.”

The message is clear, and a good reminder of what it feels like to be 21 years old and at ease on a college campus: I can take care of myself, thank you very much.

“When the time comes for me to turn professional,” he says, “I’d like to use the money to go and visit my family. But I would like to run for the United States.”

“Two years ago,” Johnson says, “Everyone was asking, ‘Who’s gonna be here to run with Mac Fleet?’ And now they’re asking the same thing about Edward. I’ll admit he makes it harder than most. But we look at it as just another incentive to recruit hard.”

Oregon has long been on Cheserek’s radar. He first caught wind of the Hayward Field mythology when one of his neighbors in Kenya—who happened to be a professional runner—told him he had been invited to race in Eugene. “I was like, ‘What the heck is Eugene?’” Cheserek recalls. “And he told me, ‘It’s the best place to run in the United States.’”

As the top recruit in the country, he entertained the possibility of going elsewhere, but in reality, it didn’t take him long to start wearing his future colors. “At NXN in 2010, we showed him around,” Joe Rosa says. “It was fun for us—we had been there before—but he was in awe of all the cool stuff. Everything was so new for him. The meet is in Portland, of course, and at some point Edward bought a hat—an Oregon hat—and me and Jim were like, “Aww, man, you gotta come to Stanford. Edward, you’re just wearing that hat for now, right? That’s not a permanent thing?”

Turns out it was, and five years later, looking down at the track that holds so many stories, Cheserek doesn’t hesitate to share his goals for the next two years and beyond: “I want my name to be up there with Prefontaine, Salazar—one of those famous names to come through this program.”

Some observers are puzzled as to why he wouldn’t turn pro now and take guaranteed money instead of risking injury or an unexpected fall from the NCAA mountaintop. “If you look at pro golf,” Johnson counters, “players often turn pro when they’re very young. Some are successful, others not so much. People who are successful go to college. Look at Jordan Spieth. Tiger Woods. They learned how to win at all levels.”

This kind of collegiate dominance brings to mind another fan favorite at Hayward Field: Nick Symmonds, who owned Division III track for four years while competing for Willamette University. There can be a real value in getting a feel for the finish line, as evidenced by Symmonds’s six national titles in the 800 meters.

Cheserek’s newfound patience on the track has also informed the way he looks at his upcoming career. “Bernard Lagat is 40 years old,” he points out, “and he still runs really, really fast. Look at Galen, and Mo—who’s 32, but still running so fast. I want to set my career up like those guys. The style of the races that they win, it’s basically what I’ve been doing here at Oregon.”

Having begun the arduous, uncertain process of gaining U.S. citizenship, he dreams of being able to compete for TAFWA Newsletter - Page 24 - October 2015 Parker Stinson (right) was expecting to be the top Oregon distance runner in 2013. Then Cheserek arrived.PHOTO BY KIRBY LEE/IMAGE OF SPORT the U.S. Olympic team next summer but knows there are no guarantees. “If not,” he says, “I’ll probably just focus on school instead of trying to make the team for Kenya next year.”

After all, he’ll be 26 years old in 2020, and 30 in 2024, which means he’ll have two Olympic cycles in his prime. And so, for the time being, he will tackle an even unlikelier accomplishment than winning a gold medal: winning the cross-country team title at Oregon. It’s the only NCAA title—team or individual—that continues to elude him and his coaches. With the powerhouse squads of Colorado and Stanford in the way, this is, perhaps, the last chance to call Cheserek an underdog.

“A sport is a challenge,” he says. “We have to challenge each other. When we get back together as a team, we’ll figure out how good we are. And then we’ll try and do something special.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 25 - October 2015 http://www.iaaf.org/news/ feature/beijing-2015-el-sayed- javelin

16 SEP 2015 FEATURE BEIJING, CHINA IHAB ABDELRAHMAN EL SAYED, ALMOST THE PHARAOH OF THROWING

Mike Rowbottom for the IAAF

When athletes mention disruptions to their preparations coming into a major championship, they are usually speak- ing about injuries, or viruses, or even what’s usually known as ‘niggles’. The common dominator is, it’s all about them.

However, after earning Egypt’s first ever medal at an IAAF World Champi- onships, Ihab Abdelrahman El Sayed revealed that something outside the self-obsessed, hermetically sealed world of the elite athlete had hindered his planning and training for Beijing: looking after his unwell mother.

“It was very difficult for me this year because my mother had back problems and could not even walk,” said El Sayed. “I was driving three hours every day to and back to help her.

“I did not eat, did not sleep properly. That is why I didn’t do well at some competitions before. But now she should be OK and is starting to walk again. This medal will be a motivation and a gift for her.”

El Sayed’s mighty second-round throw of 88.99m in Beijing would have been enough for gold at the past two World Championships in or .

Until his training partner – or at times his virtual Kenyan training partner as both liaise with their Finnish coach Petten Piironen via email and social media for much of the year – produced his monster effort of 92.72m, an African record, it was starting to look as if the Egyptian was heading for the top of the podium.

Piironen, a former 76-metre javelin thrower who is based at the IAAF Accredited Training Centre, the Kuortane Sports Institute in the west of Finland, first became involved with El Sayed seven years ago after the Egyptian had sought advice over improving his technique.

Clumsy but gifted The Finn recalls how El Sayed’s first visit to Kuortane during the winter of 2008, set to be for three months, became just three weeks as the Egyptian struggled with the chilly climate and a lack of English.

Another six-week visit took place the following year, but by then coach and pupil – the latter committed to liv- ing in Egypt because of his studies – had established regular contact via Facebook and were able to discuss the detailed technical improvements Piironen felt were necessary to make the most of a mighty natural talent. “At the time, his only real training was lifting weights, he didn’t really have any technical help,” recalled Pi-

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 26 - October 2015 ironen.

“He was quite strong, but quite clumsy. I gave him some programmes to improve his physical properties when he went back to Cairo. He had very bad legs for running and jumping.”

“He could be a 90-metre thrower with the help of better coaching,” added Piironen, prior to the championships. “His throwing arm is one of the best I’ve ever seen. He is big and strong and has a natural gift for throwing. He can run faster, get strong and bigger.”

This prediction all but came true at last year’s IAAF Diamond League meeting in Shanghai, where El Sayed stunned onlookers and won with what was then an African record of 89.21m. Behind that achievement was the increased financial support which El Sayed received following his efforts at the 2013 IAAF World Champion- ships, where he finished seventh following a national record of 83.62m in the qualifying round. This enabled him to return for another training trip to Kuortane and go on a training camp in South Africa.

Going crazy in China His efforts in the Bird’s Nest more than underlined the fact that the Shanghai performance was not a one-off, and showed that El Sayed seems to be quite at home in China.

El Sayed can approach next year’s Rio 2016 Olympics with the confidence of being a world medallist who has now proved a consistent operator at the highest levels.

“I’m crazy happy because I won the first medal ever for my country,” said a delighted El Sayed in Beijing. “I can’t speak. I feel like I dream now.”

Happily, despite the excited rhetoric, the Egyptian did find some subsequent words to describe the competition he had helped to shape.

“This final was exciting and tough. I am glad to throw in this competition and to be a part of it. It is wonderful to win this first medal for my country because I love my fellow countrymen and I love my family.

“I have to say a big thank you to my coach. He is my big brother, my friend, always supporting me.”

Asked to reflect on the journey he had taken to reach the World Championships podium, El Sayed responded: “There was no athletics in my country, only football. The teacher in school said I can try some sports and I tried and I threw 51 metres in the first competition, and I won.

“I’m happy for that now. Now in Egypt there are many people training in athletics. And I hope many more Egyp- tians will do good things in track and field soon.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 27 - October 2015 http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/arts- culture/item/86865-artist-sees-through-the- openings-to-create-an-autumn-almanac OCTOBER 3, 2015 THE ARTFUL BLOGGER

Artist finds inspiration from The Kinks’ song ‘Autumn Almanac’

Although there are only seven paintings in Eva Mantell’s ex- hibit at the Nassau in Princeton (on view through Nov. 1), each engages the viewer in a way that sustains attention for a long time.

Many of these “paintings” are made from colorful magazine pages, cut out in lacy patterns and then put back together in a way in which the original pages are unrecognizable. Mantell uses materials as if it were her paint: in the background, in the foreground, with textures of dreams in the layers.

One piece, titled “The Dew Soaked Hedge,” a meditation in blues and greens, suggests an underwater world in which something like red crustacean surfaces. The title of the work relates to the exhibit title, Autumn Almanac – which comes from the song written in 1967 by Ray Davies of the Kinks, a pop classic that has been compared to the poetry of William Wordsworth. Its first line is “From the dew-soaked hedge creeps a crawly caterpil- lar.” Davies wrote how the song was inspired by a hunch-backed gardener in his North London neighborhood, a neighborhood he doesn’t want to leave: “...I’m always gonna stay here/ If I live to be ninety-nine,/ Cause all the people I meet/ Seem to come from my street/ And I can’t get away/ Because it’s calling me (come on home). Mantell compares the song to something grabbed out of thin air, with a “structure so simple yet so sturdy that any part of it can stand in for any other part. Lyrics can join the melody or fall away into la-la-la’s leaving nothing more (yet nothing less) than a delicate pattern of repeated connections.”

The song is like a leaf, she said, or the remains of one she found in the woods this past summer, an “airy struc-

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 28 - October 2015 ture composed of tiny interconnected veins” with a lacy network, a delicate complexity, a scaffolding. “It’s the blueprint for a system that we can’t live without, and yet it’s all very casual, discarded, blown around by the wind. Nature makes it look so easy.”

Both Mantell and Davies know it’s not so easy. “Ray Davies is mapping aspects of memory, of context and of emotion so you can find them again,” said Mantell. “He’s sharing how you might value your own memories and emotions.”

Thoughts of neighborhood, patterns of repeated connections, memory and emotion – surely there’s a lacy net- work of these running through Mantell’s mind.

The exhibit is dedicated to the memory of her husband, Merrell Noden, who lost his battle with cancer in May at the age of 59. Yet Mantell forged ahead in life, organizing exhibits of the artwork produced by children who face homelessness, a cause so close to her heart that she created the Merrell Noden Fund for HomeFront.

“It’s more than hard for me to put anything in words about losing the man I built a life with over 31 years,” she wrote on Facebook in June, when she received an outpouring of support on the social network. “Husband and father of our children. I met Merrell when I was 20 years old, and I had a vision flash before my eyes of a future with him and two children, a girl and a boy. (Never mind that I wanted to name them Jagger and Hendrix.) It seemed too much to ask for but it came true.” Noden (1955-2015), a Princeton University alum with all-Ameri- can good looks, was an athlete and a writer for Sports Illustrated magazine.

The paintings in Autumn Almanac were completed in 2013 and 2015 – years Mantell was by her husband’s side through his decline from running into using a wheelchair and then a hospital bed. “Art happens while you are busy making plans,” she wrote on her blog a year ago. “Doing so much driving recently I decided to bring my art with me and when I am waiting to pick up my husband, our son or our daughter, I try to get some work done. Tearing, folding, mirroring pages of magazines. I keep the pages ready to go and work on them throughout the day.”

Starting with magazine pages, photos, text and advertising, “I tear and fold until I have a mirrored, fabric-like material,” she says of her process. “I am thinking about the physicality of reading, rereading, memory, erasure, uncovering and revealing new forms. I’m attuned to an annual edition of leaves that fall from the trees. If the leaves stay on wooded paths, by spring they may be on their way to becoming lace. New patterns and structures open up to hint at what movement and life is stirring in next year’s leaves.”

Mantell was born in Princeton and continues to make it her home. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in fine art from the School of Visual Arts in New York, and along the way has exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, ICA and through various dance theater workshops and festivals throughout the world. As Outreach Program Manager for the Arts Council of Princeton, she said “There are kids who have disadvantages and need artwork to be in control, to make decisions about something that’s totally theirs.”

She works with people with memory loss, caregivers and at-risk youth, enriching their lives through the process of art making, frequently leading programs for the Society for Arts and Healthcare, the National Center for Cre- ative Aging, and other organizations that help people with disabilities.

“As an art teacher I always say to students, ‘Use your mistakes. They can be more interesting than what you were trying so hard to control.” ______The Artful Blogger is written by Ilene Dube and offers a look inside the art world of the greater Princeton area. Ilene Dube is an award-winning arts writer and editor, as well as an artist, curator and activist for the arts.

Note: More paintings can be found at: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/arts-culture/item/86865-artist-sees-through-the-openings-to- create-an-autumn-almanac

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 29 - October 2015 http://www.us- atf.org/News/ Junior-men- s-Mountain- Running-Team- ends-medal- drou.aspx U.S. Mountain Running Teams medal in Wales Alaska’s Allie Ostrander Takes First World Championship of the Day 9/21/2015

Photo courtesy of www.wmra.info

BETWS-Y-COED, WALES -- Team USA’s junior men struck double silver at the 31st World Mountain Running Championships, earning the first-ever junior men’s medals at the event on Saturday, September 19 in Betws-y-Coed, Wales.

Team USA started the junior mountain running program in 2002 and has realized junior women’s gold, silver, and bronze medals over the past decade in both indi- vidual and team categories. However, the best finish for the men was a team fourth and several individual top-10 finishes.

Alaska’s Levi Thomet (Eugene, Oregon) finished second, ending the U.S. junior men’s drought with a gritty performance over the 8.9-kilometer course, comprised of two loops, boasting 239 meters of elevation gain per loop.

After the first loop, Thomet was chasing early men’s leader Ferhat Bozkurt (Tur- key) with the pair well ahead of the field of 63 international competitors. The two held their positions to the finish withBoz- kurt extending the gap to win in 33:56, followed by Thomet in 35:50. Mustafa Goksel(Turkey) finished three seconds later in 33:53.

In the team competition, Turkey had a near-perfect score of nine points to take gold among the 14 teams. With two top-10 performances by Thomet (and ninth-place finisher Ben Butler (Highlands Ranch, Colorado), who ran 36:49, Team USA nabbed silver with a score of 28. Tayte Polmann(Sandy, Utah), who passed six athletes on the descent, finished 17th in a time of 37:46 as the final scoring member and Connor Wilson finished 46th in 41:52. Home country Great Britain raced to bronze with a score of 30.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 30 - October 2015 The 4.7-kilometer junior women’s race preceded the junior men’s race, and Team USA realized a gold medal by Alaska’s Allie Ostrander, the first world champion of the day. The petite 18-year-old, with a bright and engag- ing smile and personality, bested the field by 38 seconds to take the win in 19:44. Second across the line was Michaela Stranska (Czech Republic), in 20:23. Rounding out the top three was youth challenge champion from 2013, Elsa Racasan (France) in 20:31. Racasan is currently a student at Rice University in Texas.

The top-two finishers score for the team with up to three racing. The final scoring member for Team USA was Lily Tomasula Martin (Allenspark, Colorado) in 30 position timed in 22:49. Katie Bowe(Midlothian, Virginia) finished 38th in 24:29. The Czech Republic took the team gold medal among the 16 teams junior women’s teams.

Switching gears to the senior competition, Team USA again made the podium with a silver medal, led by sixth- place finisher Kimber Mattox (Eugene, Oregon), who raced the 8.9-kilometer course in 39:31. Not even one sec- ond separated the next two U.S. finishers, Kasie Enman (Huntington, Vermont) and Morgan Arritola (Ketchum, Idaho), who finished in tenth and eleventh respectively in 40:11. Not far back, was Allison Grace-Morgan (Bend, Oregon) in 18th with a time of 40:59. For the first time, all four U.S. women finished in the top 20, as the group combined for the first team silver. The U.S. women previously won gold in 2006, 2007, and 2012, and bronze in 2004, 2009, and 2013.

Great Britain took the elite women’s team gold with 9 points and Uganda earned bronze with 28 points, just one point behind Team USA. There were 14 teams.

Sunshine, ever-present throughout the day, continued through the senior men’s race, which was the final event of the championships. The men’s course was, “deceptively difficult,” according to U.S. team member Josh Eberly (Gunnison, Colorado). “It was a combination of everything, the grueling climb, the slickness of the rocks, the shoe-sucking mud, the long descent. It was a tough course.”

The course consisted of 13 km, requiring three loops, which meant three long climbs and three long descents. The course required strength, endurance, speed, and focus. The first runner to the line wasFred Musobo (Ugan- da) in 49:00, followed by Bernard Dematteis (Italy) in 49:42. Rounding out the top three was Robbie Simpson (Great Britain) in 50:31.

With an outstanding fifth-place performance, and first finisher for Team USA, was Joseph Gray(Colorado Springs, Colorado) with a time of 51:16. Second for Team USA was fellow Coloradoan Andy Wacker (Boulder, Colorado) in 13th position timed in 52:25, followed by Ryan Bak (Bend, Oregon) in 22nd with a time of 53:30. The final scoring member was John Patrick Donovan (Incline Village, Nevada) in 37th place timed in 54:44.

Also for Team USA, Eberly in 45th place timed in 55:29, and Andrew Benford (Flagstaff, Arizona) in 50th place with a time of 56:00.

With 25 points, team gold was awarded to Italy. Uganda finished in silver-medal position with 38 points, fol- lowed by Great Britain for the bronze with 46 points. There were 19 full teams in the senior men’s division.

Thirty-three countries participated in the championships. Bulgaria will host the 32nd World Mountain Running Championships on an uphill-only course slated for Sunday, September 4, 2016.

For complete results visit www.wmra.info.

-- Contributed by Nancy Hobbs

Christa Mann Marketing & Communications Manager USA Track & Field 317.713.4672

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 31 - October 2015 http://www.southbendtribune.com/sports/high_school/michigan-city-s-scherf-is-quite-a-special-guy/ article_0c5c6842-c201-51d2-a459-b18402858489.html Michigan City’s Scherf is quite a special guy

Posted: Thursday, September 17, 2015 8:00 am | Updated: 12:24 pm, Thu Sep 17, 2015. |By AL LESAR South Bend Tribune

MICHIGAN CITY – All Noah Scherf wants out of his high school life is to fit in.

Michigan City High School cross country runner Noah Scherf on the track on Monday in Michigan City. SBTPhoto/ROBERT FRANKLIN

Trouble is, he’s such an extraordinary young man, attention always seems to find the junior at Michigan City High.

It’s something he never saw coming.

Of course, there really isn’t much at all that the No. 4 runner on Michigan City’s cross country team can’t handle.

And that’s just one of the things that makes Scherf special.

Blind luck Through all 17 years of his life, Scherf has had a vision problem.

His left eye – the “good” eye – allows him a very limited view of the world around him, though he’s considered legally blind. He can read large-print books. He can see the white lines of a running track. While swimming, Scherf can see the lines at the bottom of the pool. Television is a possibility, though he must sit close. The right eye? Not much at all.

“It could always be worse,” said Scherf, shortly after a strenuous cross country workout on the track, followed by a solo three-mile cool down on the roads. “This is all I’ve known in my life. This is my normal.”

Funny, that’s exactly what Wolf Pack coach Mike Liss said Scherf would say. In fact, Scherf had to be coaxed to even discuss his situation publicly. Being a contributing component to a team is his primary objective.

On fire At 5-foot-10, and a string-beany 125 pounds, Scherf hardly looks the part of a competitive athlete. But, some- where down deep, there’s a fire burning. It ignited last year when he started his sophomore year by playing receiver for Michigan City’s JV football team.

“Football was always my favorite game,” said Scherf, who has a 3.7 GPA and would like to teach either German or Japanese, and be an athletic trainer, when schooling is done. “I figured that high school would be the only time in my life I’d have a chance to play, so I gave it a shot. I took some pretty big hits, but I loved it.”

Swimming and track were other staples. Besides competing on the high school level, Scherf is also working to

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 32 - October 2015 establish himself on the Paralympic circuit. Just recently, he was named an All-American for his performance on the track in the 1,500 meters. He finished third in the national final in June in St. Paul, Minn., in the level for athletes with limited vision, compared to those with none.

“I’m inspired by so many of the athletes in the Paralympics,” Scherf said. “I got to know a guy who had his leg blown off by an IED. That made me realize how lucky I was.”

Don’t stop But, cross country? In swimming and track the surface is constant and predictable. Cross country takes in any- thing and everything.

“At Kankakee Valley a couple weeks ago, there was a log over the trail,’’ Liss said. “I asked (Scherf), ‘What hap- pens when you fall?’ He said, ‘I’ll get up and keep running.’”

OK, that’s the answer Liss wanted.

Last spring, after the track season ended, several of the distance runners convinced Scherf to come out for cross country. Liss planned to start him out with the “intermediate” runners’ training schedule, but Scherf would have none of that. The competitive juices that fuel his approach to life every day wouldn’t settle for anything less than “advanced.”

“We don’t look at Noah any differently than anyone else,” said Wolf Pack senior Hunter Clouse. “He’s a good run- ner. We’ve all been impressed with how well he’s done.”

Some way, somehow – like he has in so many other areas in his life – Scherf has learned how to adapt. He hasn’t fallen yet. He clocked his best time of season – 17 minutes, 24 seconds for 3.1 miles – in the mud last Saturday at Lowell. Scherf is a solid No. 4 on the Michigan City team, nipping at the heels of No. 3. “That was awful,” he said of the plodding through the mud, shaking his head. Then, he smiled, “Until I saw my time. Good thing for spikes. Cross country takes so much mental toughness. I’m a two-miler in track, but beyond that, it gets tough. I don’t worry about catching guys ahead of me. If I run a good time, I’ll catch them.”

No limits Before a race, Scherf and a teammate or two will take a tour of the course, noting any significant hazards or areas of troublesome footing. Scherf has developed his own way to handle the changes in topography and land- scape that are normal in cross country.

“Before we go into the woods, I’ll pass one or two guys, then (visually) latch onto someone,” Scherf said. “I’ll be a couple feet behind. I’ll concentrate on head level. That way, I can tell when there’s a drop or some other kind of change.”

There are special cases when a runner can be tethered to a teammate. Scherf would have none of that. Again, it would cause him to bring attention to himself. Remember, all he wants to do is fit in.

“I can’t empathize with Noah, because I’m not blind,” Liss said. “I can’t speak that language. I just asked him to be patient with me while I learn about him. The thing is, he doesn’t put any limitations on himself. So, I don’t either.”

Liss thought back a couple weeks to the post-race awards ceremony for the Manchester Invitational. Bad weath- er moved the festivities into the gym. Scherf had placed 19th in the race, and the top 30 were given awards. When Scherf’s name was called, the crowd was stunned. “Noah walked out to get his award with sunglasses and cane,” Liss said. “The crowd was amazed. It nearly brought tears to my eyes.”

Hard for a guy like that to just fit in. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 33 - October 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrtfimknqug

Published on Sep 17, 2015 Instead of focusing this video on how rude the Lufthansa employee working at the checkin desk was (and at the boarding gate) I have decided to focus on the important thing: getting my pole vaulting poles back home! (And Mary Saxer’s poles!) Lufthansa, please make this right we need our poles and they are worth thousands!

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 34 - October 2015 http://www.und.com/sports/c-track/spec-rel/091715aaa.html

Sept. 17, 2015 | -- by John Heisler, senior associate athletics director

NOTRE DAME, Ind. - University of Notre Dame alumnus Robert H. Harris and his wife, Mary Ellen, have made a $5.5 million gift to his alma mater to underwrite the construction of a stadium for the Fighting Irish track and field teams.

The Harris Family Track and Field Stadium will be built on the west side of the nine-lane outdoor track and field facility in the southeast corner of the Notre Dame campus.

This gift, coupled with their previous donation in 2008 toward the completion of the track, will have a lasting impact on the transformation of the track and field program, said Jack Swarbrick, Notre Dame vice president and director of athletics.

“We are grateful to Bob and Mary Ellen Harris for this generous gift that will enable us to make a major ad- vancement in facilities for Notre Dame student-athletes in track and field,” said Swarbrick. “The creation of locker rooms and other team space surrounding the outdoor track will provide a first-class home for our men’s and women’s squads.

“In addition, we hope the future improvements to this facility will make it another wonderful resource for the greater South Bend community, much as the Compton Family Ice Arena has become.”

The new building will house a number of team support areas, including student-athlete and coach locker rooms, team meeting and event operations space, a nutrition station, and a satellite athletic training area. Construction is expected to begin by the end the year.

“This is going to help our program immensely,” said Alan Turner, the Irish track and field head coach. “For so many years, we haven’t had any outdoor meets and we really don’t have great space for locker rooms and team meeting areas, so just having added space and a place to call our own is going to make a world of difference for our program.”

Harris earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Notre Dame and a doctorate in biochemistry from Rut- gers University and is the president and chief executive officer of Harris FRC Corp., a New Jersey-based firm that offers strategic expertise on projects involving the development of drugs, biologics, medical devices, dietary supplements and cosmetics.

Harris’ experience in research, development, safety testing, evaluation, and regulatory affairs in the industry and academia as well with federal agencies, has aided numerous clients in bringing new products to market while preserving the status of existing products. Prior to Harris FRC, he worked as a research scientist at Warner Lambert and as director of preclinical sciences and executive director of regulatory affairs and product TAFWA Newsletter - Page 35 - October 2015 development at American Home Products. While in the latter position, he was actively involved in the approval of five new drug applications and the switch of Advil to over-the-counter status.

In addition, Harris has held positions with the Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes for Health, and the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown Medical Center. He is the recipient of the Young Investigator Award from the American Heart Association and serves on the College of Science Advisory Council at Notre Dame.

“Mary Ellen and I are humbled to have the opportunity to offer this transformational gift to the University of Notre Dame and the track and field program” said Bob Harris “We are truly excited about the life long impact this gift will make on the lives of the track and field student-athletes and coaches and on the South Bend com- munity.

Bob and Mary Ellen are actively involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors that touch the lives of those less fortunate. The Harrises are members of Notre Dame’s President’s Circle, Sorin Society and Rockne Heritage Fund. They are the parents of five children and reside in Holmdel, New Jersey.

The track and field program at Notre Dame was established in 1921 and through its 94-year history has fielded consistently outstanding men’s and women’s teams. Dozens of track and field student-athletes have earned All- America honors and 18 have won NCAA titles.

In addition to the stadium structure, other improvements, pending additional funding, include permanent spec- tator seating/amenities for approximately 1,500 fans, equipment storage, lighting and a scoreboard.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 36 - October 2015 http://www.ucdavisaggies.com/sports/c-track/spec-rel/092115aaa.html

Sumpter, 25, inspired entire running community

Sept. 21, 2015 UPDATE 9/22: Services have been set for 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26 at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Asti (26300 Asti Road, Cloverdale, Calif.).

Sarah Sumpter, a 2012 All-American and two-sport Big West Conference Athlete of the Year at UC Davis, passed away Monday morning after a five-year battle with cancer. She was 25. Sumpter had inspired the entire distance-running community when she set school records and garnered numerous track & field and cross country awards after a diagnosis of a brain tumor sidelined her for the 2010-11 school year.

Two-sport Big West Conference Athlete of the Year recovered from 2010 cancer diagnosis Sarah Sumpter came back from a 2010 cancer diagnosis to compile a stellar Aggie career in track & field and cross country. (Mark Honbo, Athletics Communications)

Known to her friends and teammates as “Stump,” Sumpter arrived at UC Davis in the fall of 2008, carrying with her the same promise and potential of an athletics department that only one year earlier had become an official member of NCAA Division I.

A state-champion cross country runner and Foot Locker All-American from Healdsburg High School, she was expected to be the next premier Aggie distance runner, quite literally following in the footsteps of another Red- wood Empire alum-turned-Aggie standout, Kim Conley. Sumpter redshirted the 2008 cross country season but offered a glimpse of her running talent with a solid fourth-place finish at the Big West Conference track & field championships the following spring.

In the fall of 2009, her redshirt freshman cross country season, Sumpter continued to rise up to her billing: she finished third in her first collegiate race at Sacramento State, and crossed as the Aggies’ top finisher at the Stanford Invitational and Indiana State Pre- National meets. Sumpter went on to capture the Big West Conference championship in only the program’s second year of member- ship, added a Big West Women’s Athlete of the Year nod, then placed 22nd at the NCAA West Regional.

Drew Wartenburg served as both an as- sistant and head coach for the Aggie cross country and track programs from 2009 through 2014. He recalls joking with his student-athlete that she didn’t need him as a coach, as Sumpter was her own harshest critic. “She was as demanding of herself as anyone,” said Wartenburg, who now heads TAFWA Newsletter - Page 37 - October 2015 the NorCal Distance Project. “It was what made her so gratifying and sometimes so frustrating as a coach, but at the same time, you can’t ask for more from an athlete.”

Sumpter’s star continued to rise in the spring of 2010, with an all-conference finish in the 10K. Her season-best time of 34 minutes, 84.84 seconds, qualified her for the NCAA West Prelim meet and vaulted her among the school’s all-time leaders.

Then on September 10, 2010, one day before the first cross country meet of the season, Sumpter was diag- nosed with brain cancer during an otherwise routine doctor’s appointment. She immediately went into surgery and had most, but not all, of the cancer removed. The remaining portion would be controlled through chemotherapy. Sumpter was given strict orders not to run for the remainder of the cross coun- try season. This was perhaps the tough- est news of all. As she told Julia Savacool of ESPNW a year after her diagnosis, “running is my religion. It is who I am; it defines me. To not run -- I didn’t know how to do that.”

Through the same hard work and perse- verance that made her such a successful runner before her diagnosis, Sumpter made her return. She competed as an unattached runner at the Aggie Open in March of 2011, just six months after her diagnosis and subsequent surgery. The race was 3,000 meters -- seven and a half laps around the track -- but the road to recovery she had traveled just to reach that point was nothing short of astronomical. “When she came back [in 2011], she was a galvanizing figure,” said Wartenburg. “People rallied around her as a point of strength and inspiration. She created a ripple effect throughout the entire col-

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 38 - October 2015 lege track and cross country commu- nity.”

Sumpter’s resolve allowed her to fin- ish a stellar career that once seemed halted before it could truly begin. In cross country season, she posted three straight All-Big West Conference finishes, including two second-place showings at the league champion- ships. In track and field, she broke a 29-year-old school record in the 10K, eventually surpassing it again with a 33:18.51 at the Stanford’s Payton Jordan Invitational in 2013. In 2012, she captured Big West championships in each of the 5,000 and 10,000, earn- ing her recognition as the conference’s Track Athlete of the Year. A 12th-place finish at the NCAA West Prelim earned her a berth to the national meet, where she garnered second-team All-America accolades.

Sumpter also captured the 2011-12 Hubert Heitman Award as the university’s outstanding female athlete of the year. Even without her incredible comeback story, her cross country and track exploits would have granted her that honor. When considering what she had overcome -- and continued to battle -- Sumpter’s selection was a landslide decision for the awards committee.

Sumpter added yet another school record in the indoor 5K with her time of 16:28.21 at the Washington Invi- tational, surpassing benchmarks previously set by Conley and Kaitlin Gregg. Both that record and her outdoor 10K time still stand as Aggie program superlatives.

Off the course, Sumpter made the Big West Conference All-Academic rolls every year, and was selected as the school’s representative for the Big West Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2012. She submitted artwork to the Art of Athletes exhibit and read her poetry at the Aggie Idol charity talent show, the latter of which provided a moving reminder of the courage she maintained as both a student and athlete.

Yet according to Wartenburg, Sumpter was something of a reluctant hero when it came to her comeback. “She wanted to be seen as a runner and an athlete, not a cancer-surviving runner and athlete,” he said. “She almost didn’t understand how much her story touched and affected people.”

Sumpter continued to compete after her graduation from UC Davis. She expanded her running repertoire to include half marathons in 2014, and began training for a full marathon in 2015 with the hopes of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials. Sumpter last competed in July of this summer before her condition began to deterio- rate.

Earlier this month, two days before the team’s road meet at UC Riverside, Sumpter’s former cross country team- mates dubbed September 10 “Stump Day.” It was the fifth anniversary of her diagnosis back in 2010.

The Sumpter family has established a crowd-sourcing page called “Pacing For Sarah” on GoFundMe in the hopes of creating a Healdsburg High scholarship fund in Sarah’s memory. The link for that site is: https://www.gofund- me.com/sprintingforsarah.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 39 - October 2015 http://www.runnersworld.com/morning-report/racing-news-october-6-morning-report

NEWSWIRE MORNING REPORT Racing News: October 6 Morning Report

Mary Cain wins Bronx Cross Country 5K

By Peter Gambaccini TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2015, 6:38 AM

PHOTO BY PHOTORUN

After a disappointing 2015 track season, teen phenom Cain returned to New York from Portland, Oregon, where she was enrolled in college and training with the . She reappeared at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx Sunday for the Harry Murphy 5K. She was the top woman by nearly two minutes in 17:11 on a cross country course that is far slower than the typical 5K road race or a 5,000 on the track.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 40 - October 2015 http://www.thedp.com/arti- cle/2015/09/franklin-field-renova- tions-update University completes multi-million dollar track project Franklin Field renovations continue

By COLIN HENDERSON 09/24/15 3:43am

Photo by Ilana Wurman

The Frank is back. After being closed for the entire summer, Penn’s historic Franklin Field has reopened for the first time since Commencement ceremonies following extensive renovations to its track.

According to Director of Athletic Communica- tions Mike Mahoney, the project cost approximately $3 million in total, funded largely by donations. These donations were raised through a project led by Penn alumni Elliot and Gail Rogers.

While this project’s scope seemingly pales in comparison to that of Franklin Field’s 2010 renovation effort, which cost some $25 million and focused on the facility’s newly-redone Weiss Pavilion, the summer-long project did result in a complete overhaul and replacement of the facility’s track surface. This process consisted of creat- ing an entirely new base for the surface through milling and repaving, as opposed to simply reapplying a new superficial surface.

Ultimately, though, the purpose of the renovations was, at least in part, to keep the track’s competitive qual- ity in line with other hubs for track and field across the nation — most notably Hayward Field, Oregon’s track and the host of outdoor track Nationals in the spring. Historically, the unconventional setup and dimensions of Franklin Field’s track have hindered its acceptance by the NCAA, and the new renovations take several measures to address this.

The facility now features a steeplechase pit on the inside of its track, a much more standard position compared to its previous placement on the outside. The renovations also allow for more easily accessible and NCAA-cer- tified sprint and hurdle lanes, jumps areas and pole-vault pits. These logistical adjustments, in addition to nine newly laid running lanes, should theoretically improve the facility’s standing among the nation’s top tracks. While the renovations were, importantly, completed in time for Penn football’s home opener against Dart- mouth, the project was not completed by its previously announced target of early September. According to Penn Athletics, these delays were caused by multiple logistical difficulties, which were concentrated in the project’s measurement and surveying stages.

Since its opening in 1895, the Frank has seen more than its fair share of renovations. And by the look of things,

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 41 - October 2015 In August, Penn Athletics announced its plans to continue renovations on Franklin Field’s facilities, and specifi- cally on the north side of the stadium, over the next year. During these renovations, seating on the north side of the stadium will be closed.

The project does buy Penn some time in terms of renovations to its physical track. However, given the extensive wear and tear the facility sustains on a yearly basis, the track will likely need to be resurfaced once again within the next couple decades, but not within the next 10 years.

The historic facility will resume its normal operations, most notably hosting Penn football’s practices and home games and serving as a publicly open track on weekdays. Later in the year, it will also play host to the 121st run- ning of the Penn Relays and to the university’s annual Spring Fling concert.

In the meantime, the renovated stadium will make its de facto public debut on Oct. 3, when Penn football plays host to Dartmouth in the team’s home opener.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 42 - October 2015 http://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index.ssf/2015/10/some_fans_shy_away_from_2016_w. html Some fans shy away from 2016 World Indoor Track & Field tickets because of price

By Ken Goe | The Oregonian/OregonLive on October 05, 2015 at 6:00 AM, updated October 05, 2015 at 6:02 AM

TrackTown USA president Vin Lananna speaks to the media last year about the World Indoor Championships. (Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian)

Kevin Jones couldn’t wait to purchase tickets for the 2016 World Indoor Track & Field Championships.

The meet is being held at the Oregon Convention Center and the Moda Center, March 17-20. It’s the second time ever it has taken place in the U.S., and the first time since 1987.

“When they first announced the World Indoor was coming to Portland my heart skipped a beat,” said Jones, a Communications Studies professor at George Fox University in Newberg and a lifelong track & field fan. “It’s on my bucket list.”

Jones logged onto the Portland 2016 website when tickets went on sale, and was hit with sticker shock.

The cheapest available ticket is $225 for second level seats on the turn. Second-level seats on the straight are $295. Seats on the lower bowl are $385.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 43 - October 2015 Buyers have to purchase a package for all three days of competition in the convention center. The pole vault will be a free, stand-alone event on March 17 in the Moda Center.

“I thought, ‘Wow, how can I justify this?’” Jones said. “I could go by myself. Or, if I take my wife or daughter, it would be $600. I can take my wife and daughter to Mt. Hood and rent a cabin for that.

“I’m disappointed. I know this is big. I know they have to build a track. But I thought they would generate enough corporate sponsorship to keep the prices down.”

So Jones has demurred, at least for now.

If responses to a recent Oregonian/OregonLive.com story about slow ticket sales for the World Indoor Champi- onships are any indication, he isn’t alone.

Vin Lananna is president of the TrackTown USA organizing committee, which is staging the meet.

Lananna said TrackTown USA looked at comparable events, such as Portland Trail Blazers games, the U.S. Olym- pic Trials for Track & Field, and other world championships events to guide its pricing decisions.

“Granted, I’m a track guy,” Lananna said. “But I think this is a unique event for the state of Oregon and the city of Portland.”

The temporary arena in the convention center will seat 7,000. Some seats were set aside for corporate sponsors and officials of the International Association of Athletics Federations, the governing body for international track & field.

Lananna didn’t become involved in this to turn a profit for TrackTown USA. But he also doesn’t want to go deep into the red.

“We have to run the meet,” he said. “We’re trying to make sure all the ‘Is’ are dotted and the ‘Ts’ are crossed so that we can put on a good event.”

Lananna said TrackTown USA wanted fans willing to purchase all-session tickets to get first crack at the best available seats.

At some point, he said, remaining single-session tickets will go on sale.

Tickets for the USA Track & Field Indoor Championships, which are scheduled for the Oregon Convention Cen- ter on March 11-12, are not yet available.

“That will be a more affordable ticket, and single-session tickets will be available,” Lananna said.

Jones, who has attended every U.S. Olympic Trials for Track & Field since 1984, will be waiting and watching for a cheaper way into the World Indoor.

“If I can grab a single-session ticket,” he said, “yeah, I’ll be interested.”

Editor’s note: more of Thomas Boyd’s photos can be found at: http://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index. ssf/2015/10/some_fans_shy_away_from_2016_w.html

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 44 - October 2015 http://www.oregonlive.com/trackand- field/index.ssf/2015/09/vin_lananna_ tried_to_elevate_t.html

Vin Lananna meets with UO athletes after a meet in 2006. The University of Oregon hosts the Pepsi Team Invitational track and field meet at Hayward Field. Oregon director of track Vin Lananna talks to his team in the Hayward Field infield after the meet. More photos can be found athttp://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index.ssf/2015/09/ vin_lananna_tried_to_elevate_t.html

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 45 - October 2015 Vin Lananna tries to elevate the World Indoor Track Championships above the problems

By Ken Goe | The Oregonian/OregonLive on September 23, 2015 at 6:18 PM, updated September 24, 2015 at 7:41 AM

We’re less than six months away from the USA Track & Field Indoor Championships and World Track & Field Indoor Championships, which will be staged back-to-back at the Oregon Convention Center, and Vin Lananna has an unanticipated problem.

He has unsold tickets.

“I’m a little surprised,” Lananna says of Portland’s apparent unwillingness to totally embrace the two events – at least, so far.

Lananna is president of the Eugene-based TrackTown USA organizing committee, which is staging the meets. The U.S. indoor championships are March 11-12, with the world championships to follow, March 17-20. Seating capacity in the convention center will be 7,000. If the meets were in Eugene, it’s possible every seat would be gone.

“I don’t think there is enough understanding of what indoor track actually is,” Lananna says. “It seems to be a little bit of a foreign concept.”

Well, that might be one problem. There are others.

Let’s start with sensational allegations in June of rule-breaking use of banned performance drugs and misuse of prescription drugs by the Portland-based Nike Oregon Project.

A runner singled out was , who prepped at Portland’s Central Catholic before going on to star at the University of Oregon and win a 2012 Olympic silver medal in the 10,000 meters.

None of the allegations was proven when they were made. None has been proven since.

Rupp denied them emphatically. They were rebutted vehemently in an open letter written by Oregon Project coach .

“I don’t know if that had an impact,” Lananna says. “I think it’s more that it was a missed opportunity for us to really celebrate the great athletes we have in the state of Oregon.”

In August, just as World Indoor tickets went on sale, USA Track & Field and U.S. 800-meter champion Nick Sym- monds were locked in a contentious, well-publicized dispute over the organization’s insistence that Team USA athletes wear only Nike-branded clothing while traveling to the World Outdoor Championships.

Nike sponsors the U.S. track team. Symmonds is sponsored by Brooks.

Symmonds, brandishing a letter from USA Track & Field telling athletes on the team only to pack Nike clothing or clothing without a logo, refused to sign a required statement of conditions and was left home.

A collegiate star at Willamette University in Salem who ran for years as part of Eugene-based Oregon Track Club Elite, Symmonds remains unrepentant. He says he still is waiting for an apology from USA Track & Field.

“USATF has been bullying athletes for years,” he says. “I’m going to continue to demand more of them.” Symmonds says he hopes the issues that have been a bone of contention between USA Track & Field and ath- TAFWA Newsletter - Page 46 - October 2015 letes with their own individual sponsors can be hammered out in the organization’s annual meeting in Houston, Dec. 2-6.

If not, they could flare just as Lananna is trying to pull off the first World Indoor Championships to be held in the U.S. since 1987.

Lananna believes U.S. athletes will rally around the two meets.

For most, it will be the only opportunity in their short athletic careers to compete in a World Championships on U.S. soil.

But what about the fans? How soon will they get on board? Or will they?

Lananna has plans to push a groundswell if he can.

He is floating a proposal to set up the track to be used for the USATF and World Indoor meets in a vacant ware- house in Northwest Portland during the period leading up to the meets.

He would bring in lighting and open it up to the community. He asks only not to be charged rent for use of the city-owned warehouse.

He envisions all-comers meets, high school meets, maybe a few college meets.

One idea would be to match the city police department against the fire department in an indoor meet, bring in officials and keep score.

The thinking is, if people are exposed, they will be hooked.

Because once you get past the flotsam left by unsubstantiated allegations and the sport’s internal politics and get down to the basics of running, jumping, throwing and head-to-head competition, this can become addictive. Lananna remains optimistic.

“It’s going to be exciting,” he says. “I think we’re going to see two great events.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/sports/ oiselle-womens-athletic-apparel-brand-lines-up- with-yale.html?_r=1 Oiselle, Women’s Athletic-Apparel Brand, Lines Up With Yale By LINDSAY CROUSESEPT. 29, 2015

Since it was founded in 2007, the upstart women’s athletic-apparel brand Oiselle has collected an eclectic group of women, including national track champions, supermodels and the first female Saudi Olympic runner, while staying mostly out of the mainstream. This fall it adds a new elite squad to its roster, becoming the first solely women’s sports brand to outfit a major college running program: the cross-country and track teams of Yale.

It is the latest milestone for Oiselle, a 20-employee Seattle company that has doubled in growth every year since its inception, and projects $10 million in revenue this year, as it seeks to break into a women’s active-wear space that is dominated by brands like Nike and Lululemon and is worth around $15 billion.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 47 - October 2015 The former Yale middle distance runner Kate Grace in Oiselle warm-ups. CreditOiselle

The sponsorship follows a stream of unconventional Oiselle initiatives aimed at keeping postcollegiate women involved in road racing — ideally, of course, in its strappy sports bras and chevron-print leggings, which retail for around $80 — including Fashion Week runway shows featuring its flock of top female athletes, a flagship store it likens to a women-first clubhouse, and a loud campaign against Nike’s exclusive licensing agreement with USA Track & Field, which controls what its athletes wear to major races.

But as it seeks to become what its 47-year-old founder and chief executive, Sally Bergesen, calls “the thinking women’s brand,” Oiselle will have to reconcile the outsider image it has carefully built its following on with its goal of becoming a major player in the space, linking feminism to athleticism, and also to consumerism, while reaching beyond its elite core. She says that to do this, she is adding a word to her marketing strategy that many women’s athletic brands tend to avoid: competition.

Oiselle used professional runners as models as part of their fash- ion week show at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center in Manhat- tan on Tuesday. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times

“Women’s companies tend to get into a game

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 48 - October 2015 where they don’t want to offend anyone, but we’ve never been shy about saying we care about winning too, and that’s worked for us,” Bergesen said. “Being at university is all about learning and improvement and exploration, in and out of the arena, and Yale embodies that.”

The college market is dominated by larger brands like Nike, which sponsored Yale and has also begun pushing for exclusive rights agreements for outfitting athletes at the high school level. The track community has recently seen resistance to corporate behemoths wielding their clout to control athletes’ movements, which came to a head before the world track and field championships in August when the Brooks-sponsored runner Nick Sym- monds was dropped from the American team for refusing to wear Nike outside competition. Oiselle has used its stance against corporate monopolies in sport to reinforce its image as a scrappy athletes-first, community- driven brand.

And Oiselle says in this sponsorship it sees a chance to galvanize a new generation of female distance runners, many of whom reach their athletic prime long after they’ve outgrown the organized athletic programs that engage girls.

“The national race-running model is focused on high school and college, when males hit their athletic cre- scendo, but many women run their fastest distance races between ages 26 to 38,” said Bob Lesko, a former Yale track athlete and Oiselle financial adviser whose wife, Sarah Lesko, another top former Yale runner and Oiselle employee, negotiated the sponsorship. “By sponsoring Yale track, Oiselle is exposing itself to a community of motivated women who will likely keep pushing themselves relatively later in their athletic careers, and bring their friends, whom the running community might otherwise lose. So they are trying to create a new team rac- ing model for women where the country doesn’t really have one right now.”

Feminist themes in advertising are increasingly prevalent as companies clamor to convince female consumers that they stand for something beyond the items they sell. The Under Armour company’s female empowerment campaign “I Will What I Want,” which features athletes and artists like Lindsey Vonn and Misty Copeland, helped build its North American women’s business to almost $500 million last year. Outside the athletic space, brands like Always, Verizon and Pantene have undertaken high-profile, feminist-themed marketing campaigns. The sponsorship is an unusual move for an established program like Yale.

David Shoehalter, who has coached at Yale for 21 years, said he had not heard of Oiselle until Kate Grace, a top American middle-distance runner, graduated from Yale in 2012 and became the first professional athlete to be sponsored by the company. He said Oiselle let the program keep its budget the same as its previous contract but provided it with more gear, designed specially for the range of body types on a track and field team and with the university’s culture in mind.

“Yale is a very traditional place, and we didn’t want it to be some sort of wild neon look like some schools, or to look like a bunch of women who were going to yoga class,” Shoehalter said. “These look like clothes you want to race in.”

Bergesen, a competitive marathon runner with a personal best of 2 hours 59 minutes and a professional design- er, said she was drawn to the creative challenge.

“We wanted to reimagine what the college uniform could be,” said Bergesen. “Like if Marc Jacobs was going to design a new Harvard blazer. Women’s track uniforms have been the same for so many years that people haven’t seemed to think about the opportunity for something different, to make them look better and maybe mean something more, too.”

Grace, the recent Yale middle-distance champion, agreed.

“In college, I didn’t care who sponsored me, because it just ended with the clothes,” she said. “But maybe with

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 49 - October 2015 a brand like Oiselle involved, they could pass on their message of ‘fangirling,’ and getting people excited about track races and their teammates, whoever they are, to a younger generation.”

Yale’s coach said he hoped aligning his program with Oiselle would give him an edge in attracting top high school runners, in a sport where Ivy League distance running still remains competitive with universities that offer athletic scholarships.

“There’s no doubt that this being a potential recruiting tool has gone into our thinking,” Shoehalter said. “Every blue school that is a Nike school has the same blue uniform. We’ll stand out.”

The announcement sparked excitement throughout the online running community, particularly from other Ivy League universities, and other coaches have approached Oiselle with interest in similar arrangements. Lesko said he hoped that energy would transfer to more attention to Oiselle, and to road racing.

“You have this sport that has millions of kids that run in high school and then 1 percent of them are able to run in college,” he said. “And the sport is befuddled by how did we lose those people from 18 to 26, until we find them when they sign up for a marathon. We’re trying to fill that gap in between.”

That gap includes women who ran as children and returned to discover athletic success later in life, including Heather Lieberg, a Oiselle-sponsored 36-year-old elementary schoolteacher and mother of three in Montana who began running in her mid-20s and just represented the United States in the world marathon champion- ships in Beijing.

http://running.competitor.com/2015/09/news/ road-warrior-marathoner-stephan-shays-mobile- home-life_135669#DhijCrEx7cbwti6g.01

Road Warrior: Marathoner Stephan Shay’s Mobile Home Life

By Brian Metzler, Published Sep. 27, 2015, Updated Sep. 28, 2015 at 11:22 AM UTC

Sleeping next to a Southern California beach almost every night and plenty freedom to roam, Stephan Shay is living the dream.

For the past year, the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier has been living in a vintage 1960s motor home this year he calls Lolita, balancing work, training and his desire to be a bit more footloose and fancy free than most elite runners allow themselves to be.

“When I was a kid, I always kind of thought I’d be out West somewhere and that I’d sleep on the beach if I had to,” says Shay, a 29-year-old runner who grew up in Michigan and earned a marketing degree from Brigham Young University in Utah. “It’s a lot of fun and there’s a certain romance to it with all the freedom it can bring, but it’s not something everybody is cut out for.”

After ending a long-term relationship last winter and then living for a stint with his brother, Nathan, in Hun- tington Beach, Calif., Shay started looking for used RVs and found a 1966 Clark Cortez for $5,200 with all of the original appliances, cabinetry and seating. It needed some rehabbing, but he taught himself how to do exterior body work, installed new flooring and then had it repainted in a vintage Volkswagen green.

So far, he’s put $10,000 into his 18.5-foot home on wheels, but he figures that offsets the rent he hasn’t had to pay. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 50 - October 2015 Stephan Shay, a 2:16 marathoner and 1:02 half marathoner, is living large with Lolita. Photo: Michael Zynda

Needless to say, it’s attracted lots of attention as he’s hung out in various beach towns near Los Angeles.

“People have told me, ‘that’s a rad looking toaster,’ and I think it does kind of look like an old-school toaster a bit,” Shay says. “It’s not like I’m an attention whore for it, but I like when people ask questions about it. From there, we’ll start talking about other things like surfing, even though I don’t surf. It’s a cool way to strike up conversations.” [Shay recently bought his first surf board.]

Shay, the younger brother of Ryan Shay, who died due to a heart condition during the 2008 U.S. Olympic Tri- als Marathon in New York City, recorded two of his best marathon results in the past year, placing 16th in last year’s New York City Marathon (2:19:47) and 10th in this spring’s Los Angeles Marathon (2:18:08).

As for training, he’s been doing his best to mix 85- to 90-mile weeks with two part-time marketing jobs: one for a lithium ion battery manufacturer, the other for Santa Ana College. (He also has a small sponsorship with Ske- chers.) He’s taken his rig on a weekend trip to Santa Barbara and twice made the seven-hour drive to Flagstaff, Ariz., to get in some high-altitude training with some of the many fast elite runners living there. (Lolita gets about 16 mpg on the highway.)

Shay admits he’s not quite back to the fitness that earned him his PRs of 2:16:48 for the marathon and 1:02:26 for the half marathon a few years ago, but he’s eager to ramp up his training this fall for the Feb. 13 Olympic Tri- als Marathon on the streets of Los Angeles.

In the meantime, he’s embraced the spartan lifestyle RV living demands, especially because he knows he’s pro-

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 51 - October 2015 ducing less trash, using less water and reducing his carbon footprint.

He knows life will continue to evolve, but he suspects he’ll always own an RV of some sort—whether it’s Lolita or another one.

“I got bit by the bug and I realized how much fun it is and how much freedom it gives you,” he says. “I don’t have anything against people who want a big house. But at 29, I’m pretty happy that all my stuff fits in an 18-and-a- half-foot bus. For me, life is about trying to find that balance between paying the bills and having that life you want to live. This was the perfect balance for me.”

Read more at http://running.competitor.com/2015/09/news/road-warrior-marathoner-stephan-shays-mobile- home-life_135669#s5hBJz67Pd25S7qD.99

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 52 - October 2015 http://www.oipol- loi.com/blogs/ the-blog/61236355- interview-ron-hill

When it comes to running, not many have done as much as Ron Hill. He’s won mara- thons, he’s broken world records, he’s started his own sportswear company and he’s de- signed trainers with Reebok. Not only that, but since December 1964, he’s ran every single day, without fail — through sleet, snow and a broken sternum.

I met Ron in a few weeks ago to talk about his endless achievements. We were sat in a reno- vated mill on the outskirts of Hyde, it had been raining all morning and the 76 year old had just got back from his daily run... t might be a bit of an obvious question, but how did you start running?

When I first went to Accrington Grammar School I used to get a boy’s magazine called The Rover. There was a guy in The Rover called Alf Tupper — the Tough of the Track. In the pictures it would be pouring with rain, there were cobbled stone streets and gas lamps, and he was very poor. It never showed his parents, he lived on disused barges and under railway arches, and he was a welder.

If he had a race to go to in London something would go wrong — he’d have to work all night welding or something. Then he’d hitchhike down to London, eat a bag of fish and chips, vault over the railings and get on the track. He’d be up against all these toffee noses from Oxford and Cambridge and he’d beat them all on the last lap.

And I thought, “Bloody hell, this is a man with nothing going for him whatsoever, and he’s succeeding.” He wasn’t in a team, the officials were against him and I thought that I’d like to be like that — doing stuff all off my own back, basically.

Could you relate to Alf then? What was your situation like growing up? I managed through the Eleven Plus to get into a grammar school, but yeah, we were very poor. My mother had to go out to work to support us and my dad worked on the railway but it didn’t pay a lot of money.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 53 - October 2015 TAFWA Newsletter - Page 54 - October 2015 We were poor, but I didn’t realise that — you just live like that. I went back to an Accrington Grammar School reunion and someone said, “Bloody hell, you were poor weren’t you?” He probably said that because my socks were all darned, but I didn’t notice that, I was just glad to be studying and getting on with things. I’d joined the cross country club and I was the only guy in the school who looked forward to the annual race, everyone else just went round the corner to hide.

When did running become something more than just the annual cross country race? From 1953 onwards I ran in the cross country races — the East Lancs, the Northern and the National. You had the boys and the youths, then the juniors and then the seniors. I went along to those but never did anything; I was just excited to be at a race. I remember the first one I ran was as a youth and I was like 256th or something like that — but I was still excited and looked forward to the next one. I remember I couldn’t sleep at night be- cause I was so nervous before a race. Even as a junior I think I was 55th. That’s some progress but it’s nowhere near the front.

And then I went to Manchester University to study Textile Chemistry. In digs I was living with a couple of people who were runners and we began to learn about training. That’s when I got quite serious.

When did you start winning then? By 1962 I’d become a really avid racer. This was before I’d graduated and I wanted to run every weekend I could find a race. That was how I entered my first marathon — I was looking one week in 1961 and I couldn’t find any- thing that weekend, but I saw on the fixture list that there was the Liverpool Marathon.

I lived in Fallowfield at the time so I got a bus into Manchester and then a train to Liverpool and went to Saint Georges Hall where it started at. There were 53 entries — and this was supposed to be a big marathon! Maybe 30 people finished, and I managed to win it, which was a bit of a shock.

At first it was like, “Why are they running so slowly?” so I decided to let someone else have the lead — a man called John Tarrant. John was known as The Ghost Runner because he’d got banned from being an amateur ath- lete after admitting to receiving ten pounds to buy boxing equipment. Anyway, I passed this guy with four miles to go and won the race.

The finish was at Anfield in front of the crowd for a pre-season football game, so it was crammed and the noise was amazing. But after that I was so stiff a guy had to give me a lift back to Manchester. He took me to Wythen- shawe and propped me up against a bus-stop. I remember thinking, “Bloody hell, I’m not doing this again.”

Anyway, in those days the papers like The Guardian would follow the race and I read the report and saw my pic- ture in the paper and thought, “Well, it wasn’t too bad that, was it?” And that was what got me into marathon running. I subsequently ran another 114 marathons.

How often were you running at this point? I was doing 100 miles a week for two years. I was going out in the morning before cycling to university and I was going flat out. I was knackered.

This is probably a bit of a boring question, but was it hard to do that much running whilst trying to do your university stuff too? Not really, it just became a routine. I did the morning run, had a bit of breakfast, biked to university — I was in the laboratory most of the time on the fifth for of UMIST — then I’d get on the bike home, stop off at the ground, get changed quickly, do a run and go home. I had a small scholarship, but to keep our finances together my wife was working. We’d then have something to eat and maybe listen to the radio or read a book. And that was life — we didn’t know anything else and we didn’t expect anything else — we just got on with it.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 55 - October 2015 TAFWA Newsletter - Page 56 - October 2015 Was your decision to do Textile Chemistry at university because of your running? How did you start making clothes yourself? No, that was another lucky break. I had no idea what I wanted to do. The headmaster at Accrington Grammar kept me on for an extra year to study Latin as he wanted as many pupils as possible to go to Oxford or Cam- bridge. So I got the qualification and I went down to Oxford to do the entrance exams and I’m not kidding you… I was Alf Tupper there. It was totally alien to me. The accents, the things that were happening — I just thought, “There’s no way I’m going to come down here.”

So I just answered a few silly questions in the oral part and then quite honestly, I didn’t write anything in the written part. I just left it blank.

I still had no idea what I wanted to do, but the careers master said, “There’s two scholarships going here, both in textiles.” So I went down to talk to the head of Textile Chemistry and I got the scholarship. Okay, it was interest- ing and I stayed on to do the PHD, probably because I thought I could get another three years with the time to train and race abroad. And then I got a job at a company called Courtaulds.

Meanwhile at that time I got to know the treasurer of the East Lancs Running Association. And he said, “If you want to try and buy a house I’ll lend you the £250 for the deposit.” So I started to look for a house. I thought, “Well, the only way to get my training in whilst I’m working full time is to run to work and back,” So I got an ordnance survey map, stuck a compass in it with a five mile radius and I drew a circle of places to look for a house. I got one in a place called Romiley, right on the line. Obviously I couldn’t run as the crow flies, so it ended up being about seven miles, which was ideal.

Looking back, it must have been tough in winter because it snowed and it was dark and it was raining, but I can’t say it was a terrible time or anything.

Having done that, I was looking at the clothing I was wearing. There were some pants on the market that were made from cotton. And they were alright if it was dry, but if it rained they just absorbed moisture like anything — you were running holding the things up. And the jackets that we had weren’t waterproof jackets. So I decided to start looking at designing clothing myself.

We designed some shorts called Freedom Shorts that were split up the side. These came about because I was running for Lancashire in the Inter Counties Cross Country Championships and I couldn’t lift my legs fully in the shorts I had. So I ripped them up the sides at the seams and suddenly I had this freedom. It looked a bit daft though, with these splits up the side, so I came up with the idea to overlap the front seam over the back. You still had the parting when you were running, but when you were standing around, you just looked normal.

It was the same with vests. I went to a marathon in Japan and found a vest that was really well cut, so we’d make them too. There was a factory in Hyde where this guy would make me short runs of things.

My wife and I had built up this mail order business to about £800 a week or something like that. I thought that if I did it full time then we could have a secure business… so that’s what happened.

How did word get out about Ron Hill Clothing? We did a small ad, a tiny classified ad, in Athletics Weekly and it just built up. The stock was building up so much in our small detached house that the loft got full, and then the garage got full and then the corridor to the front door got full. I thought, “Christ, we can’t continue like this.” So we bought a derelict shop in Hyde — an old chemist’s shop. It was a dump really as we had no money to put proper furnishings in there, but that was when people started knocking at the door. So we turned it into a retail outlet as well as the headquarters. And it just went from there.

Why do you think it was so successful? Did your experience as a runner help? Yeah, they worked. Like the mesh vest — I was looking in 1968 for something that would give my skin maxi- TAFWA Newsletter - Page 57 - October 2015 mum exposure to the air to cool it down, as I knew the Olympics were going to be in Mexico City.

I think in the May of that year I ran a 20 mile race. I ran away from everybody in that race. I had a pair of shoes that had just been made for me by Reebok and a cutaway vest and I ran one hour, 36 minutes and 38 seconds, which if you think about it is two 49 minute ten miles on the trot. I was miles in front of everybody else. I don’t think the selectors ever saw it, but that gave me a lot of confidence. There was such disbelief at my time that the guy at the course went and re-measured the course the day after.

But anyway, my cutaway vest didn’t really work so I went to Stockport Army and Navy Stores and bought two string vests.

When I stepped out onto the track I had this string vest on, these shorts on and bare feet — there was a gasp from the crowd.

What was the reason for running with bare feet? Were there no trainers good enough? The main reason for me was the weight — it made such a difference. Akin to this, when I was running in the -To kyo Olympics I was getting some free shoes from Puma and they were heavy. So I got in touch with this guy and said, “What I want is a spike, with no spikes. Just take the spike plate off and put a piece of rubber underneath.” I got these shoes made and actually punched holes in them with a leather punch, so they were ventilated. But when I broke the record for the marathon in 1970 I was back working with Reebok and they’d made me some kangaroo leather shoes that were incredibly light.

Did you have a lot of say in these? Oh yeah, it was my design. It was called the World 10. And then we did another one called the 209 Marathon, TAFWA Newsletter - Page 58 - October 2015 which was even lighter still. I guess these were the first minimalist shoes.

Going back to the world record, how did that come about? There’s a story attached to that. I wanted to get into the European Games marathon in 1969. I’d got my training regime well sorted out, but three weeks before the actual marathon was held in Manchester, I’d been invited to run in a race in Helsinki.

So I ran this race. There were three Ethiopians in the race, and I’m sure their coach had said to them not to let anyone past — so it started to develop into a bloody fight. Anytime anyone went up to go past, they got the el- bow. One guy, the Olympic steeplechase champion Gaston Roelants, just threw his arms up and said, “This is not a race.” When I saw this, I went up to the guy, tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Any more of this and you’re going to get that,” and showed him my fist.

We carried on running, and as we came to five laps and pace was slowing, I thought, “Right, I’m going to over- take here.” I stepped out to pass him and the next thing I know I’m on the floor looking up at the floodlights. I get up, and this guy Roelants had been shoved back into the race by his coach, so as he passed me he said, “Tuck in behind me, I’ll take you back up to the leaders.” We slowly crept back up the three of them, and it came to the last lap. There must have been about 200 metres to go so I moved into the outside lane, sprinted like hell and I beat the three of them.

At first I thought, “Brilliant,” but then I thought, “Hang on, what’s this squelching noise in my shoe?” I had a five inch gash down the inside of my ankle and there was only three weeks to go until this bloody marathon. There was a doctor at the stadium and he said, “Come under the stadium, I’ve got a bench there — I’m going to stitch that back up.” I went with him and he said, “Well, the skin is dead, you won’t need any anaesthetic.” He TAFWA Newsletter - Page 59 - October 2015 stitched it with no anaesthetic. I still ran the next morning but it was awfully painful. After about ten days I went to the doctors to get the stitches taken out and he said he couldn’t because they’d gone septic.

It was a good job I didn’t have a coach, because no coach would let someone run with stitches, never mind stitch- es that were going septic. I just thought, “I’m going to run this marathon, I don’t care what anybody says.”

Then I went to Athens, it was a stinking hot day and the tar was melting on the road. For a drink, what I used to do was put maybe half a spoonful of salt into some cordial, drink that down in one, and then drink nearly a pint of water. That was my fuel for a race. I didn’t take a drink in the race, and when I was coming down the hill to the Olympic stadium I saw this plastic cup on the floor. I thought, “That’s Roelants, he must be getting bad if he’s drinking water.” I caught him with one kilometre to go, and I didn’t quite know what to do because I’d never been in that position before. I just thought, “Sod it, I’m going.” I went past him and right down this road to the stadium.

A Land Rover nearly knocked me down doing a U-turn and nearly killed me. Anyway, I won the European Cham- pionship — brilliant. It was in the old stadium and my wife and kids and my mother and dad were there, it was fantastic.

As I was coming out of the stadium this guy came up to me who was the boss of the Road Runner’s Club in Eng- land and said, “I say Hill, how would you like to run the Boston Marathon?”

They had a whip around in the Road Runner’s Club magazine to pay for my air fare to Boston. Anyway, they got my money. I was running against a guy who had beaten me previously, but I’d been doing the glycogen loading diet and had got it to perfection. We set off and we were head to head. I was blowing my fingers ‘cos they were so cold and my mesh vest wasn’t doing anything for me.

Anyway, I dropped him at about six miles and thought, “Jesus, I’ve got all this way to run on my own now.” He came back and I said something to him like, “Where’ve you been all my life.” I think that put him off a bit, as he dropped back and soon after he dropped out. I forged on in the rain and I had no idea what time I was running. I ended up winning the race — the first Britain to win Boston. This journalist came up and said, “Oh, by the way, you broke the course record by over three minutes — you ran two hours ten minutes. That gave me loads of confidence then.

Edinburgh was in July. I had my rest and I knew what I had to do. I visualised the race for the first time — I could see the Portobello Power Station and I could see the way the wind was blowing. The start was like the start of a 1500 metre race. I think I went through ten kilometres in 28 minutes. I know the old record holder had said to someone that my pace was suicidal and that I’d never keep it up. Coming back I knew that I had to look good, so I gave everybody a thumbs up and kept going. I nearly got an ulcer with the worry of whether I’d be able to keep going. I did, and in the end I ran 2:09:28, which was a world record.

I’ve had some good times.

How did that feel — to hold the world record? It didn’t sound like you expected it. I was just on top of my form. I’d done all the right things, including the diet.

Yeah what was that called? Glycogen loading? What’s that? A guy called Martin Hyman who coaches orienteering had read about these experiments some people had done with cyclists in Scandinavia. They gave one lot a high carbohydrate diet, another lot a high protein diet and another lot they gave them protein for half the time, and then carbohydrates for the other half. That last group performed so much better than the rest. I thought, “What if you use this for a marathon?” and it bloody well worked. I was so strong at the end of marathons using that diet. What would you eat?

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 60 - October 2015 I wouldn’t eat any bread, I wouldn’t eat any pasta and I wouldn’t eat any potatoes. And then after four days when my body was craving carbohydrates, I’d eat loads of cakes. Then I’d go back to a more normal diet, making sure there was carbohydrates in it.

What happens is that when you starve the enzymes in your stomach of carbohydrates, they think, “What the hell is going on?” and start to multiply to find more. Then when you pile it back on they go, “Wow,” and start to get it. You get at least a ten percent increase in your carbohydrate level in your muscles. That’s what you can use at the end of a marathon.

Well it obviously worked. I know you said before that hardly anyone was around when you ran your first marathon in Liverpool. How has the world of running changed since you first started? You know the story of Chris Braser and John Disley? They did the New York marathon and thought, “We can get this back to England.” In 1981, they started the London marathon, and it worked. It was a people’s marathon — people saw it on television and said, “Look at that! If they could do it, I could do it.” And that’s how it snow- balled.

Yeah, the shift from traditional runners running to normal people running. Yeah exactly. Whereas in my first marathon they were just hardened marathon runners — that was all they did.

You’re probably what they’d call a hardened runner too. You’ve got the world record for the longest streak of running every day. When did you start that? I think it was December the first, 1964. I was 18th in the 10,000 and 19th in the marathon at Tokyo. I was the second fastest marathon runner in the world, and I blew it. I couldn’t stand being away from home — I just went to pieces. When people say they were petrified, I know how they feel. Spending time away from family doesn’t work from me. I knew I was far better than that, and I was going to get the best out of myself.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 61 - October 2015 I’ve got a couple of sayings — one is, “Leave no stone unturned in your endeavours to be the best you can be.”

So I ran once the next day, and then I ran twice the day after. I ran twice a day and once on Sunday for 26 years without missing a run — and thinking about all those races I told you about, it did pay off.

I just kept looking — the diet, the mesh vest, the bare feet, the minimalist shoes — and it worked.

You obviously considered every single part of it. I used to read a lot — a hell of a lot. I’d go down to the second hand bookshops at Shudehill in Manchester and read stuff about diets there. I’d find out about green vegetables and the trace elements in them that your body needs, and think, “Well, I’ll make sure I’ll get those.” So yeah, I did think about it very much, think how I could be the best I could be.

Going back to the everyday running thing, has there ever been times when you’ve not been able to go out? Having the streak is a motivation. It was a big decision to come down to running just once a day, but it worked because I was getting very tired. I wouldn’t want to miss a run, I’d feel like I was a failure if I did. People say, “What if you feel really bad?” I say, “Look, all you’ve got to do is get your kit on, go to the front door, open it and go out. Within five minutes you’ll be fine.”

And it’s true. Just get out there and you’ll be fine.

Haha, that makes sense. When do you think you’ll stop? I’ll just keep going. When they nail me in the box, that’ll be it.

joe foster typed out @ 01:04 PM on Mon 21.09.2015

Well done Ron, I remember very fondly our time working together to get your shoes right. It just shows you what grit, determination and a positive ‘can do’ attitude can achieve. Keep running!

Joe Foster. Reebok, The Founder

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 62 - October 2015 http://portlandtribune.com/ pt/12-sports/276132-152168-port- land-warehouse-likely-site- of-indoor-track-meets-

Portland warehouse likely site of indoor track meets

Created on Wednesday, 07 October 2015 20:32 | Written by Kerry Eggers |

In March, the U.S. and World indoor track and field championship meets will be staged at Portland’s Oregon Convention Center.

But before that, the city’s sports fans will be treated to much more of the indoor version of the sport.

Eugene’s TrackTown USA, which is staging the U.S. and World events, has rented a city-owned warehouse near the Fremont Bridge. Beginning in January, provided necessary funding is available, the facility will be the site of a series of indoor meets for youth, high school, college and high-performance competitors.

The track that will be used for the U.S. and World meets will be built inside the warehouse.

“We can’t clog up the convention center for two months,” says Vin Lannana, president of the TrackTown USA organizing committee. “We needed a place to put (the track). Now we’ve found that place.

“It should be completed by late November. Then we’ll surface it and put on the finishing touches. Starting in January, we’ll have a month of meets at a variety of levels. We might even have the fire department against the police department. I would expect we’ll probably have more than one (meet) a week. We will program it as much as there is demand for.”

TrackTown USA, however, needs more sponsorship to make Lananna’s plan work.

“The reality is, we still have to get the funding,” he says. “We’re not going to charge the kids and the high school- ers for use of the facility, but we have to be able to pay people to be there and to clean it and run it. We need basic operational costs. It would be really disappointing if we didn’t get the opportunity to show the track off.”

The U.S. Indoor meet will be March 11-13. The World Indoors are March 18-20, with the pole vault competition -- free to the public -- slated for March 17 at Moda Center. This is only the second time the Worlds have taken place in the U.S. and the first since 1987.

Lananna says almost 5,000 season tickets have been sold for the Worlds at the convention center, which will have a capacity of 7,000. Season tickets for the three days of competition range from $225 to $385. At some point, Lananna says, single-session tickets also will be available.

Arena seating, Lananna says, “is only 30 rows high. Every seat is close, so you’ll see everything no matter where you’re sitting.” [email protected] Twitter: @kerryeggers

Editor’s note: Kerry Eggers is a former president of TAFWA.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 63- September 2015 Partial Fixtures List

2015 Nov 21 NCAA Cross Country Championships I Louisville, Ky. II Joplin, Mo. III Winneconne, Wis. NAIA Charlotte, NC Dec 2-6 USATF Convention, Houston Dec 12 USATF Club Cross Country Championships, San Francisco Dec 15-18 USTFCCCA Convention, San Antonio

2016 Feb 5-6 Armory Track Invitational, NYC Feb 6-7 USATF Cross Country Championships, TBA Feb 13 Marathon Olympic Trials, Los Angeles Feb 20 Millrose Games, NYC (Armory) Feb 27 Boston Indoor Games Mar 11-12 NCAA Indoor Championships I Birmingham, Ala. II Pittsburg, Kan. III Grinnell, Iowa USATF Indoor Nationals, Portland, Ore. Mar 11-13 New Balance Indoor Nationals, NYC (Armory) Mar 17-20 World Indoor Championships, Portland, Ore. Apr 28-30 Penn Relays, Philadelphia Drake Relays, Des Moines May 26-28 NCAA Outdoor Championships II Bradenton, Fla. III Waverly, Iowa NCAA Div. I Regionals East, Jacksonville, Fla. West, Lawrence, Kan. May 27-28 , Eugene, Ore. June 8-11 NCAA Div. I Outdoor Championships, Eugene, Ore. June 10-12 New Balance Outdoor Nationals, Greensboro, N.C. July 1-10 U.S. Olympic Trials, Eugene, Ore. July 19-24 World Junior Championships, Kazan, Russia Aug. 5-21 Olympic Games, Rio de Janeiro

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 64 - September 2015