Beginning our 14th year and 1,200+ postings. A blog for athletes and fans of 20th century Track and Field culled from articles in sports journals of the day, original articles, book reviews, and commentaries from readers who lived and ran and coached in that era. We're equivalent to an Amer. Legion post of Track and Field but without cheap beer. You may contact us directly at irathermediate@gmail.com or write a comment below. George Brose, Courtenay, BC ed.
Thursday, January 12, 2023
V 13 N. 6 More Granger Images of Track and Field
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
V 13 N. 5 John Mitchell Hall of Fame Coach, U. of Alabama R.I.P.
Photo from USTFCCCA website
Hall of Fame Coach John Mitchell has died on January 7, 2023. Mike Solomon contacted me about this event. Here is Mike's note.
George,
John Mitchell coached at the University of Alabama from 1969 to 1986 and held the men’s and women’s head position at the University of Georgia from 1989-99. He won four SEC team titles and was the conference indoor and outdoor coach of the year in 1995. Mitchell coached such collegiate greats as Calvin Smith, Pauline Davis, Jeff Woodward, Thomas McCants, and Debbie Ferguson.
Mitchell graduated from Cal State Los Angeles and began his coaching career at Warren High School in Downey (CA) in 1958. His first collegiate job was at Kansas from 1965-69, where he served as an assistant specializing in the jumps. After four years in Lawrence, Mitchell was named the head men’s coach at Alabama in 1969.
At Alabama, Mitchell’s men broke Tennessee’s stranglehold on the SEC indoor title by capturing the 1972 conference championship. Tennessee had won eight straight SEC indoor titles. Mitchell also led Alabama to the SEC outdoor championship in 1980.
In 1986, Mitchell left coaching to accept an assistant athletic director’s position at George Mason. After two years at George Mason, he returned to coaching at Georgia.
In his eleven years at Georgia, Mitchell led the men’s team to five top-10 finishes in the NCAA Outdoor Championships. Mitchell also helped elevate the Georgia women to a new level of excellence, guiding them to a third-place finish at the 1995 NCAA Outdoor Championships and a runner-up finish at the 1996 NCAA indoor meet.
He received five SEC Coach of the Year honors during his tenure at both Alabama and Georgia. In 1992 he was inducted into the Drake Relays Hall of Fame for his reputation and stature as a coach and ambassador for the sport of track & field
Tuesday, January 10, 2023
V 13 N. 4 Don Ruh Mt. Sac R.I.P.
The following noting the passing of Coach Don Ruh was posted on the Mt. Sac website.
Walnut, CA) It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of legendary coach, Don Ruh. Surrounded by his family, Coach Ruh passed away peacefully early this morning (01/06) at his home in Yucaipa (CA), after battling congestive heart failure the past 18 months.
Coach Ruh began his nearly six decade long relationship with Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC) in 1963. He was hired as a professor and second ever track & field/cross country head coach by Mt. SAC Relays/Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational Founder Hilmer Lodge.
Coach Ruh impacted millions of people through his tireless work as a professor, coach and leader. Under his guidance, the Mt. SAC Relays, Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational and LA84 Foundation Track & Field Grants grew to become the world’s largest events of their kind. These events promoted the Mt. SAC name/brand throughout the world. His work “set the bar” of excellence that future generations continue to aspire to.
Although officially retired in 1994, Coach Ruh continued his work and support for the college. He continued as the Director of the LA84 Foundation Grant Program (LA84 Foundation/Mt. SAC Relays Youth Days Track & Field Meet and Clinic Programs), Director of the Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational Elementary/Middle School Divisions and Director of the Mt. SAC Relays Munchkin Run.
Coach Ruh was an iconic figure, within the Mt. SAC Community and throughout the world. An incredible selfless leader, he had the innate ability to bring together people from all walks of life. His friendships circumvented the world and made him an extremely well respected and beloved figure within the cross country/track & field community. One of his greatest peacemaking accomplishments was convincing political rivals, The Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan to agree to allowing each nation to compete together at the 1980 Mt. SAC Relays.
It was Coach Ruh’s dream to build a Heritage Hall to tell the Mt. SAC Story. He not only developed the concept, he spearheaded the fundraising for the new museum and campus conference/meeting center. The project came to fruition in 2022, thanks in part to his families generous contribution, to which the conference facility is now named the Ruh Family Educational Center.
Locally, Coach Ruh served his community through his decades long volunteer work with the Kiwanis Club. He was a member of the Walnut Valley Club, before moving on to the Yucaipa Valley Club after his retirement.
In 2013, he was inducted into the Mt. SAC Athletics Hall of Fame. Coach Ruh is also a member of the California Community College Cross Country and Track Coaches (5CTCA), Mt. SAC Relays, Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational and University of Redlands (Football Team) Hall of Fames.
Born in 1932, he recently celebrated his 90th birthday. Coach Ruh grew up in Huntington Park (CA), graduated from Huntington Park Senior High School and the University of Redlands. He taught at Boy’s Republic (Chino, CA), El Monte High School (El Monte, CA) and Dominguez High School (Compton, CA) before arriving at Mt. SAC.
Coach Ruh is survived by his wife of 61 years, Sandi, children Chrys, Marc (Lani), Erika San Miguel (Rich), Heidi Meyer (Rob) and grandchildren Campbell, Riley, Justin, Greyson, Katie and Taylor.
A celebration of his life will be held on Sunday, February 5th at 11:00 am, in the Ruh Family Education Center at Heritage Hall, on the Mt. SAC Campus. Additional details of the service will be posted on the Mt. SAC Athletics Website at www.mtsacathletics.com/donruh.
In lieu of flowers and in line with Coach Ruh's lifelong commitment to the students at Mt. SAC, the Ruh family asks that donations be made in support of Heritage Hall to the Coach Don Ruh Memorial Heritage Hall Fund.
Donations may be made online at https://mtsacfoundation.org/donation-pages/kinesiology-athletics-division or by check. Donations by check, may be made payable to the Mt. SAC Foundation and sent to Mt. SAC Foundation/1100 N. Grand Ave./Walnut, CA 91789. Please note “Coach Don Ruh Memorial Fund”
George,
in the memo section of the check.
Monday, January 9, 2023
V 12 N. 3 Jerry Siebert US Olympian R.I.P.
We received a note from Walt Murphy this morning that Jerry Siebert, one of America's top 880/800 runners of the 1960's has passed away on December 30, 2023. Little or no information is yet found on the internet and no obituary has been posted.. Siebert was a native of Willits, California and went to Cal Berkeley. He was a member of the US Olympic team in 1960 and 1964.
Finishing 6th in Tokyo behind Snell, Carutthers, Kiprigut, Kerr, and Farrell
Still on the Willits HS record list at 1:53.8 set in 1955
The Hallowed Halls of Willits High School, Willits California
Do you have any details….Jerry and I were room mates .. Some of his friends and I have been trying to locate him since the fire in his area… a year ago..
Jerry , I and Don Bowden were on five world record relay teams while at Cal.. In reply will sent you a fun story about Jerry Jack Yerman
Personal Bests: 800 – 1:46.3y (1962); Mile – 4:12.4 (1960).
John Cobley of racingpast.ca notes that Siebert was not at full strength in the final at Tokyo.
"The first four were in a class of their own. Behind them American Tom Farrell ran a PB to get fifth, while his American colleague Jerry Siebert, who was running with a fever and great pain, was a courageous sixth."
John Cobley is correct. Jerry drank some unpasteurized milk (ie raw milk) in Finland I believe or one of the other Nordic countries in 1964 prior to the Japan Olympics and he did not completely recover from that illness but ran anyway. (from one of his teammates)
End of Lap 1 Tokyo
Heading for the Backstretch on Lap 2
The picture was taken while we were on a tour to Scandinavian countries following the Russian - American Meet in Moscow in 1961. Oliver Jackson, my coach, had been assistant coach on the Team with Jumbo Elliott as head coach and when we broke off following the Moscow meet he was chaperone. ( He was also Bobby Morrows coach) Beatty and I met Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fischer on this trip but that is another story. Lots of stories from this trip like how the Russians were confused seeing Wilma and Cliff walking down the street holding hands when all they ever heard was propaganda about racial strife in the U.S.I serve as a Director of the Olympians for Olympians Relief Fund, and we received a $25,000.00 check last week as a contribution. Our Executive Director, Cindy Stinger, sent out a note to the board advising of such announcing it was from it was from Jerry. I emailed a personal note of thanks to Jerry and that is when we discovered that the check was from his estate. I could not locate an obituary or any evidence of his passing. Thanks for your posting of the great athlete and all around good guys passing.Teammate, roommate and all around solid guy. BTW only Ralph, Jim and I in the picture are still around. I copy them and say hello to both. It is my honor to call them teammates.Wishing you a healthy and successful 2023, Earl Young
from Richard Mach: From his Wiki page, he passed away in Golden, CO, Coors Beer land.
Saturday, January 7, 2023
V 13 N. 2 Death and Serious Injuries During Competitions
Last Monday morning January 2, 2023 I was in conversation over coffee with Jon, an American friend up here in British Columbia. Somehow the subject of a tragedy on the track came up ( I think I may have mentioned the Bob Soth incident in the 1959 Russian dual meet that occurred on national TV) and Jon reflected on an event that he witnessed at the Big Ten men's indoor meet in Minnesota in 2002. At that event, Kevin Dare, a young pole vaulter from Penn State, lost control on his descent and landed head first into the vaulting box and was killed instantly from the impact. The tragedy was further compounded by the fact that Kevin's parents were in the audience. It was immediately clear from the level of physical trauma of the injury that Kevin would not survive. Nevertheless after Kevin was taken away by an emergency medical team, the officials in charge decided that the meet would go on. The scheduled 3000 meters was run only a few feet from where Kevin Dare had just died. It was only on the second day of the event that it was decided to cancel the rest of the meet.
Later that same day after Jon and I had our conversation, the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals were engaged in a much awaited battle of NFL powerhouses. Shortly into the game in the first quarter an event witnessed by thousands in attendance and millions on television brought the football game to a halt. The defensive player Damar Hamlin for the Bills after making a routine tackle on a Bengals player suffered a cardiac arrest. While Damar's teammates gathered around him, the game was stopped and a medical team went into action, performed CPR and shocked Damar's heart twice to restart it before transporting him to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. After an hour the game was postponed and since then, the NFL has stated that it would not be resumed. It is now five days after the event, and it is reported that Damar Hamlin is responding to treatment and will most likely make a reasonable recovery. Whether he will ever be cleared to play again is not an immediate question.
One death, one serious injury, two different responses to those situations. That conversation about Kevjn Dare and then the Damar Hamlin incident 12 hours later sparked a thought process that got me wondering how many times on the playing fields we are put into situations like this and have to respond to the question, "Do we continue, or do we stop the game?"
A quick Google search came up with the following statistic.
"Since 1980, 20 athletes have died pole vaulting, while 38 have suffered skull fractures and 44 have sustained serious injuries, the Daily Pennsylvanian reports. And while pole vaulting may be the most dangerous, the javelin throw and hammer have the potential for serious injuries, as well.May 29, 2012"
That's 20 deaths in 32 years in pole vaulting and 82 serious injuries. Obviously many of those injuries and deaths did not occur in competition.
In the early 20th century football had a serious history of deaths on the field. FYI Teddy Roosevelt came down hard on the sport in 1905 because of this.
Teddy Roosevelt and Football link
By comparison, in an NFL game all the focus of all the players and all the spectators, and all the TV audience is on the injury when it occurs. In track with its multiple event nature, much of the focus is shared at different places at different times with several competitions going on simultaneously. Maybe that is why the Hamlin injury was so much more of a collective shock.
Television allows the public to witness violence on a grand scale. How many shootings are repeatedly replayed on CNN, MSNBC and FOX? How many times have you witnessed George Floyd being strangled to death on TV? Did the 'news' stop their presentation when it was known that George Floyd had died? No, they haven't, but now the standard caution is "some of the events you see may be disturbing". Yet in replaying the Damar Hamlin injury, no network to my knowledge has shown him collapsing after getting up after the tackle. I have no desire to see it, but for some reason the networks seem to have shown restraint in playing it over and over in distinct contrast to the way they did with George Floyd.
In other sports, death occurs. It's a guarantee in Bullfighting. In boxing and MMA people pay to see fighters try to knock each other out and perhaps leave their brains permanently damaged. In the arenas in Roman times, gladiators fought to the death and people paid to see it. We like to think that our civilization has evolved to a higher level and no longer needs such entertainment. But in film and gaming, we pay big money to see people if not really, then sort of be blown up, killed, or tortured.
As a young boy, going to the auto races was a big part of my life. I was present at several races where drivers lost their lives. I cannot think of one time when a race in which there was a fatality that it was cancelled and spectators sent home. And yet in football where violence is a huge part of the game, when it is taught, when it is rewarded, when it occurs on national tv, it was stopped. Will this be the new normal for the next serious injury? I don't think the league would get through the playoffs and Super Bowl if they did. I remember a college football game where a Penn State player was severely injured. But I do not think the game was stopped, except to remove him from the field. It was Adam Taliafero the Penn State player who was left paraplegic after tackling an Ohio State player in Ohio Stadium in 2000. The game didn't stop. Fortunately Taliafero didn't stop either and made a recovery, but did not play again. He's now an advocate for rights of disabled in New Jersey.
Will the game be made safer by rules changes such as the new and controversial penalty for targeting a ball carrier? If it is reduced to touch football with players wearing ribbons on their wastes to grab and stop the play, I doubt that many fans will show up.
On November 3, 2007 while competing in the US Olympic trials marathon, Ryan Shay, one of the favorites suffered a cardiac arrhythmia and died. But the race wasn't stopped. At the time, no one probably realized the degree of his heart arrest.
My late friend Steve Price organized a marathon near Monroe, Ohio back in the 1970's. It passed near his mother's house, and during the race one of the runners collapsed. He was brought into Steve's mom's house, and he died on her living room floor. But the race didn't stop and it was held for many years after. In fact the marathon commemorates and honors the death of Phidippidès who died at the finish line.
Before last Monday night, few NFL fans knew who Damar Hamlin was. Only the most rabid of Bills fans or Fantasy Football players might have known of Damar Hamlin. Now Damar is a household word. His charity for toys for children went from $2,500 to more than $6,000,000 overnight. That outpouring of sympathy for someone we hardly knew is overwhelming and commendable. Yesterday a first grade teacher in Virginia was severely wounded by one of her students, but I doubt there will be a similar outpouring of grief and donations to her favorite charity. What happens on the playing field that is different from the routine occurrences when we go to work or to the grocery or the movies?
If a water boy or girl or a Bengals cheerleader on the sidelines had dropped from cardiac arrest during the game or Jerry Jones the owner of the Dallas Cowboys had had a similar episode during a game, it is doubtful the game would have been stopped, postponed, or cancelled. What it seems to mean is that when someone is elevated to a playing position on an professional sports team, they take on a status reserved for only a few in our society. It puts an incredible responsibility on the shoulders of those few and anything out of the ordinary on their part is greatly amplified, perhaps way beyond what it should be. It's not fair to them, they are not my definition of a hero. Their most heroic acts are more likely to occur off the field.
George Brose
I ran in that Monroe, Ohio road race where someone died. I heard about it while running but he had not died at that time. The starting time was 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon and the temperature was extremely hot. As I saw the Lebanon Correctional Institution off to the left, I wondered who was more fortunate, them or me. The entire race was no fun.
And hockey players have had the same problem being hit in the chest with a puck...
George,
I read your Blog today about “Injuries” and it brought me back to my Grandmother’s advice back in Lowell, Mass.
She told me three things to be aware of for keeping safe:
- Watchout and avoid “machines”(automobiles)
- Stay away from playing football
- Keep your bowels open
We’ll see if these will get me to 100?
Bill
Ps) Grandma only got to be 94 but three of her daughters made it to their late 90s.
Thursday, January 5, 2023
V 13 N. 1 Images from Granger
Monday, December 26, 2022
V 12 N. 91 And Still More Long Beach Archives Featuring Bob Soth
Darryl Taylor has provided some more photos from his private collection. Here's how he accounts for having those pictures.
George-here is what I remember. When I came to LBSC (Long Beach City College) in the 1961-62 school year the current school records were fair but nothing . exceptional. There was a LB Press-Telegram sports writer who covered LBSC T&F and after a couple of track meets he sensed that some very big changes were on the horizon. Don't ask me why but he picked me as a target for the Sunday edition of the sports page and I would wake up Sunday to find my photo in the paper. I must have gathered five or six photos from the paper that year. When I graduated in 1964 I went to his office in downtown Long Beach and asked if there was any way I could get a negative or 8x10 of the photos he had from those articles. He asked if I would care to have some others he had in his files and of course I jumped at the offer. I cannot tell you which ones were in that first bunch or which ones I obtained from the LBSC Forty-Niner school paper. These are a mixture of those two sources and just grabbing old programs and asking for copies here and there. The photos of Ullis Williams and Lindgren I got from Tom Jennings at some point in the past. Always looking to save things that were being tossed. I worked in the equipment cage for a while and one day when emptying the trash I found a set of brand new Wilson spikes that Rose had tossed that dated back to the opening of the school circa 1949. No telling the origin of any particular image but that pretty much covers it.
Recent Article on Bob link: BOB SOTH
The Near Tragedy in 1959
Grace Butcher Wrote About The Russian 10,000
Tom Pagani-I was the anonymous poster regarding the Philly fans and their comments in the 1959 dual meet between the USA and USSR.
Thursday, December 22, 2022
V 12 N. 90 More Archival Photos
More photos from various sources, the first three courtesy of Chuck Frawley former U. of Texas runner
Louis Zamperini checking flak damage on his bomber
C.K. Yang, Rafer Johnson, Valeriy Kuznetsov
Rome 1960
Wilson Kiprigut, Kenya's first Olympic medalist 1968
William Penn HS team working out on their home track, Philadelphia, PA
During a thirty year period over 40 young women from this school went to college on track scholarships
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1959 Billy Cannon winning LSU Relays over Dave Styron NE Lou. and Dee Givens Oklahoma
Valeriy Borzov, Soviet Union Munich 1972
V 15 N. 10 Gunder 'The Wunder' Haegg Visits Cincinnati
Bob Roncker of Cincinnati, Ohio has sent in this account of one day on the 1943 tour that Gunder Haegg of Sweden made to the US to help rais...
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Noting the passing of Brian Oldfield on March 26, 2017. Oldfield came from Elgin, IL and left the world from that same town. He was 71 y... -
JUNE 1963 The top half of the first page of this issue is devoted to a photo of a powerfully striding Adolph Plummer nearing the finish...