Jack Leydig: RUNNING VISIONARY

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Jack Leydig: RUNNING VISIONARY

By Mark Winitz

Pete League

In the late 1960s, when revolution riveted an entire generation, Jack Leydig and a handful of other pioneers started a revolution of their own: the Running Revolution. Its social impact was, perhaps, as significant as the vital movements for peace, human equality, and women’s rights during that turbulent era. Today, road running has grown to an estimated 36 million runners and 15,500 road races in the U.S. alone.* In his prime, Jack was a running visionary

whose “Jack of All Trades” service in the sport rubbed off on thousands well before mega races became commonplace. Frank Shorter’s inspiring gold medal at the 1972 Olympic Games marathon in Munich was merely the poster child for a trend that Jack and a handful of others fueled in the streets of everyday America.

If you’re a dedicated runner, and particularly if you live in California, Jack’s name should be as familiar as John F. Kennedy’s, Martin Luther

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King’s, or Gloria Steinem’s. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

So let’s try to set that right.

Today, my 65-year-old friend and mentor is fighting a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that has spread to his brain. As I write this, Jack is looking forward to resuming his running after many rounds of radiation and chemotherapy.

Through his challenges, Leydig has managed to maintain his wry sense of humor. * Stats courtesy of the Running USA Road Running Information Center

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Wayne Glusker/Special Moments

Leydig (this page, on left) being honored for his service to the running community by Bill Clark at the WVTC Old Timers Reunion on Sept. 12, 2009.

Opposite page: Jack (wearing the hat and neckerchief) on the starting line.

In 1998, I wrote a story about Leydig for The Runner’s Schedule magazine entitled “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” That was almost ten years before Jack was diagnosed with cancer. Two of Jack’s running contemporaries (Gary Goettelmann and Bill Clark) suggested that it was time to update that story.

After all, 2009 marks 40 years since the fortunate day when Leydig became president of the West Valley Track Club.

I first met Jack in the mid-70s during my stint at Runner’s World magazine. By then, he was entrenched in numerous aspects of Northern California running, as an event director, publisher, club president, and running shoe salesman. However, in my mind two landmark occurrences for our sport in America happened before that.

In 1970, Bob Anderson moved his pioneering publication, Distance Running News, from Kansas to a small office in Los Altos, re-named it Runner’s World, and hired his first employee, Joe Henderson.

In 1968, Jack Leydig finished his studies at Southern Illinois University, where he’d run a 4:16 mile best and a 9:30 steeplechase. But Jack’s collegiate running career isn’t the defining event. That came after Jack returned from college to his San Mateo roots. He ran a then-popular 8-mile race in Tiburon and vowed to join whichever club came out on top. That club was the West Valley Track Club—a club that framed Jack’s leadership in the sport for more than a decade, and his running affiliation that stands today.

Not that there were many clubs to choose from back then. But the inter-club competition between WVTC and the Marin Athletic Club, San Francisco Olympic Club, Excelsior, and one or two others was fierce. Then there was Walt Stack’s Dolphin South End Runners—a mostly recreational club—and the masters-oriented NorCal Seniors.

Exactly what did Leydig do? Where do I start? I’ll touch a few highlights, and then leave the rest to his friends.

He became WVTC’s president in 1969 and soon after began organizing and directing races for the club. In those pre-commercial days of running—when $3 to $5 entry fees were the norm— most races were put on by clubs as club fundraisers.

Jack’s 5-loop West Valley Marathon in San Mateo was a staple through the 1970s, hosting a couple of AAU (precursor to TAC and USATF) national marathon championships, and attracting some of the finest runners in the country. In 1972, a rising star just out of Stanford University named Don Kardong won the West Valley Marathon in 2:18:06, qualifying for his first Olympic Trials.

Leydig also organized excellent cross country events at the Crystal Springs course in Belmont.

One of them served as the national championship in 1974. The starting gun was fired

by New Zealand’s Olympic gold medalist, Peter Snell. The race, won by Kenyan John Ngeno, attracted a superbly deep field that included Frank Shorter, Neil Cusack, Domingo Tibaduiza, Gary Tuttle, Marty Liquori, Barry Brown, Kardong, and others.

Leydig founded the Christmas Relays in 1973—a popular race that is the ancestor of today’s road relays. In its early years, seven-person relay teams competed over a 50-mile course that ran on Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz (and sometimes the other direction). The event became so popular (growing to 1,700 runners) that Jack had to move the race from the jammed highway to a loop around San Francisco’s Lake Merced where it still runs today.

Jack started the WVTC Newsletter in November 1969—one of the few sources of regional running information around. At the suggestion of Paul Reese, Leydig re-named that publication NorCal Running Review in 1971, and went statewide and nationwide. Jack served as chief cook and bottle washer for that painstakingly typewritten and produced magazine—rich in results, which eventually swelled to almost 70 pages with a full-color cover. After 10 years of dedicated effort—all a labor of love—he handed the magazine over to Fresno’s Bill Cockerham, who merged it into his almost-as-early-conceived California Track News (the older sibling of today’s CTRN). Jack also published, in 1970, the first Northern California Distance Running Annual for the Pacific Association/AAU, whose LDR membership was growing (almost 2,000 at that time).

In the mid 1970s, Jack established one of the earliest racing circuits for “points” right here in Northern California. Call it a forerunner of the breakthrough ARRA professional running circuit started by Don Kardong in 1981 and today’s Pacific Association/USATF Grand Prix running circuits.

In 1976, Jack married his close companion for the next 20 years, Judy Gumbs-Leydig, a talented athlete with whom he had a daughter and son (Erika, 28, and Chris, 24). Judy and other female runners such as Penny DeMoss, Joan Ullyot, Frances Conley, Ruth Anderson, Judy Ikenberry, and other Californians were breaking molds in the relatively early days of women’s distance running.

In Jack’s Words Last September, CTRN caught up with Jack for a few minutes during his busy daily schedule. Here are some excerpts from that conversation.

On recruiting great athletes for the West Valley Track Club and putting together club teams: “I wasn’t really a hard recruiter. I just went up to folks and said, ‘Wanna join the club? Think about it.’ When [Alvaro] Mejia won Boston in ’71 that attracted a lot of attention for the club. Yes, I also put together club teams, but only because nobody else wanted to do it. I did everything, but for me it was fun. In the early ’70s there really wasn’t much of a competitive structure once you were out of college, so a lot of college coaches like Marshall Clark and Payton Jordan [at Stanford] and Jim Hunt [at Humboldt State] let us run in their meets.”

On NORCAL RUNNING REVIEW: “It was total lunacy. I didn’t do it on a computer. I’d just sit down for a week and do it, typing out about 120 pages for a 60-page magazine because the type was reduced.”

On his running background and training: “I went to Hillsdale High School [San Mateo]. We had a couple of national record-breaking teams there. We had five guys under 4:30 in my senior year [1962].

I ran a 4:21. After college, for a while 80–90-mile weeks were pretty standard for me, sometimes 100. I trained with Mejia a lot. Sometimes I did double workouts. Plus, I was working. When the part of the shipyard [at Hunter’s Point] where I was working closed in ’71, I decided to take time off and train for the Marathon Trials because the qualifying time was 2:30. But when I started my own business, it was nuts. I had to make some choices and cutting back on training was one of them.”

Jack’s most gratifying accomplishment in the sport: “That’s a toughie. All of it was fun, and gave me a sense of accomplishment. It’s hard to pin-point just one. The national cross country championships in ’74 was a biggie because of the number of competitors we had there and the quality. Three hundred people on the Crystal Springs course is just nuts. Steve Prefontaine didn’t show up, but everyone else did. We tried to match Pre against Shorter, but Pre decided to stay home.”

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Leydig sold running equipment out of his 1968 VW van during the early and mid ’70s, and started Jack’s Athletic Supply in 1977—a business by which he still makes a living today producing race T-shirts. He still owns that van, which sports several refurbishings, almost a half-million miles, and “WVTC”on the license plates.

“Jack was really a key element of running at that time,” recalls Ken Napier, one of WVTC’s early members, and the club’s president before Leydig. “He just did so much. As president, I wasn’t willing to do as much as Jack. Back then, the club presidents did everything. I’d say that Jack was one of the most important figures in Northern California running in the mid 1970s as far as promoting running and racing. He was a tireless worker.”

Leydig did such a good job with WVTC that Napier soon was able to help start another—and very different—club called the West Valley Joggers and Striders.

Amidst this frenzy of activity, Leydig managed to put in some pretty good times himself. He competed in the ’68 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. A 2:25 at the Boston Marathon qualified him for the 1972 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. Jack didn’t have much time for training, but he pushed himself to the limits. Richard Delgado recalls a story about Leydig when Jack worked as a computer programmer for a firm contracted by the Navy. Jack was so committed to training—despite limited time—that he’d run loops around an aircraft carrier’s flight deck while it was out to sea.

“If everyone at that time was limited to running 35 miles a week, I think Jack would have beaten us all,” admits Bill Clark, who joined

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WVTC a year or two after placing second at Boston in 1968. “By 1972, WVTC was one of the best running clubs in the country in terms of talent. And Jack was the club. There were six or eight of us at the Olympic Trials in ’72. Guys like Don Kardong and Duncan Macdonald joined—and a lot of it was because they liked Jack.”

The long list of WVTC notables includes the standout Colombian pair of Domingo Tibaduiza and ’71 Boston winner Alvaro Mejia, Bill Scobey (winner of the Western Hemisphere and Avenue of the Giants Marathons among others), and 1974 U.S. national marathon champion Ron Wayne.

“I always admired Jack very much,” says Ruth Anderson, a longtime role model for many female runners. “He was just so knowledgeable. He put so much effort into those early-day things. He was definitely a pioneer in event management, and a heck of a good runner, too. And, of course, he was always running around in that van of his, selling shoes and shirts.”

That’s what Gail Rodd (nee Gustafson)—one of the early female running crowd—recalls best about Jack. “When we first started running we just had little Keds tennis shoes until Jack came along and sold us some real running shoes out of his van.

There were no big running stores then.”

Running footwear was limited to Tigers, Pumas, adidas, and, later, Nikes. But Jack had vital connections, which included Bob Anderson’s Starting Line Sports, one of the few retail operations for runners in the area. Anderson was also the founder and publisher of Runner’s World magazine which had corporate offices in Mountain View. In fact, RW was one of two or three pio-

neering running/track & field pubs headquartered in California at the time. One of them was a labor of love published by Leydig.

Longtime WVTC member and ’70s masters standout, Flory Rodd (Gail’s husband until his passing) once wrote: “Jack published the NorCal Running Review in the Dark Ages of running, and his was the only reliable source for Bay Area track and road running results and information. He was not only the publisher, but also the editor, reporter, and office boy. It was always deadline time at the Running Review. It was always late. Jack’s true writing forte in those days was penning ill-natured and disagreeable notes to any of his subscribers who had the temerity to demand their Running Review on time.”

That was Jack—so meticulous about his tasks that he would write pages of instructions to each of his race volunteers, according to Ellen Clark. But he was a compassionate motivator at heart who inspired others to lend a hand. Then, there was Jack leading trips to the Boston Marathon. Countless Californians—including me—learned the ins and outs of Boston from Leydig.

As one who also has devoted a few hours toward Northern California running: My hat is tipped to Jack Leydig. Run your next race in honor of him and email me about it. Recruit your buddies to do the same. I’ll pass your emails along to Jack. We owe him that kind of thanks.

ning my sophomore year in high school. I became a member of the West Valley Track Club shortly after that and thrived under Jack’s leadership. Bottom line, Jack is someone you can always depend on.” —Mike Pinocci (2:14 marathoner) •“I remember the ‘trough’ excursions to Farrell’s Ice Cream where Jack would finish a multi-gallon trough of ice cream on his own and live to tell the story. I learned organizational detail from Jack which has served me well in my co-meet director role of •“Jack had the presence of mind to ask women the Modesto-California Relays and many other cross like me to join the West Valley Track Club in the early country and track and field meets.” —Dave Shrock ’70s, at a time when not many women were running.

•“In 1978, when I invented the Chronomix timer, He called us the ‘distaff division.’ But his contributions Jack was distributing equipment through his business to running, in general, were extraordinary. He had the that helped make road racing much more accurate. I vision to see the wave of the future.” –Joan Ullyot, sold him the first digital clock which he distributed. He MD (women’s running pioneer, writer, and member of also rented state-of-the-art equipment to those who U.S. national marathon teams in the 1970s. couldn’t afford to buy it.” —Bob Rush •“Jack is just one of the good guys of the world.”

•“In 1974, Jack trotted out to keep me com—Pete League (founder of the Houston Marathon pany in the one-hour run. After about two laps, while after he moved to Texas from the Bay Area in 1971) he talked non-stop and I didn’t say a word, he asked •“When I moved to the Bay Area in 1971, Jack if I liked company while running. I said ‘no’ and he was one of the first runners to welcome me. As a disappeared.” —Kathy Himmelberger (1976 young runner just out of college, it was an important women’s winner, West Valley Marathon, 3:00:36) first step after graduation. Jack introduced me to a •“By focusing people, Jack kept us all comlot of the runners, and we all had many great runs peting. And the club picked up a lot of young runand gatherings over the two years I lived there. Who ners who were coming out of high school at the knows what would have happened if he hadn’t been time, and we sent them to national championships. there to help?” —Jon Anderson (1972 U.S. They went on to have very good running careers.

Olympian, 10,000 meters) A lot of that was Jack reaching out to people to •“I’ve known Jack for about 39 years, begin- attract them. Plus, his own running ability gave him

credibility.” —Bill Clark (runner-up 1968 Boston Marathon; WVTC women’s coach) •“Jack was the world’s greatest race organizer and salesman. I don’t know how he found the time to do all that he did. The reason I ran at all was because of Jack. When Jack put races together, they were perfect. Without him, I couldn’t have run the times I did because there was always competition.”

—Gary Goettelmann (Owner, Ryan’s Sport Shop running store, Santa Clara) •“The opportunities that we got through running with Jack made us the people we are today. And he was the glue that cemented lifelong friendships for many of us.” —Gail Goettelmann •“When I first came to this country from Colombia, I was a retired runner after I competed in the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. I met Jack and he took me to these really beautiful places to run, like the trails near San Mateo. He gave me the strength to return to running. He had all the contacts [at important races]. West Valley TC paid my fares to get to them. For that, I’m extremely grateful. He did the same for others. The [running] community owes him a lot.” —Alvaro Mejia (winner 1971 Boston Marathon as a WVTC member) •“I was always amazed at Jack’s ability to hand out jobs, like delivering cones to races, and to keep things in line. And, in 1974, under Jack’s wing, West Valley Track Club put on the [first] U.S. Women’s National Marathon Championship. Let’s face it, women were neglected up until that time.” —Wayne Glusker

Words From Others

When Leydig organized the second West Valley Track Club “Old Timers” Reunion last September (Jack used a word much more descriptive than “Timers”), the attendees turned the gathering into a day honoring Leydig and the club’s founder Frank Cunningham. We took the opportunity to obtain comments from Jack’s peers for this story. Here are some of them:

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Mark Winitz has been running and writing about running for well over 30 years. He also assists road racing events through his company Win It!z Sports Public Relations and Promotions in Los Altos.