V 13 N. 106 Another Coach Who Took a Knife to One of Her Runners

 Grace Butcher liked Paul O'Shea's story about "Taking A Knife To His Runner's Throat"  and relayed another of those blood lust thrillers to our collection.   Well not really blood lust, but there was a knife involved and without it, there would have been a long day for one of her runners.   

Grace Butcher as many of you know represented the US in the USA vs. Soviet Union  dual meet in Philadelphia in 1959.   For years she was one of the top middle distance runners in the US and was a pioneer in getting women's events longer than 200 meters into international and national events in this country.     Here is her story.

As you know, I taught English for 25 years at the Kent State University Geauga Campus. In 1980, because I was doing a lot of my own training on campus, I thought I'd see if any students wanted to join me, and maybe I could start a cross country program there. We were the smallest branch of Kent State with only about 200 commuting students at the time, but I did get 5 students to start running with me, or training under my direction as they were beginners at the time.

The program grew from that year to 12 the next year, and leveled out at about 15 for the twelve years until I retired.  To accommodate the various schedules of the runners, I ran two workouts a day back then with a morning and afternoon practice, running with the team in the woods and fields of our rural campus and on the adjacent county fairgrounds property. We were just a kind of rag-tag independent group of runners, not in any league, going to area road races and cross country meets as a team every weekend through the fall. Finally the program was accepted as an official Phys. Ed. credit course. The dean fought some battles to get that accreditation since I didn't have a degree in PE. Seems that being a former national  800m champion/record holder/All-American  hadn't struck the powers-that-be as being qualified to teach what was listed as a fitness jogging class. Thanks, Larry Jones. 

One of my best runners was Dave, a tall, blond, thin, likeable guy. At a big road race one weekend, I took my runners to the starting line—I was also running and a little nervous—but where was Dave? Nobody knew. Finally, minutes before the start, here comes Dave jogging up to the line. He's still got his sweatpants on. "Dave!" I said. "Get your sweats off!"  "I can't," he says, yanking at the waistband. "I've got a knot!"  "Here, let me," I say, female coach fumbling with my male runner's pants.  I can't undo it either. I look over at the spectators milling around in the start area. I yell, "Pocket knife? Pocket knife? Does anybody have a pocket knife?!"  A hand appears with the rescue knife, I cut Dave out of his sweat pants, the gun goes off along with his pants, and off we all go.

A follow-up to this event was at the last race of our season, a 5 mile cross country run on our campus, the Cornfield Caper. (Yes, it did go through a cornfield.) Our uniforms were made of sweat pant material; the loose-fitting shorts had a drawstring waist. On the first of the two loops around campus, the adjacent woods and fields, I see Dave coming.  He seems to be clutching his stomach. As he goes by, I yell, "Dave, what's wrong?"  "My drawstring broke!" he yells back. He had to run the better part of 5 miles holding his pants up.

At the year's-end banquet, after all the usual awards, I gave funny gifts to all the runners, based on something that had happened during the season. For Dave, the only possible gift was a pair of suspenders.  

Grace Butcher

* This reminds me a bit of Tom O'Hara the great miler from Loyola of Chicago.   The coach must have ordered shorts too large for Tom, because he was always tugging them up during his races.  ed.  

From Bill Schnier:

Grace Butcher's post was fabulous, enhanced by the fact that she had been an outstanding runner.  I especially enjoyed her never-before-heard comment: "the gun goes off along with his pants."  I once coached a very good distance runner who strangely faded in midrace on a foggy Saturday morning.  As I stood next to his parents, impatiently waiting for him to pass by, his mother shouts out "I think Todd is in his underpants."  Sure enough he strolls by us, devoid of shame, wearing only his tighty whities, missing his black shorts which had lost its elastic band.  He was well behind where he should have been but at least he was able to run with both arms pumping.

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