The ‘Logan Roy School of Journalism’? What’s next, the ‘Jack The Ripper Women’s Health Clinic’? – Ewan Roy
As the world prepared for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, I was a sub rosa consultant to the CEO of a major shoe company.
I was, as so often happened, somewhat impecunious, and he was willing to send four-figure checks into the wilderness of the Siuslaw Forest, the Coastal Range of Oregon, where I was hunkered down in a decommissioned logger’s cabin. Like Thoreau, maybe Ted Kaczynski.
No television, no newspapers, so my mind was practically pristine.
Here are some notes from July, 1995.
Frank will not campaign to get his rightful gold medal. So, let’s get Don Kardong the bronze.
Gone. With The Wind.
We were somewhere around Six Flags Over Georgia on the edge of Fulton County when the DMSO began to take hold. I remember saying, I feel a little lethargic; maybe I shouldn’t run today. The heat and humidity….
In ’76 at Montreal, Nike had a total budget of $50K, the entirety of which, less Farris and Hollister’s bar tab and some T-shirts, went to Frank Shorter to wear the swoosh. Frank switched back to Tiger on the way to the track and finished second. To a drugged-up East German tool of a Communist regime.
Nike basically lost the entire Olympic opportunity right then and there. Didn’t seem to hurt their subsequent growth much.
Sometimes I sense you simply want me for my mind. I just feel, you know, like nothing but a brilliant brain to you. I feel so, well, so used.
“I was thinking about Rickshaws,” he offered.
Never heard of him.
“Why not Ballet Parking?,” I countered.
When I introduced RUNNING under Nike’s ownership, I sent Ken Kesey to the Olympic Trials, I sent Hunter Thompson to the Honolulu Marathon. You can’t afford Dr, Gonzo, but you can afford someone lesser known.
Someone more trustworthy, someone who can meet his deadlines, someone whose heart is pure.
You must know someone like that.
Hello?
Establish yourself as your own absolute. Then get real.
Actual notes written contemporaneously.
Did a lot of thinking in that lost cabin.
The woods closed in, so the sun only shown at noon, when the sun was directly overhead.
Dawns on me now, he never sent any free shoes.
But I didn’t need shoes, I just needed a little love.
Like Connor Roy.
Frank Clears Up That Nike Shoe Story.
Meanwhile, Where’s Don’s Bronze???
“I needed to process and reframe the [1976] Olympic Marathon, evaluate it so I could move forward. I knew what had happened. Something of high value had been stolen, not just from me but from runners like Pre and Kenny Moore and Jack Bacheler and George Bowman back at Mount Hermon School near the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts; from every honest athlete who knew the searing pain of that penultimate 800-meter interval and honorably shared the burden of setting the pace.”
– Frank Shorter