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January 1953
A Trip to Remember
My father and mother, at the age of 33, decided to pull up stakes and emigrate to the United States. This was not an easy undertaking, as being German and coming from a country that wanted to destroy the world, not many people cared for our presence in the US. Th trip over took 6 days, longer than the earlier record setting pace of 3 days. Memories are limited, but vivid of that trip
The SS United States' First Arrival in Bremerhaven, Germany: January 3rd, 1953
I am not certain if we took the next trip from Bremerhaven to New York City, or that we took a later time in January, but we did cross the Atlantic in the middle of the winter. Our arrival in NYC's pier #76 on West 46th Street right by the Lincoln Tunnel. I remember having to wait for "Uncle Richie" to come and pick us up. We had one large container, built by my father, that was about 4x4x8. I sat on top of that box.
The trip across the ocean including stopping in Southampton, England, going past Ireland and then seeing the Statue of Liberty as we came into the Henry Hudson River. My only other memory was having dinner in a large dining room (not the first class dining room) and having a black man as our waiter. It was the first time I had ever seen a black man. He was super nice and brought us a wonderful ice cream desert, only it turned out to be a scope of mashed potatoes. Boy, was I disappointed. I don't remember if we did get a desert or not, but I assume we must have had some cake or similar delectable.
I don't remember the ride to Fair Lawn, as I assume I was pretty tired, since we came into port very early in the morning and my father had taken me out of our room up on deck to see the Statue of Liberty. We stayed with Uncle Richie for a short time, living in one of those 1940's bungalows just down the street from Broadway and the local movie theater (Hyway Movie Theater). I remember walking up to the theater and looking at all the posters of movies being played and movies coming soon. It wasn't too long thereafter that we moved to Elm Street in Paterson, NJ, just across the Passaic River.-
•February 1953•
A Tough Town
We moved to Paterson, shortly after arriving in the US. Culture shock was the least of my concerns, as learning to fend for myself in a city where I understood no one and faced with being German were huge challenges for a young boy from the German countryside.
My dad found a three room front to back apartment at 2 Elm Street in Paterson, on the corner of Mill St. Across the street was a Funeral Home. A block down Mill Street was a Salvation Army and across from that were the famous Paterson Silk Mills where Silk goods were produced and put on large rollers. The smell of dye permeated the air every day.
The apartment was always hot, even in the winter and the noise from outside and from the barbershop that was located on the first floor was a constant reminder we were not living in Utopia.
We spoke no English, yet that didn't stop my mom from taking me to School #2, enrolling me in Grade 1. The classroom also had kids who were in Grade 2. I cried when my mom was ready to leave, but my sister was having fun seeing all the kids and wanted to stay.
Within weeks I had caught the mumps and had to stay home in the darkened bedroom as that seemed to be a requirement for getting over the mumps. I remember being able to listen to the "Lone Ranger" on the radio, but I am certain there were plenty of other radio shows I listened to, as well.
Once I was over the mumps, my parents gave me a pair of roller skates, the kind you bolt onto your regular street shoes. You had to make sure you didn't lose your key for tightening the front hooks, so everyone had a key on a shoestring and carried that around their neck.
I have a vivid memory of eventually being very excited when I could go from the street to the sidewalk and back to the street without first having to stop. That was quite an accomplishment. It was during my frequent skating episodes that I started to learn to speak English. Within weeks, as if by magic, I was able to speak and understand English, making school a lot more fun.
We moved to 106 Mill St where we had 5 rooms on the second floor. It was two blocks up the street from the Elm Street apartment and I had my own room for the first time.
My dad bought a TV (black and white), so we could all listen and learn to speak English properly. My mom loved to watch the "Lawrence Welk Show", which came on in 1955. I liked watching wrestling.
We eventually moved to a friend's empty home on the other side of Paterson, that was very well kept. In 1955, my parents bought their first home in Clifton, NJ
Although we didn't have a place for a vegetable garden in Paterson, we would go to the Paterson Farmer's Market every couple of weeks and buy 1/2 bushel baskets of peaches and tomatoes. These were locally grown by farmers near Paterson and they were the best fruits and vegetables I ever ate.
After living in three locations in Paterson, NJ for 2 years, and my father saving every penny of his 75 cents and hour salary climbing telephone poles, he and my mom bought our first home in Clifton, NJ in early 1956. I entered 4th grade half way through the year and instantly found friendships that lasted a long time.
The Paterson Great Falls
Paterson Great Falls
The Salvation Army - Second Hand Rose
The lot at 106 Mill Street where our second apartment used to be
A triple decker, similar to where we lived on Mill Street
The house next door on Mill Street where the dog that bit me lived
Recent construction at 106 Mill Street
The train station converted to being the famous Paterson Farmer's Market
The Paterson Farmer's Market-
My dad had moved up to being a draftsman at the Richardson Scale Co. in Clifton and my mom worked in their blueprint office part time. "Tante Frieda", my mom's aunt came over from Germany and stayed with us, so my mom could work. She had already been with us in the Mill Street home and was a wonderful person to be around.
When we moved from Mill Street to live next door to Henry Koerner's Variety store, I spent a lot of time with Susan and Cynthia Koerner. Susan was my age. We were rascals, to say the least. Susan would go into the store prior to our going to school #16 in Paterson, steal some gum and cigarettes and then the two of us would walk to school, smoking and then chewing gum. We would be constantly late and eventually were given detention. Fortunately, our new home in Clifton was ready to move into and my smoking career came to an abrupt ending.
The Clifton house was old (built in 1920) and cost my parents $19,000. It was on Van Houten Avenue, one of the main streets in Clifton, with Garrett Mountain, just a quarter mile up the road. Maple Valley was a great place to live with a park close by and lots of young kids born just after the war.
Maple Valley Playground was just across the way, less than a 220 yards from home. There I learned how to play baseball, checkers, chess, jacks and found out I could run around the park paved sidewalk and beat most other kids when we had races.
I had lots of friends, as the development was filled with young professionals and laborers, who were living in their first homes after coming back from WW #2. Most of the kids in the neighborhood were my age or a bit younger, with only a few older kids around that didn’t spend time with us.
In 1957 my brother was born and my mom then stayed at home as Tante Frieda went to Regina,Canada to live with her son.
The Clifton property was where I learned all about gardening. The property seemed huge, but looking at the photo, one can see it was about 7600 square feet. Prior to that time we would get our tomatoes and peaches at the Paterson Farmer's Market.
The garden was back behind the house set against a back fence of the property behind ours. There was enough room to grow lots of tomatoes and the weeds were plentiful. Weeding was my job and I wasn't very good at it.
My dad did the brick front, built the patio on the side and added an extra room at the back of the house for Uncle Ritchie. There was also a pool just off the driveway next to the addition that had carp in it over the winter.
We lived there for 7 years with our next door neighbors having 13 kids for instant friends and playmates. Those were 7 wonderful years.
Along with the small garden (20x30) we had an above ground pool that held carp in the winter and we had a basketball hoop mounted on the old 3 car garage at the end of the driveway, where I would shoot baskets every day I had some free time. We also had a swing set that my brother and sister loved to go on, trying to see how high they could go.
Maple Valley Playground was just across the way, less than a half a mile from home. There I learned how to play baseball, checkers, chess, jacks and found out I could run around the park paved sidewalk and beat most other kids when we had races.
I had lots of friends, as the development was filled with young professionals and laborers, who were living in their first homes after coming back from WW #2. Most of the kids in the neighborhood were my age or a bit younger, with only a few older kids around that didn’t spend time with us.
By the time you got to high school, trying out for the baseball team was a ritual. I tried out for the team my junior year and was amazed at how many other kids were there trying out as well. I had sat on the bench as a JV basketball player, so I was hoping I would do better this time around. I don't know how the baseball coach could figure out who to pick for his roster, but eventually lists would show up on a daily basis with cut player’s names posted.
Clifton already had a great football program and their baseball team wasn't far behind. Most of the good football guys also were good at basketball and baseball. With over 3000 students in grades 10,11 and 12, there were lots of athletes to choose from. The baseball team had one very good pitcher by the name of Ken Van Dalen. He was about 6-5, a lefty, with a fastball that disappeared if you blinked. He made it into the Pittsburgh Pirate organization, but never all the way to the majors.
Van Dalen was on the mound when final tryouts were being completed. I had played out in center field in Nash Park’s vast outfield, where I was quite fast and could run down hit balls quickly. I caught one fly ball behind the left fielder, close to the foul line, as he could not get to it. I thought I had a good chance of making the team, as a result.
Each newcomer had 20 at bats, and the guy in ahead of me had the dubious task of facing Van Dalen. By the time Ken let go of the baseball, it was already 30 feet towards home plate, so getting a hit off him was going to take a lot of concentration.
After the batter up missed a few pitches, he decided to just step into the next pitch and hope to make contact. He swung at the ball and fell to the ground as he missed and the ball hit him square in the middle of his stomach. One could see the stitch marks from the ball on his stomach when his shirt was pulled up to see what damage had been done.
So, I am up now, pretty scared. I had a terrible habit of blinking when the ball came over the plate. I did that when I was a catcher and was quickly moved to second base, as I would have too many passed balls due to blinking. Van Dalen winds up, and lets this wicked fast ball go, heading right towards me. I step in the bucket, close my eyes and swing. Miss number one. I do the same thing for 10 pitches, all from the right side, all misses.
I was a switch hitter, due to my speed and playing over at Maple Valley's short fence, so I switch over to the left side, thinking I might have a better shot at hitting the ball, even as Van Dalen was a lefty. Ten pitches later resulted in ten missed swings.
The next day I show up for practice and there on the wall are the cuts for the day. My name was the last one on the list, with a note saying to go see the track coach. I head over to Clifton Stadium, a huge stadium that has seating for 12,000 fans, to find out what track is all about. Boy was I in for a surprise.
My friend Dan Henry, who was the #15 player on the JV basketball team, told me I really should go out for track because you don’t sit on the bench. Everyone gets to participate. So, instead of heading out to Nash Park, I go over to the old Clifton High School where the track is located inside this huge stadium. The track was a cinder track, as all tracks were back then. A baseball diamond was positioned within the oval, with the backstop located right by the first turn of the track and the outfield went beyond the track’s backstretch. In other words, you had two fields pretty much on top of each other.
After being cut by baseball, I make my way over and see the head coach of track and field. Mr. Grimes was a huge, portly fellow, who didn’t paerticularly think the baseball coach knew much about track when I told him why I came to see him with the season ready to start. Coach asked me what event I did and I thought for a second and said, “Once around the track, I guess”, as I had run that distance during the summer playground olympics. He points me to a group of guys and tells me to run with them. They were doing repeat 330’s with a 110 jog, and a new leader for each repeat. I think they were doing 10 of them.
I jump in and go right to the front racing the lead guy. On the next repeat I do the same thing and I start hearing some noise from the group. By the 4th one, I am spent, done, toast. Running in high top sneakers and sprinting to the front wasn’t a good idea. I was finally told that we were not racing, just doing a workout where everyone kept in line. Now, they tell me.
The next day we show up and sides are picked for an intersquad meet to be held the following day. I can hardly walk. I am so sore, just breathing hurt. Jay Horwitz, who eventually became the PR Director for the New York Mets, was the manager and he was writing down the names of the guys for each team. One after another was picked, while I stood wondering when I would be chosen. When no one else was left, Tom Papa pointed to me and said, “I guess I have to take him.” Oh, boy.
The intersquad meet was interesting as we had competitors in every event, quite a few in fact, as we had a large team. I was very nervous, not knowing anything about track, other than I had to run one lap middle of the track to middle of the track. There were no lanes for the oval races. Getting out seemed to be a good idea. I was sitting in the bathroom until the last minute and then rushed out as the 440 was called to the line. I watched as everyone else got down in their marks, so I did the same. The gun goes off and out I go, clear in front of the rest of the guys, heading for the first turn. I do just fine until I head into the second turn, just short of the 330 mark. All of a sudden everything goes tight on me. My legs get super heavy, my arms don’t want to swing anymore and my head feels like a 50 lb bowling ball. I am still in the lead, but the last 110 yards were slow motion. Over the last 10 yards a guy goes by me, but I manage to hang on to second place, running 55.1. I quickly went to the side of the track and threw up. I really liked baseball a lot better.
Our first home in Clifton, NJ
Our neighbors, the Chambers, 13 kids, two parents, two aunts and grandma, all under the same roof.
One of my good friends from school lived in a house like this, up on Sperling Road.
School #2
The Acme Shopping Mall down the street
The Clifton HS Track and Field Team of 1963
Our neighbors, the Chambers, 13 kids, two parents, two aunts and grandma, all under the same roof.-
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I spend my sophomore and junior year living off campus at 85 Richardson Street in New Brunswick. John Novak was my roommate the first year and I then stayed as a single the second year. The bottom floor was an antique shop, that wasn’t very busy.
Rutgers University and John Gaston - My Mentor
September, 1964
The Rutgers Library stacks, located in the basement. I blocked off a whole row, putting a shelf across the aisle and then putting all my books, notes and weekly time sheet at my “study booth”.
During my senior year at Rutgers (1968) Jesse Abramson, the esteemed track and field sports writer in New York City, wrote an article on me about my efforts to win the Met Conference title for Rutgers, as I ran trials and finals in the 440, 220, second leg on the 4x110 relay and anchor on the 4x440 relay. His lead was "Do or die for Rutgers". But, little did Jesse know I almost did die a miserable death by almost failing out of college my freshman year.
Rutgers was still a small state University, relative to other state Universities, that was all male with an enrollment of approximately 4,000 undergraduates in 1964. Our freshman class fit in the old basketball arena, "The Barn" on George Street.
Part of Freshman Orientation was meeting Dean Howard Crosby in "The Barn". All of our class could fit into the bandbox gym as Dean Crosby gave his famous introduction to the class. "Look to the left of you and look to the right of you. One of you won't be here next semester".
Well, he was almost right, but the odds were even worse. My floor at Tinsley Hall housed 32 students that seemed to have never been allowed out of their homes during their high school years. Every night our House Resident, football assistant coach, Bob Naso, would walk up and down the halls, trying to quiet the floor down. By second semester our floor only had 17 students left.
I was the first in my family to go to college and I was scared to death. During the first few weeks of school, I was overwhelmed by what I didn't know and what others did know. My next door classmate, Larry Miller, showed us a list of 32 books he read over the summer. I quickly went to my room and hid my Superman and Donald Duck comic books. My only reading for the summer was the James Baldwin book, "The Fire Next Time". I think "Catcher on the Rye" might also have been on the list, but I was busy working at Howard Johnson's Restaurant and didn't read it.
By October I was hunkered down going to my room after dinner and sleeping. I was too scared to study, basically because I had never really studied much before. I was exposed to the Byzantium Empire, Calculus, Economics, English 101, none of which I knew much about. I received 4 warning notices of failing classes, with only German Literature giving me a passing grade.
One night I decided to get up (it was extra noisy), took some books with me and went to the library. There I met John Gaston down in the basement "stacks". John also lived on my floor. He saved my college career, as he pointed out how he came down to the "stacks" every day to do his studying. He was an Engineering student. I was amazed that someone would study every day, but I followed suit, set up residence in the "stacks" and was able to pass all my classes.
John came out of Belvidere, NJ where his dad and mom ran a small gas station. There wasn't much money, for certain, as they lived in a very small, rundown home on site. John loved basketball, but his size (5-9) was against him and along with being a serious student, he decided to not try out for the Rutgers basketball team. Instead, he studied and boy, did he study.
Our senior year, John and I roomed together in Highland Park, in a two bedroom apartment that cost $125 a month. I did the cooking and John did the cleaning. We had a third roommate, who stayed in the makeshift second bedroom off the living room. Bob Kusniak was also a 440 yard runner on our track team, but had quit. He was into music and women. For a period of time he and his girlfriend spent 24/7 (long before that became a catch phrase) in their bedroom, only coming out for a quick meal, leaving the dirty dishes in the sink.
One night John and I had enough of this. Both were slobs, both never said two words to us and she was living rent free. We ended up having an all night meeting with Bob, as John and I refused to budge from our position that his girlfriend leave the premises. We won out, but our relationship with Bob was ended then and there.
I visited John’s home up in Belvidere and discovered that not only did his parents just own a very small gas station out on a highway, but they home was so small, I could touch the ceiling without even going on my tippy toes. I was caught by surprise and so sad to see what kind of living conditions John had struggled with during his youth. It was amazing how strong of character he was to come out of such an environment and successfully complete his Engineering degree.
After graduating, John became the Assistant Commissioner of Waste Management for the State of New Jersey. Sadly, he died of cancer in 2003. I suspect that perhaps, living so close to the gas station his parents owned, with possible fuel leaks and exhaust, he might have gotten cancer from living at that location.
Without John's support and kind help in teaching me how to study, I would never have completed college or run so well competitively or have had a successful coaching career.
Air Force ROTC
October, 1964
Joining ROTC
While in grade school I read a number of books about a plebe going to West Point and playing baseball there. I don't remember the author or the names of the books. However, I thought it would be neat to be a Cadet. Rutgers had ROTC, so I thought I would join the Air Force ROTC so I could be a disciplined student-athlete.
What was a good idea turned into a nightmare pretty quickly. I was provided a nice uniform, hat, tie, shirt, shoes and socks. I was told that I needed to "spit-shine" my shoes and "dress right". One of our first exercises was a huge parade over at Buccleuch Park. I tried shining those black shoes, but there was one spot about the size of a quarter that would not shine. I spent hours, using matches to melt shoe polish, using a brush, then a cloth, to no avail. The spot would not shine.
The next day, after only a few hours of sleep I rushed over to the park for the parade and what turned out to be the first inspection of the freshmen crew. An Captain was in charge of the inspection and as he came up to me, the first thing he spotted was that darn spot. "Five demerits for not having your shoes shined". We had been told that you were allowed 25 demerits in the first semester before they shipped you out. I tried to explain why I had this "spot" and got another two demerits for talking. Then, I got another 5 demerits for not having my belt buckle and tie in alignment. I started to laugh, as I thought this guy was just having some fun with me and before I knew it, I was up to about 18 demerits.
As soon as the parade routine was over with, I ran to my dorm, changed clothes, but all the Air Force equipment into a paper bag and ran over to the ROTC building. I was admitted in to see the supervisor of the day, put the bag on his desk and told him that I quit. He wanted to know why and I went into my story about staying up half the night trying to get the shoes polished properly and getting a bunch of demerits for my effort. He tried to calm me down, but I was on a roll. I finished up by saying if I stayed in ROTC, I would flunk out of ROTC and school. He took my stuff, but told me I had to keep the shoes and socks. I had to pay $5.00 for them.
Those shoes were the best bargain I ever got as I used them for over two years working as a cook at Howard Johnson's Restaurant on the NJ Turnpike. They never got another shine, instead were covered with cooking grease from all the eggs and hamburgers I would cook during my 7-3 shift.Walking onto the Rutgers Track Team
October, 1964
The 1965 AAU Outdoor Nationals were held at Rutgers Stadium on their En-Tut-Cas brick track surface. The track material was imported from Great Britain, where brick from German bombings were processed into a track surface that required lots of water to stay hard. This was perfect for the East Coast, where plenty of rain provided a super fast surface for the runners.Walking on to the Rutgers Track Team
As a senior in high school, I applied to three schools, West Virginia (because I was a Jerry West fan), Tennessee (I have no idea why) and Rutgers (because my father made me apply there). I was quickly accepted at West Virginia and Tennessee, but no response from Rutgers. Seven of my fellow students at Hightstown High School had already been accepted at Rutgers, but still no letter one way or the other.
I became quite upset, as it was already May and I still had not heard. I had seen the campus during a drive by, but never went for an official or unofficial visit. I hadn't done that with West Virginia or Tennessee, so why do so with Rutgers. I did have a chance to see the stadium and liked it. I decided that if Rutgers would accept me, I was going to go there just to show them for making me wait so long. I finally received my letter of acceptance sometime in the middle of May. My father was quite happy as it cost just $2,000 a year to go there. I paid half from my working at Howard Johnson and he paid the other half.
My track experience was similar to my academic experience. I was scared to death of the competition. I am not sure why, but when 60 freshmen show up for for the first track and field meeting and there are 4 guys in the 440 out of 6 freshmen who had faster times than I did, it makes sense to me. My freshman coach was Art Gulden, who had just graduated from Rutgers and was in Army ROTC. Hard nosed and tough is an understatement for his coaching technique.
Since there were so many of us, Gulden asked all of us to take some training tape, write your names on it and put it on the front of our sweats. I failed to follow through and that did not sit well with Gulden. One day he stops me and asks me why I didn't have my name on my sweats. I told me that if I wasn't good enough to make the team, he wouldn't care what my name was and if I became a good runner, he would certainly know who I was. The head coach, Les Wallack, was standing close by and had to hold back Gulden, as I think Art was ready to pop me one.
After waking up and getting serious with my academics, I started to miss practices during my first semester. It was December and our finals were in the middle of January, but the pressure was on to get my act together. I spent more and more time in the library. One night, one of my teammates came by and gave me a dime and a slip of paper with a phone number on it. He told me that Gulden wanted me to call him. I did make the call and Gulden told me I had to come to practice or he would kick me off the team. I told him that if I didn't do my studying not only wouldn't I be on the team, but I would be out of school. I received a take it or leave it response. He said an hour a day for practice would be a stress reducer and I could still get enough study time.
I called home and cried to my mom about having to decide if I should do less studying and go to practice or quit track. She put on my father who had a simple answer for me. If you don't do well in school, you come home and go and find a job. I guess you could call it "tough love", but back then I was not seeing it that way. My math teacher in high school had suggested I run track in college, because it would provide the discipline to get through school. I remembered what he said and decided I would stick with track and just study as much as I could.
I did squeeze in practices, but running up at the Heights on an 11 lap to the mile track in the cold of winter wasn't much fun. The Varsity 440 guys were pretty good and with 6 frosh vying for the 4x440 relay, I wasn't an odds on favorite, to be certain.
My first time trial I ran against Ken Gorman, a senior and seasoned sprinter/quarter miler. He got out quickly and would run the straight away hard and then ease off on the turns. I stayed behind him, tried to pass him on the straights, but to no avail. I finished that first time trial in something like 55 seconds, beat to death by the stop and start tactics that Gorman used to his advantage. I looked awful and felt worse.
I didn't make the 4x440 relay in January as I spent a lot of time studying for finals and I had that awful first time trial as my only resume for Gulden to guide his selection. By February, I was doing much better, gaining some confidence and challenging the other freshmen on the relay team. Herby Broder, Dennis Egan and Bob Kusniak were on that initial team while Bill Turnbull, who only ran 52.5 in high school and I (51.2 in high school) were bench sitters.
That changed in late February as I finally made the team and ran a decent 51 split in a relay freshman relay race at Madison Square Garden. I don't remember how I got on the team, but we did have weekly "time trials", so I must have done well in some of them to get placed on the relay.
Practices up at the Heights were tough. Our track was located behind the stadium with a septic system underneath the area were the wooden track was located. Every so often one would get a whiff that resulted in throwing up after some hard workout. I was given the name of "McBarf" as my workouts almost always ended with my stomach letting go. In fact, Gulden put a huge 55 gallon drum at the end of the finish line area for my use.
Outdoor season was much better, as we got to train on the newly installed Et Tut Cas, which was shipped over from England. It was my understanding that much of it was made from bricks left over from the destruction of many of the British buildings during WW2. Our first tough competition was against Yale and St. Johns. Yale was coached Bob Giegengack, a terrific middle distance coach, who served as an Olympic coach. Bob had a freshman named Mark Young who, I found out later, was a miler and turned into a quarter miler. He was tall, strong and quite confident in his ability. Mark was inside my lane while his teammate Chuck Hobbs was outside of me. Coming around the last turn down the home stretch, Young yells over to Hobbs, "Come on Hobbsy, you can beat this Rutgers guy". I couldn't believe it and yelled over to him to watch out, cause I was going to get him. I didn't, as Young beat me easily. In fact, the only time I could beat Young was when we competed out west at the Nationals.Meet Vince Matthews - Olympian
March, 1968
Racing Olympian Vince Matthews
In the spring of 1968 NCAA ruled that Rutgers had used an ineligible athlete in football. They determined that his academic GPA was below the 1.8 that the NCAA required from all members. Rutgers argued that their academic were way above those of the NCAA and, as such, the athlete was in good standing. Rutgers was quickly put on probation and our 4x440 relay team and I were not allowed to compete at the Indoor National at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan. This was a heavy blow, as we had gone to Detroit our junior year, but did not make the final. We had a much better team in 1968.
I decided to see our Athletic Director, Al Twitchell and suggested that since we were not allowed to compete at the NCAA's, could he see fit that we get funding for a spring trip to Duke University and to compete at the Florida Relays . He was happy to comply with my request and in early March 5 of us headed for Duke. The 4x440 relay team of Jack Hanley, Bill Muir, Bill Turnbull, along with Donald Kay headed south for our first "spring trip" in Rutgers track and field history.
The week in Raleigh, NC was terrific. Warm, with highs in the low 80's, good training facilities and a relaxing time swimming in the pool made the week a great experience. On Friday we headed to Furman University for a meet that would take place on Saturday. It was still nice and warm until late Friday afternoon, when some dark clouds came in from the west.
We woke up Saturday to a cold, windy day. Temperatures had dropped from the low 80's to 29º and the wind felt like a No'easter. By the time the 4x440 came around everyone was chilled to the bone. I mean, it was cold. As I was debating whether to take my sweats off for my anchor leg, I look over and there on the track, in his sweats, was Vince Matthews, ready to take the baton from his teammate from Johnson C. Smith College. We each got the baton a few steps apart and the two of us ran our leg, step in step. We both split 49.2, with he just our leaning me at the finish line. That was as close as I ever got to beating him.
Penn Relays - The Larry James Show
April, 1968
The Penn Relays are the premier Spring track and field meet on the East Coast. In 1968, a new "Tartan" track had been installed, replacing an old cinder track that left every athlete's uniform covered in black whenever a rain happened during the racing schedule. The fancy Tartan track was green and fast. Everyone was super excited and the meet performances showed as records were set day after day.
On Friday our relay team of Bill Turnbull, Jack Hanley, Bill Muir and I won the Metropolitan Conference race around 3:10.2 (I don't remember the exact time). Back then the race was 4x440 yards. We soon learned that our time qualified us for the 4x440 Championship of America, which would take place near the end of the meet on Saturday.
To celebrate our good fortune, we decided to go out to a fancy restaurant and spend our $5 meal money on a nice dinner (food was cheap back then). Five of us found this very nice restaurant that had tablecloths and cloth napkins (what more do you need to know it was a fancy place). One by one each of the guys ordered a beer until the waitress came to me. I ordered MILK.
This order reminded the waitress to check our ID's and sure enough, the only one that was legal was ME! We all ended up drinking milk along with our excellent dinner.
The next day, Jack Hanley ran in the 440 intermediate hurdles, an event he would become an All-American the next year. Unfortunately, Jack hit a hurdle and sliced open his knee and quad. It was an ugly cut that would keep him out of competition for the rest of the season.
We had one guy from the 4x110 relay team who Coach Wallack thought might be tough enough to take Jack's place. Jim Smith was primarily a 100 yd sprinter and a hard-nosed guy you would not want to meet in an alley. Smitty became our leadoff leg, but not until he ate a couple of hotdogs. He shot out of the start as the gun went off and ran like a scared rabbit. The break line for the 440 was at the 100 yard line where lanes from inside and outside merged together. Smitty threw some elbows and darted up the backstretch as fast as he could go. By the time he hit the 330 mark, he was toast. However, his overall natural strength enabled him to come down the final homestretch and hand off the baton to Bill Turnbull, recording a split of 47.5. We were in the mix, running 3-4-5 as Turnbull ran 47.8, followed by Bill Muir's 46.8. I got the stick in 5th place with Dale Bernauer of Rice in the lead. Larry James of Villanova was hot on his heals and Benedict Cayenne of Maryland State and I were close behind. Tom Randolph of Western Michigan was a few steps behind me.
Larry James, a sophomore at this time and destined to earn two medals at the 1968 Olympics, blew by Bernauer as if he were standing still. Bernauer was a small guy and took two steps to every one of Larry's. I went streaking by Cayenne, intent on trying to run down Larry. We all went through the first 220 yds in the low 21 or better range.
Larry then put it in third gear and finished with a split of 43.9 for the 440 distance. It was the fast time ever recorded at Penn. Bernauer finished in second place for Rice, running his leg in 46.1. I had third, but was overtaken at the finish line by Tom Randolph as he ran a 44.9. I ran a 45.7 to bring our team to a 3:08.7 overall time. Cayenne completed the fast sprint around the oval as he recorded a 45.9 split for his leg. This was the first time so many anchor legs ran such fast times in one race.
Villanova set a Penn Relays record, recording a time of 3:06.1. Larry had run 3 440's prior to this grand finale, running the anchor of the 4x440 on Friday's prelims and then 2 440 legs for the sprint relay team that also won (Vllanova won five relay titles that weekend). What was not reported by any media outlet was a "discussion" between Larry and his coach Jumbo Elliott. I happened to be in the infield warming up when Jumbo and Larry got into it, as Larry said he was tired and didn't want to run another 440. I think that was in reference to the Sprint Medley and not the the final 4x440. The discourse did not last very long, as Elliott would have none of it and Larry did what he did best. Keep in mind, Larry had already had a full indoor season ending in his winning the indoor 440 at the NCAA Championships in Detroit. Plus he still had the rest of outdoors and the Olympics ahead of him in the months ahead, which were not held until the end of October, 1968.
Got milk?
April, 1968
Team travel was always fun, because if you stayed over at some location, you got to go out to eat and room with a teammate. My "roomie" was Bill Muir, an Engineering major who was one tough son of a gun. He came from East Brunswick where he was an 880 yard runner. By the time he was done at Rutgers, one year after me, he had run 1:50 for the half mile and split a 46.8 for the 440 relay. He loved to eat sunflower seeds and always had a bag with him on every trip.
One such trip was down to the 1968 Penn Relays in Philadelphia. We would stay downtown, close to the track and close to some fine restaurants. After winning the 4x440 yard relay in the Metropolitan Conference division and qualifying for the Championship of America Relay, we went out for a nice dinner.
There were 5 of us at the table, if I remember correctly, as Jim Smith was now filling in for the injured Jack Hanley, who had gotten hurt in his 440 yard Intermediate Hurdles race. There was lots of chatter and fun as the waitress came to take our order. We all ordered and then one, by one, the guys also ordered a glass of beer. I was the last one to order and as I finished up, I asked for a glass of milk.
This innocent request reminded the waitress that she had to check on id's, as one had to be 21 in PA to order beer. All of us took out our driver's licenses and one by one, failed the age factor, except for me. I was the only one 21 years old and able to actually order a beer. Ah, but I liked milk!NCAA Championships
June, 1968
The NCAA National Championship 400 meter dash had trials, semifinals and finals, spread over 3 days. I had gotten through the trials easily, but faced a serious challenge in the semi-final heat. With 16 competitors left, 8 would qualify by placing in the top 4 in each of the two semi-final heats. My Coach, Les Wallack, informed me that I had the better heat and should make it into the finals. My heat consisted of Lee Evans, eventual world record holder, Larry James, who had run a 43.9 440 split at the Penn Relays, Ron Freeman, who would a 43.2 at the Olympics. Wallack saw me getting to the finals. I saw one spot open with 5 of us vying for that spot, as the top 3 spots were going to be taken by Evans, James and Freeman.
I was in one of the inside lanes, with Larry James just outside me. The race got off well and I felt strong and quick going around the first turn and up the backstretch. I just followed James, as I had done numerous times during the season and managed to finish 4th, as Wallack had predicted. I was so happy, I jumped on Larry's back, yelling, "I made it to the finals (really professional)". Larry looked back at me and said, "Heck, I am lucky I made it, as I had two molars extracted yesterday". Lee Evans won the heat and Ron Freeman was second.
The following day, Lee again won the race, with Larry second and Ron Freeman third. I was a distant 7th, just not good enough to compete at their level.The finals of the NCAA 400 meter Championships begin at 30:43. I am in lane 1, Evans is in lane 8 and James is in lane 7
The finals of the NCAA 400 meter Championships begin at 30:43. I am in lane 1, Evans is in lane 8 and James is in lane 7
Join the Army?
June, 1968
After I finished a disappointing 7th at the NCAA Championships, I went back home and continued to train. I was entered in the AAU Championships in the Los Angeles Coliseum. I don’t have much of a memory there, other than I did not get out of the semi-finals. I went to Stanford coach, who was the Olympic Head Coach, and introduced myself, as I was now on my own and didn’t know if there were any options left in trying to go to the trials second trials up in Lake Tahoe. Jordan knew who I was and suggested I find a way to get up to Tahoe and he would let me train and race up there.
Unfortunately, this was 1968, and the US was in the thick of the Viet Nam war. At the meet, I had met up with Tom Farrell, who asked me what my plans were, now that I was out of college. I told him I would do what he did, join the Army Special Forces and run for them. Tom was very gracious and informed me that the unit he was in would disband as soon as the Olympics were over and return to being part of the “real” Special Forces, destined for Viet Nam.
I decided I needed to get home (despite my high lottery number of 182) and see about getting a job that would result in a deferment. With the help of Les Wallack, my college coach, I was given the opportunity to interview for a teaching job at Blair Academy.
Now, teaching was a goal I had set for myself the previous year, so this was not to just get out of the service and out of Viet Nam. However, getting such a job wasn’t all that easy and getting a deferment was even more difficult. Tom Farrell had set the seeds of my no longer wishing to “Go Army” and instead I was hoping to make the field of education my career, as well as I also had no desire of going to war, considering what my family had gone through just 20 years prior.
My interview at the local board was very interesting. There were three older men there, with one of them intent on seeing through my desire to teach and anxious to send me to the Army. When he left to go to the bathroom, one of the other men told me he was a Superintendent of Schools in Trenton, NJ and that he would make sure I would get my deferment, since he saw the need of having more male teachers. He told me the other guy was very upset, because his son had been drafted, so he wanted everyone else to also be drafted.
I still had to go and get my physical, just in case I was called up. That physical didn’t go well, as my level of fitness was quite good. I informed the doctor in charge that I had a major problem with my left eye, in that I could not see well out of it, including, not being able to read, as I had some muscle weakness (later diagnosed as a folded retina). The doctor responded, with out hesitation, “That is ok, you have the other eye that is working just fine.”
In September of 1968, I was off to Blairtown, NJ to start my 50 plus years of working in the field of Education and I watched the Olympics on my TV on the campus of Blair Academy.
Tom Farrell, who helped guide me towards my career in the field of education.John Novak, Lifetime Friend
June, 1968
The first time I met John Novak, was in Tinsley Hall. He was up on the second floor and I wanted to go up to track practice with him in early December, after his freshman football season was over. I knew little about him, other than he was a pretty good hurdler and came from Perth Amboy. I walked into his room and saw a huge mess, clothes and books all over the place and a sheet that kind of went up and down lying across the bed. Underneath was John, sleeping, his breathing causing the sheet to rhythmically move.
We spent a lot of time together that first year and then became roommates our sophomore year at Rutgers. We lived together at 85 Richardson Street, off campus, as the dorms were just way too loud. We were both serious about our studies and living in a quiet 3 story home meant we had time to do our work without interruption.
John gave up football and concentrated on track and field where he developed into a top flight multi-event scorer for the team. He was a very good hurdler, long jumper and triple jumper, a consistent scorer all the way up to the IC-4A competition.
In our junior year, John moved into the frat house he had joined and I stayed another year on Richardson. We continued our friendship all through our college years and then worked together at Metuchen, where we again were roommates, living in Piscataway.
In 1971, I was selected for a trip to Israel to compete in the Hapoel Games where I won a 400 meter race in Tel Aviv, in front of 80000 spectators. None of them came to see me, of course, rather, Charlie Greene was the highlight of the meet.
Charlie was a free spirit who did things a bit differently than most. He was known to ride his bike around the track as a warm up and then spend an hour doing short pickups, hardly building up a sweat.
On our tour, we went to the Dead Sea and he and Charlie Mays, Olympian in the Long Jump, jumped into the water, floating along without any difficulty. Charlie was so happy, floating along for the first time ever, as he was not a swimmer.
When I returned from our trip, John picked me up at the airport and told me that fortunately my 1969 Mustang was in good shape. I asked him what he meant by that. Well, he said, the apartment beneath ours had a huge fire, with two guys dying from burns and our apartment was pretty much destroyed, but he was able to find my car keys and move my car out of the way before the fire engines showed up.
John’s mom and my mom had spent a few days going through the rubble and were able to salvage some of our things. Instead of coming home to Piscataway, John had found a new apartment for us in Metuchen on Green Street.
The apartment was a sub-rental from one of the Metuchen teachers who was on sabbatical in Europe. Unfortunately, the sewer pipes underneath our apartment broke and we suffered through a few days of unbearable smells that forced us out of the apartment into a motel. A lawyer for the teacher tried to tell us he could not smell anything and demanded we pay for the motel and the rest of the rent, but we refused. John went on to marry Donna, the daughter of our softball coach, and I moved on to Columbia.
John Novak on the left and Joe Prehotka on the right. Joe was a super softball player in the league John and I played in during my time in Metuchen. Joe played for Barton Landscaping and we played for Alderiso. We originally were Metuchen Teachers and then Metuchen Roadrunners, I seem to recall. Hall of Fame recipient Don Wernik ’43 is in the center.Penn Relays
April, 1968
The Penn Relays are the premier Spring track and field meet on the East Coast. In 1968, a new "Tartan" track had been installed, replacing an old cinder track that left every athlete's uniform covered in black whenever a rain happened during the racing schedule. The fancy Tartan track was green and fast. Everyone was super excited and the meet performances showed as records were set day after day.
On Friday our relay team of Bill Turnbull, Jack Hanley, Bill Muir and I won the Metropolitan Conference race around 3:10.2 (I don't remember the exact time). Back then the race was 4x440 yards. We soon learned that our time qualified us for the 4x440 Championship of America, which would take place near the end of the meet on Saturday.
To celebrate our good fortune, we decided to go out to a fancy restaurant and spend our $5 meal money on a nice dinner (food was cheap back then). Five of us found this very nice restaurant that had tablecloths and cloth napkins (what more do you need to know it was a fancy place). One by one each of the guys ordered a beer until the waitress came to me. I ordered MILK.
This order reminded the waitress to check our ID's and sure enough, the only one that was legal was ME! We all ended up drinking milk along with our excellent dinner.
The next day, Jack Hanley ran in the 440 intermediate hurdles, an event he would become an All-American the next year. Unfortunately, Jack hit a hurdle and sliced open his knee and quad. It was an ugly cut that would keep him out of competition for the rest of the season.
We had one guy from the 4x110 relay team who Coach Wallack thought might be tough enough to take Jack's place. Jim Smith was primarily a 100 yd sprinter and a hard-nosed guy you would not want to meet in an alley. Smitty became our leadoff leg, but not until he ate a couple of hotdogs. He shot out of the start as the gun went off and ran like a scared rabbit. The break line for the 440 was at the 100 yard line where lanes from inside and outside merged together. Smitty threw some elbows and darted up the backstretch as fast as he could go. By the time he hit the 330 mark, he was toast. However, his overall natural strength enabled him to come down the final homestretch and hand off the baton to Bill Turnbull, recording a split of 47.5. We were in the mix, running 3-4-5 as Turnbull ran 47.8, followed by Bill Muir's 46.8. I got the stick in 5th place with Dale Bernauer of Rice in the lead. Larry James of Villanova was hot on his heals and Benedict Cayenne of Maryland State and I were close behind. Tom Randolph of Western Michigan was a few steps behind me.
Larry James, a sophomore at this time and destined to earn two medals at the 1968 Olympics, blew by Bernauer as if he were standing still. Bernauer was a small guy and took two steps to every one of Larry's. I went streaking by Cayenne, intent on trying to run down Larry. We all went through the first 220 yds in the low 21 or better range.
Larry then put it in third gear and finished with a split of 43.9 for the 440 distance. It was the fast time ever recorded at Penn. Bernauer finished in second place for Rice, running his leg in 46.1. I had third, but was overtaken at the finish line by Tom Randolph as he ran a 44.9. I ran a 45.7 to bring our team to a 3:08.7 overall time. Cayenne completed the fast sprint around the oval as he recorded a 45.9 split for his leg. This was the first time so many anchor legs ran such fast times in one race.
Villanova set a Penn Relays record, recording a time of 3:06.1. Larry had run 3 440's prior to this grand finale, running the anchor of the 4x440 on Friday's prelims and then 2 440 legs for the sprint relay team that also won (Vllanova won five relay titles that weekend). What was not reported by any media outlet was a "discussion" between Larry and his coach Jumbo Elliott. I happened to be in the infield warming up when Jumbo and Larry got into it, as Larry said he was tired and didn't want to run another 440. I think that was in reference to the Sprint Medley and not the the final 4x440. The discourse did not last very long, as Elliott would have none of it and Larry did what he did best. Keep in mind, Larry had already had a full indoor season ending in his winning the indoor 440 at the NCAA Championships in Detroit. Plus he still had the rest of outdoors and the Olympics ahead of him in the months ahead, which were not held until the end of October, 1968.
Got milk?
April, 1968
Team travel was always fun, because if you stayed over at some location, you got to go out to eat and room with a teammate. My "roomie" was Bill Muir, an Engineering major who was one tough son of a gun. He came from East Brunswick where he was an 880 yard runner. By the time he was done at Rutgers, one year after me, he had run 1:50 for the half mile and split a 46.8 for the 440 relay. He loved to eat sunflower seeds and always had a bag with him on every trip.
One such trip was down to the 1968 Penn Relays in Philadelphia. We would stay downtown, close to the track and close to some fine restaurants. After winning the 4x440 yard relay in the Metropolitan Conference division and qualifying for the Championship of America Relay, we went out for a nice dinner.
There were 5 of us at the table, if I remember correctly, as Jim Smith was now filling in for the injured Jack Hanley, who had gotten hurt in his 440 yard Intermediate Hurdles race. There was lots of chatter and fun as the waitress came to take our order. We all ordered and then one, by one, the guys also ordered a glass of beer. I was the last one to order and as I finished up, I asked for a glass of milk.
This innocent request reminded the waitress that she had to check on id's, as one had to be 21 in PA to order beer. All of us took out our driver's licenses and one by one, failed the age factor, except for me. I was the only one 21 years old and able to actually order a beer. Ah, but I liked milk!NCAA Championships
June, 1968
The NCAA National Championship 400 meter dash had trials, semifinals and finals, spread over 3 days. I had gotten through the trials easily, but faced a serious challenge in the semi-final heat. With 16 competitors left, 8 would qualify by placing in the top 4 in each of the two semi-final heats. My Coach, Les Wallack, informed me that I had the better heat and should make it into the finals. My heat consisted of Lee Evans, eventual world record holder, Larry James, who had run a 43.9 440 split at the Penn Relays, Ron Freeman, who would a 43.2 at the Olympics. Wallack saw me getting to the finals. I saw one spot open with 5 of us vying for that spot, as the top 3 spots were going to be taken by Evans, James and Freeman.
I was in one of the inside lanes, with Larry James just outside me. The race got off well and I felt strong and quick going around the first turn and up the backstretch. I just followed James, as I had done numerous times during the season and managed to finish 4th, as Wallack had predicted. I was so happy, I jumped on Larry's back, yelling, "I made it to the finals (really professional)". Larry looked back at me and said, "Heck, I am lucky I made it, as I had two molars extracted yesterday". Lee Evans won the heat and Ron Freeman was second.
The following day, Lee again won the race, with Larry second and Ron Freeman third. I was a distant 7th, just not good enough to compete at their level.The finals of the NCAA 400 meter Championships begin at 30:43. I am in lane 1, Evans is in lane 8 and James is in lane 7
The finals of the NCAA 400 meter Championships begin at 30:43. I am in lane 1, Evans is in lane 8 and James is in lane 7
Join the Army?
June, 1968
After I finished a disappointing 7th at the NCAA Championships, I went back home and continued to train. I was entered in the AAU Championships in the Los Angeles Coliseum. I don’t have much of a memory there, other than I did not get out of the semi-finals. I went to Stanford coach, who was the Olympic Head Coach, and introduced myself, as I was now on my own and didn’t know if there were any options left in trying to go to the trials second trials up in Lake Tahoe. Jordan knew who I was and suggested I find a way to get up to Tahoe and he would let me train and race up there.
Unfortunately, this was 1968, and the US was in the thick of the Viet Nam war. At the meet, I had met up with Tom Farrell, who asked me what my plans were, now that I was out of college. I told him I would do what he did, join the Army Special Forces and run for them. Tom was very gracious and informed me that the unit he was in would disband as soon as the Olympics were over and return to being part of the “real” Special Forces, destined for Viet Nam.
I decided I needed to get home (despite my high lottery number of 182) and see about getting a job that would result in a deferment. With the help of Les Wallack, my college coach, I was given the opportunity to interview for a teaching job at Blair Academy.
Now, teaching was a goal I had set for myself the previous year, so this was not to just get out of the service and out of Viet Nam. However, getting such a job wasn’t all that easy and getting a deferment was even more difficult. Tom Farrell had set the seeds of my no longer wishing to “Go Army” and instead I was hoping to make the field of education my career, as well as I also had no desire of going to war, considering what my family had gone through just 20 years prior.
My interview at the local board was very interesting. There were three older men there, with one of them intent on seeing through my desire to teach and anxious to send me to the Army. When he left to go to the bathroom, one of the other men told me he was a Superintendent of Schools in Trenton, NJ and that he would make sure I would get my deferment, since he saw the need of having more male teachers. He told me the other guy was very upset, because his son had been drafted, so he wanted everyone else to also be drafted.
I still had to go and get my physical, just in case I was called up. That physical didn’t go well, as my level of fitness was quite good. I informed the doctor in charge that I had a major problem with my left eye, in that I could not see well out of it, including, not being able to read, as I had some muscle weakness (later diagnosed as a folded retina). The doctor responded, with out hesitation, “That is ok, you have the other eye that is working just fine.”
In September of 1968, I was off to Blairtown, NJ to start my 50 plus years of working in the field of Education and I watched the Olympics on my TV on the campus of Blair Academy.
Tom Farrell, who helped guide me towards my career in the field of education.John Novak, Lifetime Friend
June, 1968
The first time I met John Novak, was in Tinsley Hall. He was up on the second floor and I wanted to go up to track practice with him in early December, after his freshman football season was over. I knew little about him, other than he was a pretty good hurdler and came from Perth Amboy. I walked into his room and saw a huge mess, clothes and books all over the place and a sheet that kind of went up and down lying across the bed. Underneath was John, sleeping, his breathing causing the sheet to rhythmically move.
We spent a lot of time together that first year and then became roommates our sophomore year at Rutgers. We lived together at 85 Richardson Street, off campus, as the dorms were just way too loud. We were both serious about our studies and living in a quiet 3 story home meant we had time to do our work without interruption.
John gave up football and concentrated on track and field where he developed into a top flight multi-event scorer for the team. He was a very good hurdler, long jumper and triple jumper, a consistent scorer all the way up to the IC-4A competition.
In our junior year, John moved into the frat house he had joined and I stayed another year on Richardson. We continued our friendship all through our college years and then worked together at Metuchen, where we again were roommates, living in Piscataway.
In 1971, I was selected for a trip to Israel to compete in the Hapoel Games where I won a 400 meter race in Tel Aviv, in front of 80000 spectators. None of them came to see me, of course, rather, Charlie Greene was the highlight of the meet.
Charlie was a free spirit who did things a bit differently than most. He was known to ride his bike around the track as a warm up and then spend an hour doing short pickups, hardly building up a sweat.
On our tour, we went to the Dead Sea and he and Charlie Mays, Olympian in the Long Jump, jumped into the water, floating along without any difficulty. Charlie was so happy, floating along for the first time ever, as he was not a swimmer.
When I returned from our trip, John picked me up at the airport and told me that fortunately my 1969 Mustang was in good shape. I asked him what he meant by that. Well, he said, the apartment beneath ours had a huge fire, with two guys dying from burns and our apartment was pretty much destroyed, but he was able to find my car keys and move my car out of the way before the fire engines showed up.
John’s mom and my mom had spent a few days going through the rubble and were able to salvage some of our things. Instead of coming home to Piscataway, John had found a new apartment for us in Metuchen on Green Street.
The apartment was a sub-rental from one of the Metuchen teachers who was on sabbatical in Europe. Unfortunately, the sewer pipes underneath our apartment broke and we suffered through a few days of unbearable smells that forced us out of the apartment into a motel. A lawyer for the teacher tried to tell us he could not smell anything and demanded we pay for the motel and the rest of the rent, but we refused. John went on to marry Donna, the daughter of our softball coach, and I moved on to Columbia.
John Novak on the left and Joe Prehotka on the right. Joe was a super softball player in the league John and I played in during my time in Metuchen. Joe played for Barton Landscaping and we played for Alderiso. We originally were Metuchen Teachers and then Metuchen Roadrunners, I seem to recall. Hall of Fame recipient Don Wernik ’43 is in the center.
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- My first job coming out of college was working at Blair Academy, near the Delaware Water Gap. I was to teach Analytic Geometry and Pre-Calculus. During my interview with the headmaster, he brought out the fact that I had received two A’s in Calculus. I told him not to be fooled, that I had just memorized all the formulas and sample programs in the book. I still got the job and I also became the XC Coach and Assistant Track Coach to Jim Pender, an icon at the Academy.
The year did not go well for me. I had to live in the dorms and eat with the students down in the dining room. I was paid $4500 for the year, plus room and board. Not a bad deal, but for a 22 year old, Blairstown and Blair Academy was not a very exciting place. I also struggled with the students, as they were “privileged” long before that word became part of our social commentary. I used tell friends they made more in allowance than I did being paid as their teacher.
In the spring I became the Head Track Coach, as Jim Pender, retired. I started with 52 athletes and by the time I was done with the season I was down to 22. I coached a shot-putter from 40 feet down to 25 feet and only one of my distance runners were competitive. Bob Fehr ran 4:20 for the mile, graduated and went to Michigan, never to run again. He became a doctor, so I didn’t mess up that career.
My college roommate and I kept in touch and during my disasterous year, John Novak would talk about coming down to Metuchen to join him. He was a history teacher there and also the track coach. At the end of the year, I came down for an interview and was hired as a fifth grade teacher in a self contained classroom in the basement of Franklin School. The Superintendent was right above my classroom and, I am certain, he could hear all that was going on downstairs.
I found my element in teaching 5th grade. I figured I was a bit smarter than my students, since I did graduate from college, so I was not intimidated by them. In fact, I had the best time of my life teaching them all but Art and Music. Our classes were exciting with new ways of teaching almost on a daily basis. When we covered the Civil War, I drew a map of the US on the floor of the room and had kids represent the Union and Confederate soldiers and leaders. Lee and Grant were live in our classroom.
I used one of the earliest video camers to videotape a play, “Robin Hood” we put on for the entire school. I had the kids (and their parents) make the costumes and we spent days putting up the scenery. The play was a hit with everyone. I am not sure what educational value this provided the class, but the teamwork and excitement of seeing themselves on TV as we practiced each scene and an auditorium filled to capacity was an unforgettable experience for all the students and for me.
After school, I would drive up to Metuchen High School, about 2 miles up the road, and coach the cross country team and then assist John with the indoor and outdoor track and field program. John and I would spend hours and hours figuring out our lineup as we became more and more dominant in Middlesex County. Indoors we ran out in front of the school, down the main drive, back around out to the local street, back up to the entrance. It was about 500 yards around, a good distance for doing workouts. During snowy weather we would initially run up and down the halls. One day, I did the same workout as my athletes, and I got so sore from running on the concrete and making sharp turns, I told them we would never run in the halls again. I would rather run in the snow and cold outside than risk getting injured running the halls.
The track team dominated our league, won the county meet, beating arch rival St. Joe’s Metuchen, and even won a state Group 2 title. John’s shuttle hurdle team set a National Indoor Record, while Gary Anderson won a state title in the Javelin, despite my initially having him throw off the wrong foot. Fortunately, I took him down to the Naval Academy to meet Al Cantello, former world record holder in the Javelin, who righted the ship and helped Gary. Gary went on to the University of Pennsylvania, where he got a DDS degree and eventually an MD degree.
I was promoted to the sixth grade my second year in Metuchen where I taught Math and Science, as part of the team teaching concept that existed during that time. I was excited to be promoted along with my former class, but I did not really enjoy teaching just Math and Science. Our cross country and track teams continued to develop and contend for county and state titles, with the XC team finishing second in the Group 2 Sectionals.
My third and final year at Metuchen had me teaching English and History and I found that I was a liberal arts kind of person, rather than one of science. I loved teaching English, History and Reading where my creative abilities were on display. I came up with one project after another, some even making the local newspaper, as I converted our portable classrooms out on the field into a Middle Ages community, complete with all six classrooms converted to “markets” and all the students dressed in period costumes. We had a Middle Ages Day where the rest of the school was given play money to make purchases of Items our students made. At the end of the day we had a cook out, as I built a huge barbecue pit, cooked up 50 chickens in the Home Economics ovens and then brought them out and finished cooking them on our “grill”. Finally, I had the Good Humor truck come by and provide ice cream treats to all of our students. What a fun time that was.
At the end of my third year, John Novak was moving up to become Vice-Principal at the high school and I became very concerned that I might “go stale” if I stayed on as an elementary school teacher. I saw some of the older teachers at Franklin, stuck in their ways, teaching the same old lesson plans year after year and I did not want to go down that road. I was very much afraid I would loose my creativity, as many of the projects I came up with were “spur of the moment “ ideas that came about, oftentimes, the night before I taught the class.
I wanted to “test the waters” and see if I could move up and coach at the college level, first being offered a part time position with John Moon at Seton Hall and then a position opened up at Columbia University. I was also offered a position with my former Assistant Principal, who was taking over as Principal at a near by high school. I decided to join the staff at Columbia, as the Athletic Director was Ken Germann, who I knew quite well from our time together at Rutgers, where he was the Assistant Athletic Director during my four years there.
I took a pay cut, moved closer to New York City and took on a whole new challenge, ready to show the world that I was as good a coach as anyone else.
My time at Metuchen was exciting and an important part of my life. My friendship with John Novak continues to this day, as I learned a lot from him. We roomed together for a short period of time, played together on our local softball team and enjoyed each other’s company, until he met Donna, soon to be his wife. It was time for me to move on. -
Stories from my years at Columbia University
Mark Rudd, the SDS and New York City almost going bankrupt in 1975, made it a tough start for my college coaching career. I came to Columbia to build up, not tear down.Pete Schuder
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Columbia All-Americans
Columbia is a unique institution of higher learning. Not only was it part of the Ivy League, but it was located in one of the most famous cities in the world (New York City).
I came to Columbia in 1972, after 3 wonderful years at Metuchen, NJ where I taught 5th and 6th grade and coached track and field with my college roommate, John Novak.
Columbia had been through some tough times, including being called the Berkeley of the East as Mark Rudd and the Weathermen group had some huge demonstrations on the Columbia campus from 1968 until about 1970.
A week after I accepted the job as Assistant Coach to Irving Kinitisch, the Dean of Students was shot by a disgruntled grad student. Dean Henry Coleman survived and I also survived, eventually becoming the Head Coach of Track and Field and spending 12 years with the Lions.
Columbia's track and field program had a remarkable history with some outstanding individuals and team accomplishments, but that dried up by the time the 60's came along.
More turmoil came along when Columbia wanted to build a new athletic complex in Morningside Park. By the time I arrived on campus, we had an old cinder track up at Baker Field, 30 minutes by car off campus or a long subway ride and a 11 lap to the mile wooden banked track from the old Madison Square Garden, that was housed under an airdrome.
It took some time to assemble a competitive group of athletes and Des Foynes, Paul Heck and Charles Allen were key figures in Columbia "New Wave" of competitors. -
Hep Champs • 1979
1979 proved to be a pivotal year for the Lions of Columbia, as a young group of individuals from around the world came together to garner the first ever Heptagonal/Ivy Cross Country Championship for Columbia in the 33 year history of the league.
At the conclusion of the 1979 outdoor season, we had a team meeting with the distance runners and I offered a two year plan of building up the group where they could be competitive within the Heps and on the east coast. We had a fairly young group, but also had some seasoned seniors who were quite hungry to win some meets and compete for the Hep title.
Charles Miers, whose family came from England, Paul Loomie from Long Island, Wally Collins from Foxboro, MA, Chuck Pettibone and Rich McNally, from Hunterdon County, NJ, Mike O'Brien from Long Island and Paul Hoffman from upstate New York were the nucleus of this magical team.
The season started off on a down note, as we had a meet against Navy and Oregon. Navy had a reputation of running well early in the season and Oregon had a team that would place second to UTEP at the NCAA Nationals that year, held at Lehigh University. Alberto Salazar, Rudy Chapa, and Bill McChesney were members of that team. "Big Bertha" was also part of the contest, a sharp up and down hill that I think they ran 20 times….ha, ha.
To make matters worse, the night before the meet, Navy hosted Oregon to a bash and we ate tuna fish sandwiches.
The team ran lots of miles, having built up from doing 70 plus miles a week during the summer to hitting 100 miles a week during the season. Sunday runs were down to Battery Park and back or over to the Palisades. Other long runs including trip to the Bronx Zoo and running to the Lyndhurst Estate in Sleepy Hollow where there was an old toe path that was 10 miles long.
The Heps were to be held at Van Cortlandt Park, an annual affair hosted by Columbia, but the course was in very poor shape so the coaches voted to move the meet to Lehigh.
It was a cool, sunny day and everyone was excited for the upcoming match between Princeton, who had won 6 titles in a row and Navy, who was coming off a terrific dual meet season, including beating Army. Columbia was not in the picture.
The Lehigh course is beautiful, with rolling hills, short grass and long open straight runs. There was one area after the 4 mile mark where runners went behind some corn fields and came out near the end of the meet.
At the 4 mile mark, Navy was in the lead, but Columbia had McNally, Loomie and Miers close by. As they came running by me, I yelled, "Tuna Fish, Tuna Fish" reminding them how we were left out of the Navy-Oregon bash back in September.
The teams disappeared behind the corn fields and about 3 minutes later, it was evident that Columbia had made some strong moves, passing Navy guys and winning their first title ever. Princeton had brought bottles of champagne to celebrate, but we brought home the winning cup.
It took another 25 years before Columbia team won their second title followed by a third title won in 2009 at the 30 year reunion of the first win. -
4x440 Relay • 1975
This 4x440 Relay team was very special. It was the first relay team to win one of the sections of the 4x440 at the Millrose Games. The team of Brian Fitzpatrick, Bob Wisdom, Todd Horst and Bob Murach comprised a unit that cleared some big obstacles to achieve school records indoors and outdoors. Their 3:16.74(yds) indoor mark is still the second best time on the Columbia all time list. That mark was made on the slow 11 lap to the mile Madison Square Garden track in 1976.
Their outdoor record of 3:12.34 (yds) was made at Penn Relays, where this same team ran their hearts out for the Light Blue of Columbia.
Much of the training done by these four were on the streets of New York and sidewalks of New York. Academics took away time to travel up to Baker Field and we could do hill runs, downhill sprinting and dodging and cutting through traffic right on campus. That was until I was called into the Dean's Office and told that some poor woman got scared to death when coming out of her apartment complex and finding 4 guys heading right for her as they were finishing up a fast downhill 220. Relegated to running down in Riverside Park and Central Park from then on, practices were a little less exciting. -
Pomposity
It wasn't always easy at Columbia and I was not always the most diplomatic when it came to dealing with the Columbia Spectator, the school paper that wasn't very interested in covering a team that had not done well in recent years.
I found this article from 1976 when things were starting to become a bit better on the local level for the track and field team. Beating Lafayette, Fordham and CW Post was a small feather in our caps, but we still could not compete against the other Ivy League teams or at the League Championships.
We did have a few outstanding athletes come through the program, as indicated in an earlier article, but the team, as a whole, was a work in progress.
Getting media coverage back then was difficult, to say the least. The NY Times had Frank Litsky, who was a terrific supporter of track and field, but Columbia was not of much interest to him.
So that left the Spectator, whose Sports Editors were usually of the mind there were three sports: Football, Basketball and Baseball. We didn't have women's athletic teams yet, so really, I had a hard time understanding why they didn't seem to have much, if any interest in covering track and field. Spring sports consisted of Baseball, Tennis, Golf and Track and Field.
The article I found made me chuckle, as I can see myself having done what the reporter said. I also know that Spectator had little interest in covering track and field, but after this episode, coverage, in fact, did improve some.
So the old adage of the squeaky wheel getting the grease was, indeed, true. -
The Bubble at Baker Field
The Columbia Bubble was located at the tip of the Harlem River at 215th Street and Broadway. It was situation on the practice football field, outside the old wooden stadium where half the grandstands were condemned. The location was the high point of the area, above the high point of the Tennis Bubble that was located on the other side of the stadium, down in a valley of sorts.
I just now found out that the Bubble had misadventures long before I came to Columbia. Had I known that, along with some of the other issues Columbia Track and Field faced, I probably would have decided to take the Seton Hall Assistant job under John Moon.
The Bubble was a wonderful meeting place for track and field athletes. Not only did Columbia have full access to the facility, but Manhattan College, St. John's, Fordham and NYU all came to the facility at various times to practice. The Bubble was also the place where competitors who were going to run in the Millrose Games would come up and work out to get used to the small, banked track prior to competing at Madison Square Garden.
The demise of the facility came during the oil crisis when there were long lines to gas stations because of the "oil shortage" and predicted end of oil. Columbia was caught in that as the Bubble used lots of heating oil to blow the air that kept the Bubble up and also to keep it a little warmer then outside. The cost of that heating oil went skyward during the oil crisis and Columbia decided to cut costs by reducing the budgets of all departments. A 10% cut was mandated and the Athletic Department had no trouble meeting that directive, as with the Bubble down, they were saving 10% since there was no need to buy heating oil.
At least, that was my theory. Of course, now knowing that winds had taken down the Bubble two previous times, I am guessing that the rips I saw in the Bubble were not done by a Buildings and Grounds person one dark night using a large kitchen knife.
The solution to the collapse of the Bubble was simple. I suggested to the AD that the track be moved down to South Field right on campus. There was just enough room for the track to sit inside a grass area surrounded by hedges and we were entertainment for Carmen Hall, the dorm overlooking that area. -
The Book
I met Bob Glover in one of Dr. Bernard Gutin's Exercise Physiology classes. I didn't know much about him, but he let me know pretty quickly. I had been interested in writing a book on training, as I had written a few articles for Scholastic Magazine and Track and Field Technique and they seemed to be well received. I also had done a number of clinics for distance running camps, beginning with Ed Mather's Eastern XC running camp in the fall of 1968.
Unbeknown to me, Bob had written "The Beginning Runner's Handbook", so when I offered my idea of writing a book for competitive adult runners, he was already there.
We spent 6 months during the spring and summer of 1980 writing the book, Bob in a little apartment in New York City and me in Teaneck, NJ, typing away on a small portable typewriter I borrowed from my parents.
Bob wrote many of the anecdotal stories and the 10k and marathon training chapters, while I wrote much of the technique sections, along with training up through the 5k. I also did all of the training charts found in the back of each chapter. Bob did all the organizing of chapters and had the Penguin people interested in another book.
It took almost another 2 years before the book was finally published by Penguin as editing, proof reading and printing took quite some time.
In the end, the book "The Competitive Runner's Handbook" and the revised edition, "The New Competitive Runner's Handbook" sold over 200,000 copies (according to Wikipedia-funny, but I thought I bought more than that…ha, ha) and helped many adults who had never run in high school or college get some professional coaching advice. -
The Mile-A-Thon
Fund raising for the track and field team during the the late-70's at Columbia was difficult. The alumni numbers had been small since the mid-50's, with teams in the 60's and early 70's having maybe 20 to 25 members per season. Columbia had some outstanding individuals that were national and international calibre, but only a few teams were strong from top to bottom. The teams of 1937 and 1938, led by Ben Johnson come to mind, along with the 1952 team lead by Al Thompson.
Asking alumni for money to help support the team wasn't something I enjoyed doing. Other Ivy teams had massive donations coming in from alumni, but their team history was far more successful, overall.
I came up with the idea of running a 24 hour mile-a-thon in early January of 1978. The Bubble had been down and our 11 lap to the mile track was situated on South Field, in view of most of the school. This was the first time a track had been on campus since the late 30's, when Ben Johnson was equal to Olympian Jesse Owens. Johnson had set a world indoor best of 6.0 seconds for the 60 yard dash at the Millrose Games (which was not accepted, as AAU Officials believed no one could run that fast) and then won the outdoor NCAA 220 yd championship in 21.3, equaling what Owens was able to accomplish during his NCAA career.
The idea was to have our track athletes go around campus and ask for $.01 donation for every mile the team could run in 24 hours. Each athlete would run one mile and then hand off the baton to the next runner, thus keeping a continuous running of miles for the entire time.
To make certain that we had enough runners to keep the mile-a-thon going, I created special t-shirts that I would give out to any non-Columbia runner who could break 5:30 for the mile, if male and 7:00 min, if female. We even were able to entice President McGill of Columbia and his Barnard counterpart, President Mattfield to join in. Head football coach Bill Campbell and his wife, Roberta, Dean of Residence Halls were also participants.
After 24 hours, the count was at 246 miles, good enough to raise almost $5000 for the team. We did get lucky that no snow fell during that time period. However, from the photos you can see that it was cold out and there was snow off the track that was shoveled by the head coach (me) just prior to the beginning of the "Mile-a-thon". We did not do another one until 1981 and that time we went inside to the old Gym and ran around the 10 laps to the mile oval. There the group was able to run 289 miles for the 24 hour period.
Untold at the time was that I stayed up the entire 24 hours to organize groups of runners, count and do everything needed to keep the mile-a-thon going. I had parked my 1972 Dodge Dart up on Riverside Drive as that was one place where there was no alternate side of the street parking.
Parking was a bummer around Columbia, as not only were there few spaces, but every day one had to move their cars between 11am and 1pm for street cleaning. I had run up a number of parking tickets, because I would forget to move my car. I thought having NJ plates meant there was no reciprocity.
After 24 hours of our event, I head for my car looking forward to getting some sleep, only to not find it anywhere along Riverside Drive. I thought maybe I had forgotten where I had parked it, but calling the police to report it stolen led me to the dismal fact that they had towed my car for failure to pay parking tickets.
It cost me $1200 to get my dear Dodge Dart out of the infamous "Boot" , and out of lockup in the Bronx someplace and back on the road. The original tickets were actually only about $400, so the city took quite an extra bite out of my crime. -
The Naked Truth in the Palisades
When one thinks of running in New York City, the first image that comes to mind is dodging cars down Broadway. Well, our Columbia team of distance runners did that on occasion, especially on Sunday mornings we the team and I would run down to Battery Park and back. It was a good long run, almost 18 miles. Another great run was going up across the GW Bridge and running along the Palisades, north of Fort Lee. There are three levels, two of them paved roadways and the final one up at the top consisting of a dirt path. It was a 5 mile run up to the path and then you could go another 6 or so miles to Alpine Lookout, making the run another one of those long, beautiful Sunday runs.
One sunny September 1979 day my female running partner and I did the Palisades run. We went along the top dirt path, going at "conversational pace" enjoying the talking and nice weather. All of a sudden, coming directly at us was a guy with no clothes on, holding his shorts and t-shirt over his privates. As he shoots by us, he says, "Hi, Coach" and disappears behind us, down the path. My partner, in total surprise, asks if I knew that guy. "Yes", I replied. He is one of my top distance runners.
Unknown to me, streaking had become an in thing for our distance team on some of their runs. I had no idea this was going on and I never spoke to our streaker, figuring I just didn't want to know any more about what he was doing. I learned of these streaking runs many years later when another one of my former top runners admitted that more than one of them at done the Palisades Streak. -
The Savage Mile
The year was 1974 and Manhattan College had been huge in the world of college track and field. Coming off winning the 1973 indoor NCAA Championships, the 1974 team was almost as good, if not better in some events.
Joe Savage was part of that team. He came to Manhattan from Roselle Catholic where he was coached by Frank Gagliano, who had moved up to become an assistant coach at Manhattan under Fred Dwyer. Gags and I were good friends. In fact, I worked for him for a while as he had another job besides coaching.
Des Foynes was a junior in 1974 and I had started moving him up from the 880 yd run to the mile, as I saw potential there. Des was in agreement and we slowly started to add a bit more distance work and longer repetitions on the track.
Manhattan used our Baker Field indoor and outdoor track for practice, so we saw coaches and athletes from both teams all year long. The METS (a local NY region conference) was coming up and Gags came to me early the week of the meet, which was to be run at Rutgers. He had seen the development of Foynes and asked if he was going to run in the mile. I told him Foynes was planning on being in the mile.
Gags then suggested we set up a race scenario where Foynes (who liked to lead) would lead through 3 laps, with Savage right behind him and then every man for himself on the last lap. I told Gags I would have to see how Foynes felt about that and did not agree on any arrangement.
I spoke to Des about Gag's suggested race plan and Foynes wanted no part in this arrangement. I left it at that, as no further conversations took place.
The mile is always an exciting event and Savage had been one of the best in the east. Joe was hoping to use the Mets and the fast Rutgers track to break 4:00 minutes. Foynes was just learning to run the distance, having negotiated a 4:05 leg at Penn Relays a few weeks earlier.
The race was really only between Savage and Foynes, as both went out quickly to the front of the pack. Foynes usually took over leading from the front, but Savage made a strong move and took the early lead. This positioning between the two runners remained the same until the homestretch. Savage started to falter just a bit and Foynes took advantage, moving and passing Joe with less than 50 yds to go. Foynes won the race, recording a personal best of 4:01.7. Savage was a few steps behind in second place.
At the completion of the race, Gags came running across the track up towards me in the stands. He was screaming that I had betrayed him and that Foynes had "used" Savage to win the race. Gags was so livid, a Manhattan Priest who was at the meet had to come over and walk him away from me and try and calm Gags down.
Joe Savage saw the encounter and came over to me apologizing for Gag's outburst. Joe went on to say that it was his idea to take the lead and control the race, trying to take the sting out of Foynes, as he knew Foynes was a strong contender and liked to run from the front.
Foynes would go on to place third at the 1975 Indoor NCAA Championships in Detroit, MI when he ran 2:07.5 for 1000 yds. -
My First Garden • Griggs Ave, Teaneck, NJ
The first garden of my own was started in 1981 in Teaneck, NJ, I bought my first home in 1977 for $52,000. It was a beautiful old Victorian with chestnut trim built in 1924. There were three large trees in the backyard so having a garden back there was not practical or worth the effort, as the yard was in shade most of the day.
I decided to plant vegetables in the front yard, getting leaf compost from a nearby town that did a great job in turning over the leaves every few weeks to enable the leaves to heat up and become compost. The town then allowed people to come and pick up the resulting compost for free. We took large garbage bags and filled each up, placed them in the car and after filling up about 12 bags, off we drove to Teaneck to fill up the turned over front yard.
Food production was quite good, as we had all sorts of vegetables and sharing with the next door neighbors was a must.
We often had grandparents walking past the garden with their grandkids, pointing out vegetables, but naming them incorrectly. Often times our beans were called peas or lettuce was called celery.
The entire property was only 60x120, so that little plot in the front may have been 20x20. But it was our garden and I loved picking vegetables all summer long
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Columbia All-Americans
