Netters:
The
unsual doubles beind posted for some athletes just indicates how much talent
there is out there which never gets to our sport. The posts which I have
received on Marla Runyan---and I thank all who sent info---also point to this
as, without her vision problems, she may have stuck to soccer and become another
Mia Hamm.
We
have had a number of cases like that here in NJ, with the transfers coming
mostly from soccer (usually because the athletes got a chance to run either CC
or indoor/outdoor track and had more success there) or gymnastics (also because
of success, but occasionally because of injury). Our best ever girl miler
started off as a gymnast but had trouble with her hands breaking out with
blisters and switched over (Michelle Rowen). And a tragic case was a girl who
lost her arm as a esut of a gymn accident, but became a very successful (if on a
smaller scale) Hs and college runner.
Track
and field simply has to accept that, in the current climate (and in the past as
well), we never get to see a lot of the talent out there.
Our
best stories of transfer are of a HS baseball player at Fair Lawn who ran only
one race in HS and another at South Side HS, Newark, who ran perhaps three or
four. The first was talked into running at the Englewood Memorial meet when NJ
athletes could still compete in two strenuous sports in the same season. He went
on to set a WR in the straightaway 220 and take a silver medal at Rome (losing a
relay gold to a d/q). His name was dave Sime. The second, who always imagiuned
himself as another Willie Mays, bunted and legged his way to a .500 batting
average, running only indoors in the years when we had no state indoor meet. But
he became part of a WR SHR team in college, barely missed making two Olympic
teams, one in the HH, the other in the IH, and is now coaching successfully in
college. His name is Russ Rogers.
Ed Grant
PS:
And then, of course, Marty
Liquori (and Tommy Farrell as well) went to HS imagining themselves as
basketball players.
|
- Re: t-and-f: Odd doubles Ed Grant
- Re: t-and-f: Odd doubles JimRTimes
- Re: t-and-f: Odd doubles A.J. Craddock
- Re: t-and-f: Odd doubles JimRTimes