Vol. 3 No. 5 Debbie Heald and Mary Cain - March 17,1972 to January 26, 2013

+Debbie Heald defeating the Russians March 17, 1972

Mary Cain, Penn Relays 2012

January 27, 2013
The second oldest high school record on the books fell yesterday.  +Mary Cain, Bronxville , NY,  took down +Debbie Heald's girls' indoor mile record from 4:38.5  to 4:32.78 at the New Balance Games in New York.

My co-blogger Roy Mason was Debbie's coach back in 1972.  Their story is well described in a recent issue of Runner's World  (Dec., 2012)  by Steve Friedman.   Mary's story is becoming well known, now.   She is  coached by Alberto Salazar after leaving her high school program this Fall.  The  question now  is "How much better will she run?" The other great question is, " Why has it taken so long for this record to be broken?"  Everyone seemed to feel it would happen this year with the times Mary was putting up in the last few seasons.  She is indeed a remarkable young woman and athlete, and now there will be enormous expectations on her shoulders.  She seems a very pleasant , calm and reserved teenager.  I hope that the adults around her will be able to guide her toward achieving her potential without removing  all the other aspects that growing up in our culture require us to learn to be grounded and happy adults.  Mary has already achieved a lot of things that Debbie never had a chance of experiencing.   Debbie's career was hampered by injury and illness that made her life an American tragedy.  But having several nurturing adults along the way did save her life, though it has not been a life unchallenged by fear,  pain and rejection.   It must be remembered that when she set her high school record,  it was also the world record for the mile.  It was against the world record holder, and in a meet of maximum importance in the cold war era against a powerful Soviet team.  She was alone at that meet, 3000 miles from home, no coach with her, running   in a pair of worn out shoes held together with duct tape.    No shoe company thought she was good enough to merit a new pair of shoes.  After all she had only qualified as the second best American to be at that meet.

Vol. 2 No. 102 Roy Mason and Debbie Heald Appear on the pages of Runner's World

As many of you know,  Roy Mason is one of the co-writers of this blog, and one too modest to sound his own bugle.   So I will attempt to do that in the angel Gabriel's absence.

Roy got this blog started a little over a year ago by writing a review of a 1954 Track and Field News.  He is an astute observer of the sport, a worthy critic, and an incredibly knowledgeable devotee when it comes to track and field and baseball and a good writer  on top of all that.  What you may not know is that Roy also was a track coach of some repute in the 1960's and 70's, his team The L.A. Meteors.  His most famous athlete, Debbie Heald still holds the high school indoor mile record of 4:38.5 set in a dual meet with the Soviet Union in Richmond Virginia on St. Patrick's Day 1972.  This is the oldest high school girls' record in the books.

The December issue of Runner's World , now on the stands, has published a lengthy article by Steve Friedman about Debbie's life and her relationship with her coach  Roy Mason.  Debbie has struggled with injury and illness for many years, but the relationship has endured for all this time.  I am proud to be sharing writing of this blog with Roy, and I think you will understand why after reading the article.

For those of you not wishing to buy the issue,  you will probably be able to see the  online at Runner's World  in about a month.

http://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/debbie-heald-set-important-record

 However I recommend you  buy it at the newstand now.

George Brose

Vol. 1 No. 19 Some clarifications

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: dennisthek@comcast.net
To: ernie_cunliffe@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: Back issue report
Date: Wed, 4 May 2011 10:01:50 -0600

I remember Debbie Heald, but not Bob O’Brien. Here is a comment in the LA Times in 2002 about her and Roy Mason: http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jan/14/sports/sp-pucin14



It appears she ran 4:38.5 in HS in the indoor USA-USSR meet in 1972 in Richmond. Didn’t even remember they had indoor meets. Debbie did not make the Olympic team that year. She apparently went to a high school in La Mirada. But, maybe not, since Roy Mason apparently coached her.



*editor's note

*Debbie still holds the high school indoor mile record. Oldest girls hs record. 39 years and counting. Only Gerry Lindgren's 8:40 2 mile is older among the boys.



I see where Bob ran 4:11.9, and went to Bellflower HS. He was third in the state in the mile in 1973. He was the same time as 2d place—Steve Crowley. That name sounds familiar, but can’t place it.



Dennis



From: ernie cunliffe [mailto:ernie_cunliffe@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 6:54 AM
To: Dennis Kavenough; Pete Brown
Subject: FW: Back issue report



Big insult to George as I had him at Okla St which was wrong as he was OU.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 4 May 2011 03:19:03 -0700
From: georgebrose@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: Back issue report
To: ernie_cunliffe@hotmail.com

Hi Ernie,

I'll send you those articles, but they come in separate emails so you'll get about 7 or 8 for now all with a date on the title. The guy, Roy Mason, who writes them is a retired school teacher/coach living now in Northern California, Ukiah. When he coached in the L.A. area he had a school girl Debbie Heald in 1972 who beat the 1500 meter WR holder, Russian, in the US-USSR dual meet. Her name was Debbie Heald. I think she ran about4:35 for the mile which was the national High school record for many years. He also had a 4:08 HS boy, Bob O'Brien went to UCLA and only scored one point in his three years of eligibility. But the two combined times of Debbie and Bob are probably still the best ever to come from one high school or one hs coach. Just for the record, I went to Oklahoma U. and ran for Bill Carroll. Bill died last year. My best times were 1:51.7 and 4:09.7. Lacked the turnover speed to do much better. About 15 years after college I had a 2hr. 35 min marathon. I coached overseas a bit in Tanzania and Zimbabwe, and Canada, and also at Wittenberg University and U. of Dayton. I'll be back in Africa this summer with my daughter and granddaughter training mediators in the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. Hope you and your buddies enjoy the articles. Roy has a great sense of humor and is a very good writer. Your recognition of his efforts will be a big thrill to him. I'll forward the email from you to him so he will know. George

Vol. 1 No. 1 First selections 1952 and 1953

This blog was created to honor a friend, maybe a better term, would be living legend. I'm talking about Roy Mason, a longtime track and field coach, teacher, raconteur, and now a budding writer who has begun capsulizing past issues of Track and Field News. With that delimiting factor, you can be certain this will be a very faithful yet small group of followers and hopefully contributors.

Roy coached Debbie Heald in the early 1970's. Debbie is still the national high school record holder for the indoor mile (39 years and counting, only Gerry Lindgren's 2 mile record is older), and more spectacularly she defeated the world record holder in the Russia-US dual meet in North Carolina, when she was still in high school.

Roy came upon a collection of T&FN's starting from 1952. He begins there and synopsizes each issue slowly moving into the future. Some of the issues are missing, so don't expect this to be a complete narrative. If you are over 50 years old, have an interest in the sport, and enjoy reading a witty and insightful commentary of the times you will find this a great remembrance of things past and an analysis of how the sport has evolved over the last 60 years. I will try to throw in some pictures to go along with the articles. If you have comments to send in, you will see them in this blog unless you specifically request that they not be there.

Good reading and good running, if you still can.

George Brose,

Kettering, OH August , 2011

SEPTEMBER 1952

Gaston Reiff sets a WR 8:40.4 in the 2M

Reiff defeating Zatopek in London 5000

Sverre Strandi of Norway becomes the first 200’ hammer thrower with 200-11

OCTOBER 1952

Emil Zatopek breaks the 30K record by 3 ½ minutes with 1:35.23.8. (Had he been able to continue at that pace for another 12,195 meters he would have run a 2:14:11 marathon.) He also has the fastest 5 and 10K times, 14:06.4 and 29:17.0

The triple jump is the hop, step and jump

The recently departed Ollie Matson has the seventh fastest 400, 46.6n.  Ollie would go on to fame as an enduring running back in the NFL.

Track guys were “thinclads”

The top 1500 time was 3:43.0 by Werner Lueg of Germany. Using the conversion of 17 seconds to make a mile, maybe he could have been the first four minute miler. He probably never ran one.

Only six jumpers in the world bettered 6’8”

The 16th best shot put on the world list was…….52-10.

Lengthy features on Harrison Dillard (Baldwin-Wallace gym so small that he could only practice out of the blocks over one hurdle) and Josy Barthel of Luxemborg (won 26 of 27 races between 800 and 2000 – what middle distance runner races 27 times now? – and “lost 22 lbs during the season”).



SEPTEMBER 1953

Three world records: Fortune Gordien, the holder of 16 of the longest 18 discus throws in history nails 194-6, breaking his month old 190-7½. This is described as “history’s greatest track and field achievement” based on the IAAF tables which had it superior to a 3:55.9 mile, 27 foot broad jump and a seven foot high jump. All this at an all comers meet in Pasadena….

Yuriy Litytev of the USSR takes down Glenn Hardin’s WR of 50.6 set in 1934 with a 50.4 in a dual meet with Hungary….

Andun Boysen runs 1000 meters in 2:20.4 beating Mal Whitfield’s 2:20.8 set earlier in the summer. Had he been able to continue at that pace for another 500 meters, he would have run a 3:30.6 1500. But then that’s just crazy talk.

The top milers are some guys named Bannister, Santee and Landy with marks of 4:02.0, 4:02.4 and 4:02.8

Walter Davis, the Olympic champion and world record holder at 6-11 5/8, a height 1¾” better than anyone else this year, retires from the sport by signing a professional basketball contract with the Philadelphia Warriors.

As this particular issue has the autograph of Paul David Kamanski in the upper right hand corner, I’ll take a moment to explain his significance, both to the sport and to the state of Ohio. Dave was the coach at Bellflower High 15 years before I was. It was he who told me where the old copies of T&FNews were stored in an attic storeroom above the coaches’ office. He coached my lifelong friend, Buddy Cox. When I coached at Bellflower, Dave was just down the road at Cerritos College where he coached track and XC. Dave was a personable guy, a man’s man, a guy who always had time to talk. When Cerritos was installing a new all weather track, Dave asked if he could bring is new transfer sprinter over to work out on our track. It was Houston McTear who had burned a few bridges behind him. The guy didn’t last long at Cerritos which I think was his last stop. Something about attending classes.


Not that class attendance was a major obstacle for Dave. Eric and I had a kid who had super potential on the track, but not in the classroom. He had run 52.0 without training, but dropped out to take a $3/hr. janitorial job his senior year. Dave got him enrolled at Cerritos and assured me grades would not be a problem, “He’ll be taking 10 credits of Kamanski” – volleyball, wrestling, handball, principles of officiating. The kid enrolled each spring and ran 51+ for the intermediates and 47.0 on a relay leg.

Here is the Ohio connection. Dave was best known for being one of the top referees in D-1 football. It was common to see him doing PAC-10 games most weekends. He was also the referee for four Rose Bowl games. (One of our rituals was asking him what time it was. “Well, let me check.” Elaborate extension of his arm. “I see by MY ROSE BOWL WATCH that it is 4:25.”)

Dave was the referee for the 1980 Rose Bowl in which Charles White leaped into the end zone to score the winning touchdown on fourth down with less than a minute to play, giving SC a 17-16 win over the Buckeyes and plunging the state of Ohio into mourning. Unfortunately the cover of the following week’s SI showed White crossing the goal line without the ball. Oops! When asked about this, Dave had a stock answer, “The camera lied”.




                                                         Gaston Reiff   Belgium