One of my favorite runners of yore is Don Kardong. Funny, smart, honest, tall. Special writer. An estimable character. Never wrote about the man. But he did – with some pleading – write about me. Here’s the Foreword By Don Kardong for When Running Was Young & So Were We. – JDW
This book is a collection of stories about the people and events of a time when massive road races were springing up everywhere, as running moved from being the secret passion of a few to the preoccupation of millions. This was a movement unprecedented in the history of the world, and Jack Welch was sitting, and running, right in the middle of this maelstrom, pen in hand. Pen, figuratively speaking.
No doubt a brain and some shoes are essential for marathon success, although if it comes down to a choice, pick the shoes. More people finish marathons with no brains than with no shoes. – D.K.
The first contact I ever had with Jack was when he wrote a nasty letter to the running store I co-owned. I don’t remember Jack’s exact words, but it was something to the effect of, “How are your customers ever going to buy my magazine when you have it buried under a bunch of other magazines?”
This was a curious comment for a number of reasons. For one, since our store was hundreds of miles distant from where Jack lived, it made it seem like the guy had dispatched spies to the handful of running stores then in existence to monitor the placement of the magazine he co-owned, Running. For another, it suggested the only thing that was keeping his magazine from hitting the big-time was bad rack placement.
Running had no color in its pages, and may well have been stapled together in Jack’s dining room. Its tagline was, “The Thinking Runner’s Magazine,” and I seem to remember at some point Jack’s column also made the point that “The magazine cares more about your running than Bill Rodgers’.” He and his magazine partner, Ned Frederick, had obviously taken a remarkably different path from the editorial route other running publications of the day had taken, one that prided itself on a serious scientific approach to improving running performance.
So, let me just say this. As much as I admired the magazine’s focus on high-level content, I can assure you that with optimum placement, a good month at our store might have resulted in the sale of three Running magazines. Be that as it may, I moved the magazines to a more prominent spot on the rack.
I wondered a lot then about this guy who could have fit all his magazine’s subscribers into a mid-sized ballroom, but who was nevertheless fighting for every sale. This was an interesting character. And, since we considered ourselves thinking runners, we running store workers read his magazine religiously every month, before putting it back in a prominent spot on the magazine rack for someone else to buy. Sorry about that, Jack.
I know runners who have suffered a tick bite and ended up with Lyme disease. I’ll take an angry moose any day. – D.K.
Running may not have cared about Bill Rodgers’ running, but when Jack ran a personal best marathon of 2:46:07, we found out he cared a lot about his own. “Two-Forty-Six-Oh-Seven” is a classic story of personal satisfaction at achieving something difficult. We read it at the store and laughed out loud, because it summed up so perfectly what it feels like for any runner of any ability to set a personal best. Euphoria, that is.
Jack’s unique approach to reporting on running lived on when Nike purchased his magazine and ratcheted up its sex appeal. The new, colorized version of Running only lasted a few years, but it was also a very different kind of running magazine, one that hired famous writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Ken Kesey to hang around the running world and opine on what they observed. The story Kesey wrote took up one whole issue.
As luck would have it, I was invited to write for this new, more marketable Running magazine, too. That explains how I finally met Jack in person, and how I later ended up watching the end of the 1981 Boston Marathon with Jack, now one of the three editors of the publication (yes, there were three people in charge, don’t ask me why). We watched the end of that Boston marathon from a fire escape overlooking the final stages of the race. After watching George Sheehan and Jim Fixx finish, Jack began announcing the winners of various divisions that he invented on the spot.
“There’s the first finisher in black high-tops!” Jack yelled. “There’s the first sweater finisher! There’s the first finisher in fluorescent shoes! There’s the first hoodlum! The first illegal alien! The first Halloween finisher!
Did I mention that beer may have been involved?
Later, we yelled for people whose names were on their shirts—Paul, Tricia, Barbara, Super Sue, Carol, Harold, Pat, Martha, Rocky and the Havliceks (Muriel and Ed).
And finally, we yelled for whatever was on the runners’ T-shirts: No Nukes! Small is Beautiful! Save the Whales! Oregon! Free the Shah! Spam!
Maybe you had to be there. Anyway, when someone on the fire escape asked us, “What magazine did you guys say you were from?” we decided we weren’t doing the publication any favor, and we moved on.
Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos. – D.K.
I don’t want you to get the idea this book is about Jack. In fact, Jack’s stories celebrate a time when running was booming and Americans figured prominently. People like Alberto Salazar, Joan Benoit Samuelson, Mary Decker Slaney, and Steve Prefontaine, to name a few. And a bunch of other outstanding runners, whose names have begun to fade from the collective consciousness of the sport. Jack’s interviews with these stand the test of time, largely because the individuals interviewed are also, in a way, timeless, at least in terms of their influence on the sport. Jack’s admiration for them is palpable. Clearly, as I learned over the years, Jack cares a lot about the sport and the running of elite athletes like Bill Rodgers. That comes through in spades as he interviews the top runners and major figures of the sport in what many consider its golden years. He cared deeply about the sport. It’s just that he cared in a way that was distinctly his own.
Part of the fun of this collection is that the character who is Jack Welch also shines through. Who else, after all, in the middle of a very intense and illuminating discussion about athletic fame with Joan Benoit Samuelson, suddenly asks the Olympic champion, “So what’s so special about lobstering?” Or who gets Nike founder Phil Knight laughing about the man’s competitive ability when he jabs, “You lost a lot of races. Watched a lot of behinds, Phil.”
Maybe you’ve never heard of Jack Welch. Most likely, you’re just planning to read this book because you’re interested in learning more about the individuals who built the current sport of running or elevated it through their magnificent performances. That, after all, is the reason Jack wrote these articles in the first place.
But as you’ll find out, the interviewer is always right there between the lines, if not on top of them. So give the interviewer some respect too. After all, he’s got spies everywhere.
