Original Gangsters Of Running (Bill Rodgers)

I ran my first road race in Greenwich, Connecticut.  New England was a hotbed of roadracing in the early 1970s.  Even big races were small by today’s standard.  Guys like me could still get into the school gym in Hopkinton. We all grew bigger and went faster.  Few bigger and faster than Boston Billy.  I have been a fan for 45 years and a friend for almost that long.  That should tell you something about Mr. Rodgers.  Or not.  – JDW

https://www.jackdogwelch.com/?p=940

Toughest opponent and why? 

For me, I’d say my toughest competitor was Frank Shorter, who I raced a lot.  Frank had strong credentials in cross-country racing, and on the track from 2 miles to 10k, so he was a well-rounded distance runner who was tough to race.

 Most memorable run and why?

My most memorable race has to be a tie.  Between my 1975 World Cross-Country bronze medal for the USA and winning Boston a month later in 2:09:55.  Both races lifted my confidence so I felt I could race with any athlete at the longer distances, especially the marathon.

Favorite training tip?

I like to talk to new runners at race expos about avoiding injury.  If they can run on grass a fair amount, that will help them do exactly that.

Biggest disappointment?

My biggest disappointment is clearly my struggles with a nagging foot injury and subsequent poor race at the 1976 Olympic Marathon at Montreal.  Followed by the USA’s boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.

What would you do differently today?

Today’s professional marathoners are paid well and in my time as a marathoner we struggled with making a living and often over-raced due to the stupid rules of the day.  (See ‘Amateurism..’) https://www.jackdogwelch.com/?p=19156

I’m sure I’d rest more if I were a professional today.  I would also try training at altitude.

Favorite comedian?

I enjoy Laurel and Hardy, but Robin Williams leads the way.

I’d like to ask you a few more questions, I told him. And he tells me, “but the trumpeter says beware of the media, Jack.”

Bill,
Here’s the issue.  I have been writing about you for 45 years and books have been written, books by you or about you.  Safe to say, in our world, the running world, you are famous. That being said, I want to celebrate the Original Gangsters of Running.  You definitely are an OGOR. So, I am looking for new stuff.

I have an Associated Press clipping from the Statesman-Journal (Salem, OR) dated Tuesday, April 17, 1979.  Front page of the sports section. Big headline: BILL RODGERS wins second straight Boston Marathon.  

Sidebar: Four locals finish race.  (From combined reports)  Boston.  Four Salem men finished the Boston Marathon held here on Monday.  Jim Hiebert led the Salem entrants with a time of 2:45:02.  Jim Frank trailed with 2:47:45.  Michael Smith and Jack Welch finished two seconds apart with 2:53:16 and 2:53:18.

No byline, but you are quoted as saying ” There’s only one thing missing; that’s a medal in the Olympics.”You said that was your biggest disappointment (one of two) but why specifically was that important to you?
“{Rodgers} said the last 10 miles were bitterly painful.”  Was that the worst ten miles of your life?Did you keep running during your battle with cancer? Conscientious objection, divorce, cancer, business reversals, whatever…throughout all that, you were a runner.  Is that how you have managed your life?

Bill, I am open to other ideas.  You got something to get off your chest about the sport?  Just spitballin.’

Yesterday, I was watching the Tampa Bay Bucs lose another game and a half-naked man with a long sword walked through my yard.  Ah, Florida.
Stay warm.
Jack

[The following has been edited for, how shall I say this, clarity. A long answer in text from Billy is like a big block of Peter Pan on double espresso.]

Hijack – Cool you ran the ’78 Boston; not a bad time either. It was a good day to run, cool weather,etc.

I think like most Americans I learned of the Olympics from TV. I watched the ’64 Tokyo games as a junior in high school. It was my second year as a runner and in high school  (Newington CT) we did not run that far, compared to HS youth of today. After all, our longest track distance event was the two-mile.

In cross-country, we’d occasionally go further. Maybe 2.8 miles. So, it was astounding to see the Olympic 10,000 meters, won by Billy Mills and to see Abebe Bikila take the Olympic Marathon gold so easily. I wasn’t sure how far 10,000 meters was. And the idea of running 26.2 miles was not conceivable for me in high school.

But, in college (Wesleyan University) I met a runner named Amby Burfoot, and he was a marathoner! He looked like a white Bikila,and seemed to run as effortlessly as Bikila had winning the Olympic Marathon.

When he was a senior at Wesleyan – 1968 – Amby won Boston. I was a sophomore and trained with Amby as he aimed for the Boston win. I felt like I was running with Bikila. When I moved to Boston and actually saw the Boston marathon in 1971 and 72, it became real for me. The marathon was not on TV in the ’60s and ’70s.

After dropping out of my first marathon, I finished one – 1973 Bay State Marathon (2:28:12) his first Course Record (CR) – and began to think, I can do this. I wanted to go to the Olympics and happily made the USA Olympic Team. Second to the defending Olympic champion in the Trials by 7 seconds.

I always loved the lore of the Olympic Games. The goodwill spread by the athletes, the highest level of sports competition in the world…. To have a foot injury and run poorly [Montreal 1976] was very hard for me and, as I was cramping up from dehydration, the last ten (10) miles were really hard physically.

Still, I did finish. Maybe 1980, I thought. So far away, thought that, too. But then a fellow named Fred Lebow, the New York City Marathon race director, came to the Falmouth Road Race on Cape Cod to specifically invite Frank Shorter and me to race in the First Five (1st 5) Borough NYC Marathon.

Redemption was ahead. My four (4!) wins at the NYC marathon were my way of saying, “No, okay, I don’t have an Olympic medal, but I’ve got four (4!) of these.”

Yes, I ran through my radiation. I didn’t find radiation had much if any impact on my running. The surgery I had in January of ’08 did knock me out of running a few weeks.

Yes, you do feel like you are being a little bit hard headed by dueling with cancer by running…screw you, cancer!

I do think running was a sort of balm, a way to think as I run to deal with any sorts of troubles in life.

I think I’m at about 56 years as a runner,and I still like to race every year at my favorite races, Falmouth, the Bix 7-mile, the Boilermaker 15k, sometimes the Cherry Blossom 10-mile, the Thompson Island 4k Trail Run I do every September…

Bill

1. 1973 Boston Marathon (Did not Finish)(DNF)
2. 1973 Bay State Marathon (2:28:12) 1st Course Record (CR)
3. 1974 Boston (2:19:34) 14th
4. 1974 New York City Marathon (NYC) (2:36:00) 5th
5. 1974 Philadelphia Marathon (2:21:57) 1st CR
6. 1975 Boston (2:09:55) 1st American Record (AR)
7. 1975 Enschede Marathon, Netherlands (DNF)
8. 1975 Fukuoka Marathon (2:11:26) 3rd
9. 1976 Olympic Trials (2:11:58) 2nd
10. 1976 Montreal Olympics (2:25:14) 40th
11. 1976 NYC (2:10:10) 1st CR
12. 1976 Sado Island, Japan (2:08:23) 1st CR (200 meters short)
13. 1976 Maryland (2:14:28) 1st CR
14. 1977 Kyoto, Japan (2:14:25) 1st
15. 1977 Boston (DNF)
16. 1977 Amsterdam, Netherlands (2:12:46) 1st CR
17. 1977 Waynesboro (2:25:12) 1st
18. 1977 NYC (2:11:28) 1st
19. 1977 Fukuoka (2:10:55) 1st
20. 1978 Boston (2:10:13) 1st
21. 1978 NYC (2:12:12) 1st
22. 1978 Fukuoka (2:12:53) 6th
23. 1979 Boston (2:09:27) 1st AR
24. 1979 Montreal (2:22:12) 15th
25. 1979 NYC (2:11:42) 1st
26. 1980 Boston (2:12:11) 1st
27. 1980 Toronto (2:14:47) 1st
28. 1980 NYC (2:13:20) 5th
29. 1981 Houston-Tennaco (2:12:10) 1st CR
30. 1981 Boston (2:10:34) 3rd
31. 1981 Atlantica-Boavista, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2:14:13) 1st CR
32. 1981 Stockholm, Sweden (2:13:28) 1st
33. 1981 Bank One, Columbus, OH (2:17:34) 7th
34. 1982 Houston (2:14:51) 5th
35. 1982 Tokyo (2:24) 301st
36. 1982 Boston (2:12:38) 4th
37. 1982 Atlantica-Boavista, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (DNF)
38. 1982 Melbourne, Australia (2:11:08) 1st
39. 1983 Orange Bowl, FL (2:15:08) 1st
40. 1983 Boston (2:11:58) 10th
41. 1983 Beijing, China (DNF)
42. 1983 Chicago (2:21:40)
43. 1984 U.S. Olympic Trials (2:13:31) 8th
44. 1985 New Jersey Waterfront (2:14:46) 2nd
45. 1985 NYC (2:15:31) 4th
46. 1986 Boston (2:13:35) 4th
47. 1986 Chicago (2:15:31) 11th
48. 1987 Phoenix (DNF)
49. 1987 Boston (2:18:18) 15th
50. 1987 NYC (2:25:01) 54th
51. 1988 Phoenix (DNF)
52. 1988 Los Angeles ( 2:20:27) 2nd masters
53. 1988 Boston (2:18:17) 2nd masters
54. 1988 NYC (DNF)
55. 1989 Los Angeles (2:22:24)
56. 1990 Boston (2:20:46) 5th masters
57. 1992 Vietnam International 19th
58. 1996 Boston (2:53)
59. 1999 Boston (DNF)
60. 2009 Boston (4:06:49)

I took a look at that list and sent Mr. Rodgers one more note.

Let’s talk about this.

That’s a lot of hard work, my friend. Much respect.
How do your legs feel?
JDW

My legs are fine, Jack.

I did race a lot of races and marathons. Partly I enjoyed travelling around the US and the World representing the United States. Partly I over-raced as I seemed to be able to recover okay.

And we “amateurs” were starting to be paid small fees for racing on the roads. Maybe $500 or $1000. I think I ran twelve (12) Bostons and no money was involved. Three Fukuoka marathons,same thing.

ARRA and the Cascade Run Off 15k in 81 finally broke the back of the Amateur Sport arrangement,and that not only allowed money for Professional runners,and other Olympic sport athletes, but I think it fueled interest by the media and shoe companies etc. in track and Field/Marathoning. that support played a role in building interest in the sport.

Now, if we can only find a way to deal with altitude-born vis a vis sea-level-born athlete’s racing abilities and blood doping.

Bill

https://thompsonisland.org/support/fundraising-events/4k-trail-run/