V 15 N. 6 Jerome Drayton/Peter Buniak Canada's Great Marathoner R.I.P.

 Jerome Drayton  born Peter Buniak  died Monday January 10, 2025 during surgery on his knee.  It was not a running related injury but chronic arthritis that got him on the tab le.  Born  Peter Buniak in Germany in the last days of World War II,  his family were Russian/Ukrainian refugees.  He spent years in a Displaced Persons camp and then in a German foster home, and after his parents separated he and his mother emigrated to Canada.  He changed his name in 1969 to escape his connection to his father.  I remember reading somewhere that when queried if he had used the names of sprinters Harry Jerome and Paul Drayton to create his new name.  He denied this and if he had chosen great runners his name would have been Ron Bikila after  Ron Hill and Abebe Bikila.   It seemed that he was always wearing those dark aviator shades when he ran, but the picture below shows him running without those aids.   Jerome was Boston Marthon winner and three time Fukuoka Marathon winner, was sixth in the Olympic Marathon in 1976, and  held the Canadian marathon record for 43 years until it was broken by Cam Levins.

             Jerome Drayton at the Springbank Road Races 1974 by Jim Gerard of Oakwood, Ohio

I encourage you to check out this link about Jerome Drayton published in 2009 in Canadian Running and written by Paul Gains.  Link   Jerome Drayton, Ahead of His Time  Link

Below is a piece we put on this blog many years ago:   

Yesterday's trivia question:  What great runner was originally named Peter Buniak?

And the answer is:   Jerome Drayton,  Canadian marathoner.

At least five of our readers correctly answered the question and received a lifetime subscription to this blog thus driving us a bit closer to insolvency.

Steve Smith sent in this biography of Jerome Drayton (Source:https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/jerome-drayton  )

Jerome Peter Drayton (né Peter Buniak), marathoner, long-distance runner (born 10 January 1945 in Kolbermoore, Germany). Jerome Drayton is considered Canada’s top male marathon runner and best male distance runner of all time. He set the Canadian men’s marathon record twice, with times of 2:16:11 in 1968 and 2:10:08.4 in 1975; the latter record stood for 43 years. Drayton competed for Canada at the 1968 and 1976 Olympic Summer Games and won the silver medal in the men’s marathon at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton. He is the last male Canadian runner to have won the Boston Marathon (in 1977). He also set a world record in the men’s 10-mile run (46:37.4). A member of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, Drayton earned 12 national titles and set 13 records in various distances.

Childhood

Jerome Drayton was born Peter Buniak in Bavarian Germany to Ukrainian parents on 10 January 1945. An only child, Peter had a difficult time growing up in a country that had been decimated in the Second World War.  His parents were not Jewish, but they were placed in a concentration camp because they had tuberculosis. As an infant, Peter was fed frozen potatoes and icicles. He was placed in a foster home at age six and lived there for four years. He had a hard time there because he did not understand German. “Not speaking German, I got in a lot of fights,” he told Canadian Running magazine in 2009.

After his parents were divorced, Peter’s mother, Sonia, brought him to Canada in November 1956. She found a job as a hospital worker in Toronto. Upon moving to Canada, Peter was known as “DP” — short for displaced person. He had a difficult time fitting in with his Canadian classmates while growing up in Ontario.

Early Athletics Career

Peter started running in high school. At the age of 18, he entered his first track and field competition at the 1963 Mimico High School Track and Field Meet. He won the half-mile, 1-mile and 2-mile events. He was then recruited by the Toronto Olympic Club and trained with Canadian national distance running coach Paul Poce.

Peter tried running an 8-mile event and did not enjoy it. He subsequently quit the Toronto Olympic Club in 1965. However, he rejoined later that year after Pan American Games marathon champion Andy Boychuk told him, “you’re not a man until you’ve run a marathon.”

1968 Olympic GamesPeter Buniak initially met the Canadian Olympic standard time of 2:24 at a marathon in Detroit on 2 June 1968. But it was Andy Boychuk who was named to the Canadian Olympic team, as he ran a faster time than Buniak in another marathon competition. However, Buniak qualified for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City when he posted a Canadian national record time of 2:16:11 in the Guelph-to-Dundas marathon in Ontario. Unfortunately, at the 1968 Olympic Games, Buniak was unable to complete the marathon due to a case of dysentery.

Name Change

In March 1969, Peter Buniak officially changed his name to Jerome Peter Drayton. He wanted to cut ties with his youth in Germany and came up with the name after going through a phonebook and a book of names. It has been speculated that he chose the names of two of the world’s best sprinters at the time — Canada’s Harry Jerome and American Paul Drayton — but he has insisted that the names are a coincidence. “I always liked the name Jerome,” he once said in an interview. “I picked Drayton from about 20 others…. I tried putting Jerome with all the others and Drayton seemed to fit best.”

Success in Japan

At the 1969 Motor City Marathon in Detroit, Drayton set a North American record with a time of 2:12:00. At the 1969 Fukuoka Marathon in Japan, Drayton won the race with a time of 2:11:12.8. Drayton had not only beaten his North American record; he had posted the fifth-fastest marathon time ever.  On 7 December 1975, Drayton had continued success in Fukuoka, as he set a Canadian record time of 2:10:08.4. His record stood until 21 October 2018, when Cam Levins of Black Creek, British Columbia, posted a time of 2:09:25 at the Toronto Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon.

1977 Boston Marathon

In 1977, Drayton became the 11th Canadian to win the Men’s Open Championship of the Boston Marathon. He posted a winning time of 2:14:46 and beat his nearest competitor by nearly a full minute. (Veli Balli of Turkey finished second with a time of 2:15:44.) Drayton was highly critical of certain aspects of the race, which led to what many saw as much needed improvements. Drayton is also the last male Canadian runner to win the Boston Marathon. Jacqueline Gareau of L’Annonciation, Quebec, won the women’s race in 1980.

Other Points of Interest

Drayton’s success was not limited to marathon running. On 6 September 1970, he broke the world record in the men’s 10-mile run. He posted a time of 46:37.6 at a Canadian National Exhibition event in Toronto. Drayton earned 12 national titles and set 13 records in various distances.

From 1971 to 1974, Drayton battled injuries and financial problems. He did not compete for Canada at the 1972 Olympic Summer Games in Munich. At the 1976 Olympic Summer Games in Montreal, Drayton finished in sixth place. Two years later, Drayton won a silver medal at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton; he finished behind Gidamis Shahanga of Tanzania. Drayton was one of two Canadians to medal in the men’s marathon at the Games, as Paul Bannon won bronze. Drayton had hoped to represent Canada at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, but he was unable to compete because of the Canadian boycott. After winning the Maryland Marathon in December 1980, Drayton retired from the sport. He then served as a consultant with the Sports and Fitness Division of the Ontario Ministry of Youth, Culture and Recreation, a position he began in 1975.

Honours

Following the 1969 Fukuoka Marathon, Drayton was ranked the best marathon runner in the world by Track and Field News. According to Canadian Runner, he is “the only Canadian marathoner ever to do so.” After winning the Boston Marathon, Drayton won the 1977 Norton Crowe Trophy, which is presented to Canada’s senior male amateur athlete of the year. Drayton was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1978.

Below are two photos of Jerome Drayton thought to be taken at the Detroit Marathon in 1975.  Provided by our contact in Boston  Ned Price.  Note that Jerome is not wearing his trade mark sun glasses.

Correction:  Ned thinks these photos more likely were 1968 at Detroit and served as Canadian marathon trials for the Olympics.  Drayton won in 2 hr 23.

Andy Boychuk was second, and Ron Wallingford was third.  Looks like a mid day marathon and brain fry.

Results (men)

Finished	Time	Flags	Given name	Surname	Alternate name	Citizenship	Birth date	Prize money	Actions
1	2:23:57.4		Jerome	Drayton	Buniak Peter	CAN	10 Jan 1945
2	2:24:22.0		Andy	Boychuk		CAN	17 May 1941
3	2:33:34.2		Ron	Wallingford		CAN	13 Sep 1933
6	2:44:12.8		John	Mowatt		CAN
DNF	DNF		Mike	Hazilla		USA	25 Jul 1946
DNF	DNF		Hal	Higdon		USA	17 Jun 1931

V 15 N. 5 Four Enduring Coaches Come Off One College Track Team

 

A Legacy of Coaching Excellence

            Bill Schnier          Chuck Hunsaker         Bob Lewis                       Jim Demo

Many schools across the country have produced great coaches, but few can claim a single team that has done so. At Capital University, the track and cross-country programs have a storied history, producing some of the most remarkable athletes in the university’s history. Many of these athletes have been inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame, and several have gone on to achieve exceptional success as coaches. These programs have cultivated leaders who have claimed state high school championships, national collegiate championships, and national Coach of the Year awards, establishing a legacy unparalleled by most collegiate athletic programs.

Capital’s 1965 track team, and particularly the Class of 1966, stands out as a unique source of coaching excellence. The 1965 track team produced four extraordinary coaches: Jim Demo (Class of 1965), Bob Lewis (Class of 1966), Wilfred “Wilf” Schnier (Class of 1966), and Chuck Hunsaker (Class of 1966).

Jim Demo

Jim Demo’s coaching career began with a remarkable impact. At Glenville High School, he led two teams to State Track Championships and three teams to the State Cross Country Meet—the only Glenville cross-country teams to achieve this milestone. Under Demo’s leadership, two athletes became High School All-Americans. His coaching successes extended to Purcell High School, Roger Bacon High School, and Medina High School. At Medina, Demo coached a state runner-up track team and numerous league champion track and cross-country teams, sending six teams to the state meet. In 1988, he was named Ohio High School Coach of the Year. Among his athletes was Duaine Ladejo, a two-time Olympic medalist for Great Britain. Demo is enshrined in the Medina County Sports Hall of Fame, the Capital University Athletic Hall of Fame, and the Ohio Track and Cross-Country Coaches Hall of Fame.

Bob Lewis

Bob Lewis, after earning a Ph.D. at Ohio State, embarked on a historic coaching career at Frostburg State University. There, he coached 112 intercollegiate teams—the most in Maryland’s collegiate athletic history. His accomplishments include three NCAA Division III men’s track and field national championships and numerous top-10 finishes in national competitions for both track and cross-country teams. Lewis coached 18 individual NCAA Division III national champions, three national championship relay teams, and multiple All-Americans, including an athlete who competed in four consecutive U.S. Olympic Games. His accolades include three NCAA Division III National Men’s Track and Field Coach of the Year honors and membership in the Capital University Athletic Hall of Fame, Frostburg State University Bobcat Hall of Fame, and United States Track and Cross-Country Coaches Hall of Fame.

Wilfred “Wilf” Schnier

Wilfred “Wilf” Schnier began his coaching journey at Trotwood-Madison High School, where his teams secured multiple top-10 finishes and produced individual state champions. At the University of Cincinnati, Schnier built the premier collegiate track and cross-country program in Ohio. His teams achieved conference championships in the Great Midwest Conference, Conference USA, and strong performances in the Big East. Schnier coached 129 individual conference champions, five NCAA All-Americans, and two Olympic medalists. Recognized as Conference USA Coach of the Decade in both track and cross-country, he earned 14 additional Coach of the Year honors. Schnier’s accolades include induction into the Capital University Athletic Hall of Fame, University of Cincinnati Athletic Hall of Fame, Greater Cincinnati Running Hall of Fame, and Ohio Track and Cross-Country Coaches Hall of Fame.

Chuck Hunsaker

Chuck Hunsaker’s coaching career began at the University of Cincinnati, where he quickly made an impact, coaching five track and cross-country All-Americans in just two years. He moved on to Southwest Missouri State University, where he led his teams to five conference championships, one NCAA Division II national cross-country championship, and multiple runner-up finishes. Hunsaker coached two individual national champions and 22 NCAA Division II All-Americans. His exceptional leadership earned him multiple NCAA Division II National Cross-Country Coach of the Year awards. Later, Hunsaker was called to active duty with the U.S. Army and became the first women’s track and cross-country coach at the United States Military Academy at West Point. His teams achieved national prominence, and he played a key role in integrating women into the Corps of Cadets. Hunsaker’s legacy includes authorship of the book Angels in Combat Boots, chronicling the experiences of the first women at West Point. He is a member of several halls of fame, including the Capital University Athletic Hall of Fame and the Missouri State University Athletic Hall of Fame.

Coach Jack Landrum’s Leadership

The remarkable achievements of these coaches can be traced back to the guidance of their mentor, Coach Jack Landrum. A visionary leader and motivator, Landrum instilled in his athletes the values of hard work, dedication, and perseverance. His ability to inspire his athletes to excel not only in sports but also in life left an indelible mark on each of them. As the saying goes, “A good coach improves your performances, but a great coach improves your life.” Landrum was undeniably a great coach who set the foundation for a legacy of excellence that continues to shine brightly.

The legacy of Capital University’s 1965 track team serves as a testament to the transformative power of athletics and mentorship. This exceptional group of coaches has left an enduring mark on the sport, their communities, and the broader world of athletics.

This article is taken from Capitol University website

V 15 N. 4 Remembering Greg Bell and the Iowa State Plane Crash in 1985

                                                                      Gregg Bell

                                                                      1930-2024

 No one as old as me could have helped missing the notice of the passing of Greg Bell,  Indiana University's 1956 Olympic Champion in the Long Jump.  He came between the era's of Jesse Owens and Ralph Boston.  He had an incredibly interesting life, rising from extreme poverty to living a life of service to others.   Dave Woods has done an admirable job of writing about Greg and his life on Dyestat.  I leave you with a link to that story.  

Greg Bell Story by Dave Woods of Dyestat

                                                          The Iowa State Cross Country Tragedy

Last night on the news we were drawn to the story of the plane crash in the Potomac River caused by the collision of an Army Blackhawk helicopter and a commercial airline plane.  This morning additional news included that a number the victims on the plane were members of the national ice skating program and also a Russian pair who were World Champions were on the plane.   Mention was made of several past crashes of  which sports teams were on board including the Manchester United soccer team, the Marshall University football team,  Wichita State football,  a Russian soccer team and many others, and then the memory of the Iowa State cross county team tragedy came up.  

Here is the link to the Iowa State Athletics website that talks about that crash and the lives lost.

Iowa State Cross Country Tragedy 1985

  Two great articles to pass on to us.  Earlier in the day I had read about Greg Bell whose picture I saw every winter day at IU, large and black & white, on the Fieldhouse wall and whose life was recreated occasionally by Sam Bell.  The article you sent us was more complete and more personal, but both made me think of so many things.  The racism which would not allow Greg to advance to college, the racism overcome, the ability to find joy where others did not, the outreach of Dr. Bannon which sent Greg to a school I knew so well, the development of so many skills by this Olympian, and a life well lived as a dentist who served psychiatric patients the rest of his extremely-long professional life.  His story reminded me a lot of Ted Corbitt's and for that I was well pleased.

   The Iowa State plane crash was much the opposite yet rendered me to tears just thinking about those girls who died as well as those who lived.  I couldn't help but identify with all of them, not through a tragedy like this one but instead by remembering what a teammate really means.  It was impossible to note that this crash was not noted nearly as much as had they been on the football or basketball teams.  Clearly they died as they had lived, mostly in public quiet.  Even their memorial services were quiet and off to the side.   Yet that did not diminish their lives for those who had known them, beautifully created by the comments by the student-trainer at the wedding of her sister.  Those comments were as good as I have ever heard.

Bill Schnier  

V 15 N. 3 Coach Harold 'Lefty' Martin R.I.P. (1939-2025)

  Coach Harold 'Lefty' Martin of Dayton, Ohio, more correctly Trotwood, a northwest suburb of the Gem City.    I knew Lefty for several years.  He was the women's coach at the University of Dayton when I was taken in to coach the women's cross country team in 1998,  so he could focus on his own specialties in the sprints and hurdles.  I asked him why he was letting go of the cross country position,  His reply made me grin.  "Lefty don't like walking on grass."   He had proven his coaching talent with his daughter LaVonna who was a two time Olympian and silver medallist in the 100 meter hurdles at Barcelona.   She was not his only Olympian as you will learn below.    He always treated me well and gave compliments when merited. We were both stubborn old men.   His younger daughter Bren was on the Dayton track team in those days.      George Brose

Tom Archedeacon, Dayton's best journalist wrote the following about him this week in the Dayton Daily News: 

Sports

By Tom Archdeacon

Jan 19, 2025

X

When you read his obituary, it says Harold “Lefty” Martin had four children with Brenda, his wife of 59 years:

LaVonna, Duane, LeBren and Lloyd.

In truth, Lefty had a lot more kids.

Well over 1,000.

Some of them went on to become Olympians, as did LaVonna, who competed in the Seoul Games in 1988 and four years later in Barcelona won a silver medal in the 100-meter hurdles.

He had 60 kids who were national youth track and field champions. Several won state high school titles and nearly 300 got college athletic scholarships, with many of them going on to become NCAA champions and All Americans.

Hundreds and hundreds of them ended up as part of the fabric of this community and so many others across the nation. They are our teachers and preachers, coaches, doctors, engineers, factory workers, husbands, wives, grandparents and so much more.

Martin died last Monday. He was 84 and a beloved figure in the sports world.

While a memorial service will be announced in the future, his passing is now sending ripples of reflection through the community because of all those “kids” he had and the way he impacted their lives.

He and Brenda started the Trotwood-based Northwest Track Club in 1978. Early on, Dave West, the New York Jets defensive back, helped out, but the Martins were the identity and the backbone of the effort for decades.

Initially, they wanted to provide an outlet for their two oldest children — LaVonna and Duane — who showed promise in track. Other kids soon flocked to them the way the swallows were drawn to Capistrano.

Credit: NONE

Harold "Lefty" Martin, pictured in 1985. Martin helped found the Northwest Track Club.. DDN file photo

Lefty once told me about a girl in the early 1980s — Mary Hawkins — who used to ride the Greyhound bus back and forth two times a week from Columbus to Northwest Track Club practices. She would go on to be a standout at East High and later ran for Panama in the Olympics.

Tonja Buford-Bailey, another Northwest Track Club product, starred at Meadowdale High and the University of Illinois — where she was a 10-time All American and the NCAA 400-meter hurdles champ — and then ran in three Olympics, winning a bronze medal in the 400-meter hurdles at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

No one though was quite the tour de force that LaVonna Martin-Floreal (she’s now married to Texas track coach and former Canadian Olympian Edrick Floreal) was.

She single-handedly led Trotwood Madison High School to state titles in 1983 and 1984 by scoring all her team’s points. She was a 14-time All American at Tennessee and then came the Olympic efforts.

Thanks, in part, to her, the Northwest Track Club became one of the best-known developmental programs in the nation.

But once again, in truth, it was about far more than track with Lefty and Brenda.

“We try to stress more than just the actual sports,” Brenda once told me. “We try to make the club about the most important things, too: integrity, doing things the right way, and we really stress getting an education. We want our kids to be able to get scholarships and go to college.”

Lefty and Brenda Martin with their four children (left to right): Lloyd, LaVonna, Duane and LeBren. CONTRIBUTED

For decades Lefty was fully committed to that effort.

“That was the baby he created,” LaVonna told me the other day from her home in Texas. “My parents treated the Northwest track kids as their own children.”

That’s why in 2015, Bing Davis, the internationally-acclaimed artist, educator and community activist from Dayton, made the perfect choice for the prestigious Dayton Skyscraper art show that occurs here each year. He chose Lefty Martin as the subject of his offering.

The Skyscraper awards honor local African American men and women who stand tall in the community as role models and leaders.

“We try to get broader role models for young people and young men in general to show them individuals who are excelling beyond some of the areas they focus on, like the NBA, the NFL and hip-hop. And Lefty is really the epitome of our efforts,” Davis said.

“Even though he was once the big man on campus himself, what he is doing now is even greater than all his records in Pittsburgh and at Central State.

“That’s why I named the entry Beyond the Finish Line.

“He is an athlete who has stayed active in the community. To work with all these young people around here and have them break national youth records and then better participate for their high schools and go on to college and some even go on to the Olympics to me that is what being a Skyscraper is all about.”

Lefty, in his typical gruff, focus-on-somebody else manner, scoffed when I told him what Bing had said:

“I don’t know about all that. I’m not in it for that. This is just my passion, something I love doing. I see so many talented athletes come along, and I just want them to improve from one week to the next.

“I want them to have success, and I want to be there to see it.”

And he saw a lot of it, not just at the Northwest Track Club, but when he launched the University of Dayton track program in the mid-1990s and ran it for seven years. He also coached the Wilberforce University team.

He was a race official for numerous college conferences, including the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Atlantic Sun, Big South and MEAC.

He was a referee at various USA Track and Field and Junior Olympic events and became a site inspector at meets around the country. Over the years, he coached hurdlers in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Scotland, Singapore and Cuba.

In 1983, as the meet director of Youth Athletics National Championships, he brought the event and its 4,000 athletes to Dayton, where, for the first time, boys and girls competed in the same meet.

As Brenda once explained:

“That man just loves track. He goes to bed talking about track. He wakes up talking about track. He talks about track during the day. All day, Every day.”

When I told him what Brenda had said, he shook his head: “No, I like fishing, too.”

Harold “Lefty” Martin works with hurdler Camryn Nadi at the Trotwood track in 2015. DDN FILE

Central State hall of famer

“Like most black families my grandparents came through the Great Migration,” LaVonna said. “They came up from South Carolina to Pittsburgh and, like all the families, they wanted their child to have it better than they did.”

Lefty’s dad was a waiter at the restaurant in Kaufmann’s department store in Pittsburgh. His mom worked as a domestic in private homes.

He was their only child, and he soon starred in track at South Hills High School. One headline in a local paper read: “Pittsburgh’s Fastest Boy.”

A cousin of his was going to Central State and she showed some of Lefty’s clippings to the Marauders’ legendary coach, Gaston “Country” Lewis, who soon offered him a scholarship.

Once he got to the Wilberforce campus, Lefty made the most of the opportunity he’d been given.

He was the first CSU athlete to run the 100-yard dash in under 10 seconds, clocking a 9.8 at a school meet, and 9.5 at an AAU event. He also was the stalwart on two of the Marauders’ formidable relay teams.

While at CSU he was elected the student intramural director and ran competitions in five sports. A double major (music, as well as health and recreation), he also played the tuba.

He is now enshrined in the CSU Hall of Fame.

After graduation he got a job at the Dayton Boys and Girls Club. That’s where he met Brenda Young, then a University of Dayton student, who had a summer job working for the City of Dayton recreation department.

She once told me they unknowingly had been in each other’s presence before that:

“When Lefty’s mother died, we were cleaning out the attic and I came across a program from an AAU meet at Welcome Stadium. I said, ‘Oh my God, Lefty, look at this! There’s your name and here’s mine.’ He was running in college, and I was still in high school then.”

Lefty eventually began a job at the Dayton Veteran Affairs Medical Center where for 28 years he served as the Chief of Recreation Therapy.

LaVonna said her dad was a good provider and she and her sister and brothers got all they needed from him — except time.

Lefty and Brenda with their young children: Duane (top left); LaVonna (top right); Lloyd (bottom left) and LeBren (bottom right.) CONTRIBUTED

When you are so committed to track as he was, you’re often away from home.

She said her mom was the glue of the family, while also doing all the paperwork and cultivating many of the personal relationships of the track club.

She said her parent’s long marriage can be attributed, in part, to them having the same interest — the track club.

I once asked Brenda and Lefty the secret of their long marriage.

“I pray a lot,” Brenda said.

With deadpan delivery, Lefty said: “I stay out of her way.”

Lasting impact

LaVonna said her dad’s success stemmed, in part, because he was stubborn. He had a way he did things, and he wouldn’t waver. Mostly, that was a good trait.

He did believe in routine.

He used to fish on Fridays. Sometimes at Indian Lake, other times at St. Marys, or Lakengren, south of Eaton. On occasion he went to Lake Erie.

He passed his interest in music on to his kids, too,

“We each had to learn to play some kind of instrument,” LaVonna said with a chuckle as she remembered her early days at the piano.

“And we always had to watch the Macy’s Parade. Just to see the bands. Even now, I’d call him every year before the parade to let him know I’d be watching. That’s a tradition I’ll try to keep going with my kids (E.J. and Mimi.)”

On his right hand, Lefty wore a Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl ring that sparkled with six stones representing six NFL titles.

He held tight to his roots and that included the work ethic he saw his parents exhibit. He believed his track kids could excel if they put in the work and mostly that did happen.

There were a few casualties. One star went to prison. One girl was killed in a robbery. A guy in the service was hit by a train.

When he talked about them once, a noticeable sadness came over him.

“You just wish you could help them all succeed,” he said in voice that was nearly a whisper.

He helped so many of them though and that effort struck a real chord with Davis, who has done the same for others in his life.

Back when he honored Lefty, he stressed how Martin was doing something in this community “that is very special, very unusual.

“Long after his own career was over, long after he had run all those races and won all those trophies, he found a way to continue to contribute to the quality of life in the Miami Valley. Over the years he’s touched the lives of so many young people here. To my eyes, that what makes him a Dayton Skyscraper.”

And now, even though Lefty Martin is gone, his towering presence still rises up all around us.

You can see it in all his kids.

They are our teachers and preachers, coaches, doctors, engineers, factory workers, husbands, wives, grandparents and so much more.

USATF posted this obit:

Legendary youth coach and official Harold "Lefty" Martin died Jan. 13 in Dayton, Ohio. He was 84. One of the most beloved figures in USATF youth athletics, Martin's career in the sport spanned more than six decades, and along the way he established an unmatched legacy of service and excellence.

Martin, born August 20, 1940, in Pittsburgh, was a prodigious athletic talent as a student at South Hills High School, gaining local fame in the sprints. His exploits on the track earned him a scholarship to Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, where he became the first sprinter at the school to crack 10 seconds in the 100-yard dash. He also ran on record-setting sprint medley and 440-yard relay squads.

A dual major in Health, Physical Education & Recreation and Music Education, Martin was the Student Intramural Director for three years at Central State, creating opportunities for students to compete in a variety of sports.

Following college, Martin worked at the Dayton Boys Club before starting a long career at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Dayton, where he served as Chief of Recreation Therapy for 28 years. After retiring from the VA, he took over as head track and field coach at the University of Dayton, where he served for seven years.

In 1978, Martin helped found the Northwest Track Club in Trotwood, Ohio, and the club became one of the nation's best, producing more than 60 national youth champions, six future Olympians, and a slew of future NCAA champions and all-Americans. More than 200 of the club's athletes received college scholarships over the years.

Martin was selected as a coach for several USATF youth teams in international championship events, most notably as head women's coach for the 1990 IAAF World Junior Championships in Bulgaria, and he served in numerous administrative roles at the local and national level for the governing body. As an official, Martin worked events across the spectrum of competitive levels, including as a referee at national Junior Olympic Championships. In 1983 he was the meet director for the Youth Athletics National Championships in Dayton.

In 2015, Martin was honored as a Dayton Skyscraper as a tribute to his work with area youth. In the June 19, 2015, Dayton Daily News, Willis "Bing" Davis, curator of Dayton’s EbonNia Gallery, lauded Martin for his service after selecting him as his "Skyscraper" subject.

Davis said, "We try to get broader role models for young people — and young men in general — to show them individuals who are excelling beyond some of the areas they focus on, like the NBA, the NFL and hip-hop.

“And Lefty is really the epitome of our efforts. Even though he was once the big man on campus, what he’s doing now is even greater than all his records in Pittsburgh and at Central State.

“That’s why I named the entry ‘Beyond the Finish Line.’ He is an athlete who has stayed active in the community.

“To work with all these young people around here and have them break national youth records and then better participate for their high schools and go on to college and some even go on to the Olympics — to me that’s what being a Skyscraper is all about.”

Martin is survived by his wife, Brenda, and four children -- LaVonna, the silver medalist in the 100-meter hurdles at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Duane, Lloyd, and LeBren. Services are pending.