V 12 N. 12 The Glue That Binds Our Many Running Communities, Don Wahle Was That Person in Cincinnati

 

Every community of runners from the rocky shores of Portland, Me, to the cornbelt of Ames, Iowa, the Swamps of Savannah, Georgia, the blustery prairies of North Dakota, the Mountains of Idaho, the deserts of New Mexico, the barrio of East L.A. or the coffee shops of Seattle, has a few men and women who bind that community into a cohesive gathering of people hell bent on running and for some even competing to the best of their abilities.  In Cincinnati, Ohio, Don Wahle was one of those people.   Don, age 90,  passed away recently,  and the outpouring of kind words about him is almost beyond belief.  He was a man challenged all his life by poor eyesight and eventual blindness who could never turn his back away from our sport.   

In Don's earliest days of schooling  He was placed in classes for the visually challenged.  In those days the terminology was not so neutral.  He discovered running when he realized that you had to see your receivers if you wanted to be a quarterback in football.  A coach fortunately turned him to running cross country and track, still a challenge but doable for a person of his ambitions.  

Don graduated from high school in 1948, an above average but not a champion miler.  When he matriculated to the University of Cincinnati he made the track and cross country squads at a school that was not noted for its distance runners.  But Don discovered Emil Zatopek in 1951 and in Zatopek's incredible year in 1952 and began studying what Zatopek was doing with the huge numbers  of repetitions and year round running.  He would eventually set the school record for 2 miles.  In those days not many distance runners in America trained year round.  There were limited indoor competitions for the average guy and almost nothing in the summer in the Midwest.  At the end of school year in June you packed your kit and didn't get it out until a week or two before the cross country season began.  But Don started seeing running as a year round activity twenty-five years before it became fashionable and the thing of the American social set. 

He along with a few others began organizing summer track meets and road races in the Cincinnati area.  Long before the days of social media, there was a network of communication that got out the word and people showed up to race in the summer.  Sometimes school boards rejected the idea of using their facilities, and Don told them they would be climbing the fences to compete in the summer.  The reluctant school boards gave in.  

Not being a Cincinnati area resident, I didn't know Don in those days but was lucky to meet him twice in the early 2000s at a Christmas gathering hosted by Steve Price.  Friends brought Don up there to be part of that circle each year.  

When Don was totally blind his running community friends took him to the home meets at the U. of Cincinnati and give him a play by play description of all the races during the meet, and he was so thrilled to be part of those gatherings.

Nuff said my me who did not know Don very well.  Here are some comments from his friends.

 During the 1970s the Ohio Valley Track Club and Reading High School (Jim Wright, coach) put on spectacular summer all-comers meets.  They attracted at least 300 people each Tuesday from little kids to post-collegiate All-Americans to Bengals and even Oscar Robertson.  I often attended those meets along with Steve Price and the Kettering Striders who regularly brought more than 100 themselves.  I would run races anywhere from the 100 to the 880.  Don Wahle and others served as officials and I was so taken by the kindness of Don, his commitment to accuracy, and his spirit of inclusion.  I did not know Don then but came to know him later once I became the UC coach in 1980.  He was a legend then and is a legend today as we all reminisce about this great man.

   Bill Schnier

Reggie McAfee (first African-American to break 4:00 in the mile)

All,

Don was a great guy! He helped so many and I was one of the recipients of his kindness.

Rest in peace, my friend!

Bob:

I met Don shortly after graduating from UC. He, Howard Hughes and I ran weekly track meets at Withrow High School matching times with Bob McVeigh who lived in Boston. The only race around that time was the Thanksgiving Day Race, which each of us ran regularly. Don and I then started a series of cross country races at the old DAV on Ridge Avenue. From there we began weekly track meets at Walnut Hills High School.

One of my great memories of the Walnut Hills races was a week night during the summer of 1967. We had a few hundred runners from all over the area running that evening. There were many teenagers  running that evening, both black and white kids. As the races went on we began to hear sirens blowing from everywhere. It was the beginning of the race riots, which were taking place literally all around us. We found out later that the other end of Walnut Hills High School had been set on fire. Yet these kids all ran together without incident. What a testimony on how constructive activity could bring us all together.  Kent Friel

He was a bookkeeper.  Ran to and from work every day even though he was half blind.  Worked many years for the same company.  I would agree that individuals like Don are the glue of running.  I miss Steve and his gatherings.  Keep up your wonderful blog.  Bob Roncker

Bob,

   What a nice tribute you wrote about Don Wahle, all of it very true and accurate.  You were one of the first people who reached out to me at UC, along with Melanie Stinson, to measure the course for the Great Bearcat Run.and later I reconnected with other graduates such as Don Wahle.  For a long time the picture of six UC runners standing in Schmidlapp Hall who had run in the Thanksgiving Day race against Miami adorned the walls of our T&F office at UC.  The ones I could recognize were you, Don Wahle, and Vern Hawkins, the runner from Miami you mentioned.  I understand that the UC team beat the Miami team that day, a bit unusually since Miami was always so strong in distance running.  That picture remains in the files at UC but I do have another picture of you two from your UC days, two record holders: Don (mile and 2 mile) and you (440).  I also found another picture of Don in action on the UC track.  Those were the days!

   Bill

Bob

I just found out about Don’s passing. Obviously, I’m shocked and very sorry to hear about it, but by the same token I don’t think Don was enjoying life as much as he should lately.  We’re a couple of oldtimers that go back a long way.  I have great memories of him in sort of two parts because I knew him in our youth, and then I moved to Boston for several years and reconnected with him when I moved back to Cincinnati.

 

Don and I have a picture of us together finishing the high school mile at Withrow.  I‘m beating him a little bit (of course I am a year older). I didn’t talk with him then.  He went to Hughes and I went to Purcell.  We ran track meets but not against each other.  We both went to UC and became close friends.  We practiced together, worked out together, and discussed running a lot. Don was very intellectual about running; he read a lot about running, including what runners in other countries did for training, and he tried new things.  It really paid off for him.  He was a wonderful runner and a wonderful person.  He lived on the west side and I lived in Hyde Park and later Westwood.  We found out both of us were the only people that ran at night -- I ran on the east side and he ran on the west side.  We would chuckle about getting stopped by suspicious cops -- they couldn’t believe some crazy people were out running at night.  At UC, Don was obviously going to be a big star.  He did everything he was supposed to do and soaked up information about running.  He was a 2-miler and miler, and I was a ¼-miler.  We would always run the Thanksgiving Day race, and UC and Miami had an agreement to each run three men.  My senior year and Don’s junior year, we ran with another guy from Anderson (whose name escapes me at the moment) and we won that year (many years later, all three of us individually got lifetime achievement awards -- coincidental but kind of funny).  We were friends all the way through college and I remember going to his wedding.

 

My company moved me to Boston in 1960 (which was very different than Cincinnati because there were runners everywhere!).  I ended up moving back to Cincinnati in the late 1970’s and of course Don and I reconnected.  Don as usual was doing all kinds of stuff to help runners and be with runners.  We used to get together and talk about track and running and meet at the UC meets and sit and talk.  He is probably the hardest working person I know when it comes to running in Cincinnati.  We should all be very proud of Don.   He was a wonderful, wonderful man.

 

My brother Gibbs had Alzheimers and was at a care facility in Wyoming.  Don’s wife was there also, and we would run into each other and chat.  It was always good to see him.

 

I am so happy to say that I knew Don Wahle and he was a very good friend.  I am so sorry to hear of his passing.

Bob MacVeigh