32 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Jul| Aug 2019 PENN RELAYS AT The country’s oldest and largest track meet continues to draw world-class athletes, big crowds, an army of loyal volunteers, 125 and a whole lot of Jamaicans. By Dave Zeitlin JulPHOTOGRAPHY| Aug 2019 THE BYPENNSYLVANIA TOMMY LEONARDI GAZETTE C’89 33 ixty-one years ago, Kevin Quinn For much of the history of the Penn “It really is the embodiment of athletics,” skipped his high school senior Relays, Penn has been more a host than Quinn says. “It gives track a lot of atten- prom to come to Franklin Field on a true threat on the national stage. But tion, which it doesn’t usually get. For one S the last Saturday in April. He ran even after 125 years, thanks to four of weekend, track is important.” in the 4x800-meter relay with three the more than 12,000 competitors on St. Joseph’s Prep classmates. The old hand over the course of three days, the The Moments track crunched beneath him as he took iconic meet showed that it’s still capable Renaldo Nehemiah couldn’t understand the baton, running his 800-meter leg in of staging historic surprises. “There are where everyone went. a swift 2 minutes, 5 seconds. It was a good breakthroughs every year,” Johnson says. Needing some time to recover after memory, a lasting memory. And for six “You just don’t know where and when completing the anchor leg in the 1979 col- decades, even as Quinn returned to the they’re going to happen.” lege 4x400 relay—the fi nal race of the famed Penn Relays year after year as The breakthrough for an Ivy League day—the University of Maryland star re- Saint Joseph University’s longtime track women’s team to win a championship treated to a Franklin Field locker room. and fi eld coach, it remained the pinnacle. took more than 40 years, since women “I thought I was actually going to have a Until this year. fi rst got their own day of racing at Penn heart attack, I was hurting so badly,” he Near the end of the fi rst day of the 125th Relays in 1978. The championship recalls. “I remember telling my coach I’m running of the country’s oldest and larg- drought lasted about as long for the never running another 400 again.” est track and fi eld competition, Quinn— Penn men before Thomas Awad C’16 led And he didn’t, instead becoming a re- now a 78-year-old volunteer assistant the Quakers to a dramatic 4xmile win in cord-setting hurdler and, for a few years, coach for Penn—told a quartet of Quakers 2016. “It was always our dream to think an NFL wide receiver. He also didn’t get about his new greatest Penn Relays mo- about winning a DMR—the same thing to enjoy much proper recognition at the ment. “After 78 years, and 61 here,” he for the women,” says Jeff Wiseman C’18, time, since when he returned to the track said softly, “I got to stand on the plat- a former Penn track standout who now from the locker room, most of the people form—and that’s because of you guys.” works in the University’s athletics de- in the stadium had already fi led out. Yet Melissa Tanaka, one of the four Penn run- partment. “To see them win, so convinc- Johnson still calls Nehemiah’s perfor- ners, fought back tears. Just moments ingly, with all of the student-athletes and mance the single greatest moment he’s earlier, she had teamed with Nia Akins, fans cheering them on, it’s hard not to ever witnessed at the Penn Relays—“and Uchechi Nwogwugwu, and Maddie Vil- get emotional.” I think that’s the case for most people my lalba to lead Penn to a fi rst-place fi nish Few were as emotional as Quinn, who age, give or take 10 or 20 years,” adds the in the women’s distance medley relay got to stand on the winners’ platform Penn Relays Director, who fi rst attended (DMR) Championship of America—one and take a photo with the Penn athletes the meet as a high school junior. of the meet’s marquee college events. after they accepted their “wheel”—the On a raw, drizzly day 40 years ago, Ne- On the Franklin Field infi eld after the plaque, designed in 1925, depicting Ben hemiah “did something I’ve never seen victory, Penn track and fi eld director Franklin holding a laurel sprig and another quarter-miler do,” Johnson says. Steve Dolan—just done hollering at Vil- greeting four runners. “It was very mov- “He looked like he popped a gear, like he lalba, who ran the mile anchor leg, to ing,” Quinn says. “For a Philadelphia was just coming out of the starting “stay in the moment” while the public kid who ran here in high school to blocks.” He made up a 20-meter defi cit address announcer exclaimed, “No Ivy stand on that platform—it was just an in the last lap to lead Maryland to its League women’s team has ever won a amazing feeling.” third win of the day, following exciting Championship of America!”—hugged the And the chance to play even a small victories in the shuttle hurdle and 4x200 four runners. Tony Tenisci, who retired part in it—“My contribution is minimal relays. It surprised even Nehemiah, who in 2016 after 30 years coaching track at at best,” he says—is why he, like so many was trailing by so much he simply tried Penn, hugged just about everybody in others, keeps coming back to Franklin to give it “a gallant try” so at least the sight. Dave Johnson, longtime director Field every April. From veteran coaches fans would be sympathetic. “But when I of the Penn Relays, cried out, “Get ’em like Quinn to volunteer offi cials to media got around the third turn and heard the around! All the way around!” Tanaka, members to competitors ranging in age crescendo of screams, it kind of pro- Akins, Nwogwugwu, and Villalba then from 10 to 100, people come to the meet pelled me,” he says. That’s a familiar enjoyed a victory lap, all the way around, for diff erent reasons. But for all of them, theme at the Penn Relays, where crowds ending near the corner of Franklin Field the Penn Relays has become a fi xture on topping 40,000 have a way of driving where classmates had chanted “U- the calendar—equal parts track meet, wild comebacks and plucky underdogs. PENN” throughout the race. carnival, and family reunion. “Of all the accomplishments I had, that 34 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Jul| Aug 2019 Clockwise from left, a USA vs. the World race; Penn star and Women’s Relays Athlete of the Meet, Nia Akins; and Dave Johnson with Renaldo Nehemiah. seems to be the most compelling one that the fi rst time the Penn Relays went inter- people witnessed,” adds Nehemiah, who national—beginning a long and fruitful returned to this year’s 125th anniversary tradition that has made the meet what it running as an honorary carnival referee. is today. That may have been hard to pre- “People I don’t even know come up to me dict during the inaugural running in and say it was the greatest thing they’ve 1895—a year before the modern Olympics ever seen in their life … The afterglow has began—when Penn was, according to sustained itself for more than 40 years.” Johnson, simply “trying to reinvigorate its Johnson has seen plenty of other mem- track program” by inviting a few other orable performances during the 51 Penn Northeast high schools and colleges to Relays he’s attended. At his fi rst, in 1968, open Franklin Field (which is also cele- he learned to never leave early when Vil- brating its 125th birthday this year). But lanova won its fi fth relay championship 5,000 spectators showed up, and “I think with the meet’s fi rst sub-44-second quar- they knew they had a great idea,” says ter mile—just as he was walking away Johnson, noting it was the biggest crowd from the stadium. A history buff de- to ever see a track meet in Philadelphia. scribed by colleagues as a “walking ency- Initially called “Annual Relay Races” clopedia” of track and fi eld, Johnson also (words that graced the front page of this wishes he had been around for some of year’s commemorative program), it the more iconic moments of the Relays’ gradually grew from a three-hour meet fi rst three-quarters of a century. “I would to an all-day Saturday aff air. Twenty have loved to have seen the race in 1914, years after the inaugural running, a sec- in a driving rain, on a muddy track, with ond day (Friday) was added to the com- Oxford and Penn running a 4xmile relay petition—which happened shortly after at the end of the day,” he says. Oxford, the word “Carnival” fi rst appeared on a 100-year-old woman ran the 100-meter loaded with a world record holder and an the program to refl ect the atmosphere dash three years ago). The current ver- Olympic champion, won narrowly on the created by tent camps around Franklin sion of the meet lasts about 36 hours fi nal straightaway—but Penn, “by any Field. And it continued to expand from from Thursday through Saturday, with reckoning, shouldn’t have even been that there, turning into a three-day meet in almost 1,000 high schools, more than close to them,” Johnson says.