Tim

Tim Richardson was a local television news star.  At least that's the way I thought of him as a teenager growing up in Lawrence, Kansas watching Kansas City television.  Tim worked at KMBC.  He was a consumer reporter who helped people.  The charisma just oozed off the screen. 

So I was awestruck when I first met Tim.  I was working at KMBC as an intern in the spring of 1978.  By this time Tim had left television news and if my memory serves me correctly he was working for the city of Kansas City, Kansas at the time. 

I didn't have strong feelings about many of the on-air people at the start my career.  Tim was out of the business but he had left his mark on this impressionable young journalist.  I felt the same way about Charles Gray, who had migrated to radio by the time I started at Channel 9.  And I eventually felt that way about his replacement at KMBC, the larger than life Larry Moore.

I learned tonight that Tim Richardson had died.  The news left me crushed.  I don't know why.  Losing people who had an impact on your life is part of living life.  But Tim left a deep impression on me.

It's probably because I got to know Tim when he returned to television at WDAF TV.  I soon found out that Tim like most heroes, had his weaknesses.  But he was a special man, with incredible ties to the community at large.

I always felt that Tim was looking out for me.  He would even fetch me a meal from Gates BBQ and makes sure my beef sandwich was lean.  I think we had a bond because I gave him respect that few of the other producers at the station gave him.

Tim could be slippery and could be prone to not pushing to do his best work.  That angered the other producers.  I was tolerant of his unusual work habits because I knew that when I needed him, when it was important, Tim Richardson would come through for me.  He would get the story.

Tim was a dapper, hip man of the town. One day I came to work one day in a pink dress shirt.  He quizzed me about whether wearing pink would in some way mask my masculinity.  I assured him that it didn't and it wasn't before too long that Tim had purchased a pink dress shirt.

I remember when Tim had learned that Kansas City Chiefs great Buck Buchanan was dying from lung cancer.  Tim and talked about whether we should break the news.  Tim spoke with the Buchanan family who pleaded with us to wait, that when the time was right they would give us the scoop.  Tim trusted me with the information knowing I wouldn't share it until the time was right.

It wasn't a month or so later that the Kansas City Star broke the Buchanan news and we were beaten out of a big story.  Tim showed me something in that moment.  He wasn't angry.  It was just part of the job and that you just had to push forward and do the best with the hand you were dealt.

Tim wasn't the best reporter I worked with and he certainly had his faults.  But I always enjoyed working with him.  I savored his company whether it was a beer after work or a quick lunch together at Gates.  I wish I could be with him one last time for a beef and a half with fries.

 

Jacksonville

A big weekend lies ahead for a handful of outstanding track and field athletes from Lee County.  At least a half a dozen runners and throwers stand a chance of claiming gold at the Florida State High School Track and Field Championships in Jacksonville.  The two day event starts Friday at Hodges Stadium on the campus of the University of North Florida.

We’ll start with the throwers and Fort Myers High standout Jacob Lemmon.  The senior discus thrower leads the nation with the best ever toss in Florida high school history of 209 feet six inches.  Lemmon could also score points in the shot put.  SFCA’s Rebekah Bergquist is a standout discus thrower as well.  She sits just outside the national top ten in the discus and Bergquist should score points for the Kings in the shot put as well.

Dunbar has the market cornered on sprinters.  A healthy Seneca Milledge could end his storied career for the Tigers with a Class 2A 100 meter title.  And if Milledge is on Dunbar’s 4x100 team, the result could be double gold.  Dunbar has a pair of girls who could make the podium as well in the sprints. Junior Teera Stewart shines in the 100 and 200 and hurdling sensation Lucheyona Weaver is coming into her own as a sophomore.

A pair of gold medals would make up for a rough and tumble season for the greatest middle distance runner in Southwest Florida history.  Estero senior Hugh Brittenham overcame health issues to put himself in a position to capture both the 800 and 1,600 meter titles.  Brittenham is the defending 3A state champion in the 800.  Assuming he’s healthy, the Florida bound star stands an excellent chance of winning the 800 and adding the 1,600 crown, a race he finished second in last year.

ECS 400 meter standout Moriah Oliveira should defend her Class 1A 400 meter crown.  With the help of her twin sister Sierra, ECS could also claim the 4x800 and 4x400 relay titles this weekend.  A team podium finish could result if Sierra can duplicate her 2015 victory at 800 meters.

And that takes us to the Friday morning Lee County showdown that will highlight the meet, Sierra Oliveira vs. Cantebury’s Jessica Edwards over 800 meters.  This duo went one-two at last year’s state meet with Edwards taking her first state gold.  Edwards has dominated the meetings at 800 meters so far this year.  With good weather and great competition Lee County could see its second high school girl under 2:10 for that distance, the question is will it be Edwards, Oliveira or perhaps both?

On Saturday Edwards will try to add a 1,600 meter crown after her 4x800 duties.  Last year as a ninth grader Edwards took second.  This year besides the 1,600 title, Edwards will hope to join the exclusive list of Lee County girls who have broken five minutes over that distance. 

Regardless of the times, Lee County athletes stand ready to make an impressive haul of gold medals this weekend in Jacksonville.

My Marathon Journeys: Long Beach 1988

Running and racing is a learning experience.  I was a decent runner.  Running a sub-3 hour marathon is certainly something every serious runner aspires to as well as running a BQ, a Boston qualifying marathon.  I didn't care about running Boston.  I had an itch that I needed to scratch and that was a 2:45 marathon, something I had missed out on at Grandma's the year before.

Moving to Phoenix was a blessing and a curse.  I had found a great long run group that operated out of Scottsdale.  My long runs went from the 21 mile staple to 16 miles.  That was an adjustment.  I eventually would find a new coach, Fred Moore, who would teach me one of the most valuable run lessons of my life.  But it would take nearly a year for his advice to sink in.

My training was really back to indifferent.  My racing was stagnant.  I couldn't hold a decent pace for a 10K.  It was a mysterious frustration because my conditioning told me something  different.  Plus my job was stressful, the promised promotion never materialized.

For reasons that remain a mystery to me these three decades later I skipped all of the mid-winter marathons in the Phoenix area and decided I needed the extra months to run an early May marathon in Long Beach, California.

I remember one lead up race in particular.  It was called the Mad Dog 50.  It was in April in Scottsdale which means warm weather is certainly in the cards.  You had a choice of 50K or 50 miles.  I was no dummy.  A 50K run three weeks out from my race sounded perfect.

I planned to run 7:30 pace until 20 miles and then push to the marathon and then hold on for the last five miles.  The course was a 5K loop through a park little that would qualify as a hilly.  As I recall there weren't more than 50 runners for this insane exercise.

It all went as planned.  Sometime after 15 miles I started picking off runners here and there.  I pushed for about five miles after 20 and could barely run seven minute pace.  My log shows that I went through 25K in 1:57:05.  I was gassed by 27 miles.  In the end I finished third overall and ran 3:56.  For what it was worth, which isn't much, it was the 100th fastest 50K in the United States in 1988.

The race told me I was as fit as I needed to be to run 2:45.  I knew that if I was lucky I could break 2:50.  I wasn't lucky.  The weather was hot on Sunday May 1.  The course offered no shade.  It would turn into a death march.

The first ten miles were right where I wanted to be.  I hit 10 miles in 63:05, which is about 2:45 pace.  I hit 20 in 2:07:45 which kept me in the ball park for a 2:47 but the wheels were coming off.  It took 31:55 to run from mile 15 to mile 20.  Mile 20 to mile 25 took 35:18.  That's 7:04 pace.  The heat took it's toll and I ran 2:51:55.

I was happy in the sense that I had run a decent time in the heat.  But the wheels in my life were about to come off.  A little more than a month later one of my close former work colleagues, Sue Parcell would be dead at age 31.  We had been college classmates, co-workers for seven years and really good friends.  It was a gut punch.  I barely ran the rest of the summer.

The final blow came with the death one of my closest running friends, Jon Blubaugh.  Jon was one of the joys of my running life.  I had met him in the fall of 1974 when I had been kicked off the K.U. cross country team and he was just a 9th grader full of potential.  I lived my running dreams through him all through my time in college.  He became a state champion but injuries cut short his promising career.

He was only 28 years old and his death only helped push my personal life deeper into to the shitter.  I didn't care about anything.  I was heading to age 33 and I just didn't see much to get excited about in my life.  My personal funk wouldn't snap until the beginning of 1989.  It came in the form of a wake up call that would force me to re-examine my personal lifestyle and send me a glimmer of hope that I might, just might be able to break 2:40 in the marathon.

10K

Sometimes you just gotta race, no matter what kind of shape you're in.  So it was without much resistance from me the Czarina entered me into Saturday's Run for Music 10K in Naples.  This would be my first race since last year's half marathon in Riga, Latvia where I ran 2:04:33, my slowest half by about ten minutes.

I realized heading into the weekend that this would be my first race in Southwest Florida in three years.  I hadn't run a race on home turf since a 5K in the spring of 2016.  That same spring I had clocked a 52:36 10K at the aforementioned Run for Music.  Again, it was my slowest 10K ever.

This time I was under no delusions about what would happen.  I had knee surgery for a meniscus tear at the end of November.  I hadn't gotten my mileage above the 20 mile per week mark until March.  I had gained weight and my runs were plodding at best.  I was going into this race hoping I could keep my pace under 10 minutes per mile.

The race itself is a really good one.  The course is fairly shaded and a pancake flat out and back.  Musicians play at a few spots along the course which makes for some pleasant distractions.

I got through the race without completely blowing up or embarrassing myself.  I loped along at just under 9:30 pace for the first four miles.  I felt pretty good even through mile five which I hit in 9:35.  The last mile was a grind as I barely finished it under 10 minutes.  I hit the finish line 58:33, not great but not as bad as I feared.

I learned one thing from all of this.  I need to race more and incorporate a tempo run into my training regiment.  The mileage will come and I will lose the extra weight.  But unfortunately, nobody beats father time.

The Shocker

Once upon a time... the early 1970's to be specific... Western Kansas produced a string of distance runners that could take it to the big boys in Wichita and the Kansas City area.  There was Chris Perez of Lakin, Keith Palmer from Lucas and Bob Christensen from Hugoton.  Today I found out that Bob Christensen was killed while riding a bike on a highway near Medicine Lodge where he practiced law.

I am not going to claim that I knew Bob.  I met him once and spoke to him briefly just minutes after he surprised himself and everybody at the Kansas Relays by winning the boy's mile.  I remember an extremely humble, nice and surprised runner.  The following day Bob would follow up his win by setting a record in winning the boy's one mile steeplechase in 4:37.9.

Bob went on to run at Wichita State University with a mix of outstanding distance runners that included Randy Smith, a national champion in the steeple and Steve Shaad, one of the toughest competitors I ever had the privilege to race against.  Christensen ran 8:32.4 in the steeplechase back in 1976.  That time even today would put him in the mix as one of the top collegians.

Western Kansas had a history of producing great distance runners.  Glenn Cunningham grew up in Elkhart, set world records in the mile and won an Olympic silver medal at 1,500 meters.  Wes Santee grew up in Ashland and was an Olympian and an American record holder in the mile.  Both went to the University of Kansas.

The last great string of Western Kansas distance runners started with Chris Perez from Lakin.  He burst upon the scene running 4:14.4 in the boy's mile and 9:19.6 in the boy's two mile at the Kansas Relays in 1971.  The only problem was that the aforementioned Randy Smith beat him in both races. 

The following year Perez was the favorite to win the boy's mile at the Relays only have Keith Palmer spoil the show with a surprising win.  Both Perez and Palmer would end up at Kansas State.  Palmer would join a handful of Kansans to break four minutes in the mile while competing as a Wildcat.

1973 would be Bob Christensen's year to take two wins at the Relays.  He then went to Wichita State where he was a top flight distance runner for the Shockers.   Christensen finished his education with a  law degree from Washburn in Topeka.

I share this because Bob should be remembered along with a slew of tough distance runners that hailed from west of Wichita and Salina.  Runners like Ted Settle of Kingman, Pete Orozco of Phillipsburg, Scott Tichenor of Paradise and Steve Hermann from LaCrosse.  These runners competed against and often beat the best that Kansas had to offer. 

10 Losses

The grousing, the complaining, the doubts about the future of Bill Self at the University of Kansas, is nearly laughable.  Self just finished his best coaching job in his 15th season at Kansas.  Five months ago I pegged this squad as a possible Final 4 team, a can't miss Sweet 16 squad.  The fact that this team won 26 games is remarkable.

In my estimation, Self only made one mistake with this squad.  He should have never allowed LeGerald Vick to return for his senior year.  Despite his undeniable gifts, it is clear that Vick was a team pariah.  His exit from the squad with a month left in the season was a punctuation mark to one of the oddest careers in Jayhawk history.

What should have been was a Jayhawk team with the most greatest front lines in school history.  Doke Azubuike is the most dominating offensive center in NCAA basketball.  Silvio DeSouza would have been an incredible third wheel in a knock out rotation that includes one of the best three interior players at Kansas in the last 25 years, Dedrick Lawson.

Doke broke his wrist and the NCAA made a nonsensical decision to ban DeSouza for two years because of money his guardian took from an Adidas money man.  When you look at those two losses and the growth of David McCormack over the last month of the season, Kansas would have deployed an unstoppable interior game.

Vick's presence meant a redshirt of Ochai Agbaji who may be the most gifted athlete at Kansas since Andrew Wiggins.  Agbaji got to play after Azubuike's injury and showed that he could bring it on both ends of the floor.  He could be a lottery pick next year.

The biggest surprise on this year's team was Devon Dotson.  He is the best freshman point guard in school history, period.  The only player that can possibly be mentioned in the same sentence as Dotson is Darnell Valentine.  Defensively Valentine was a much better player but as a floor leader and offense threat Dotson was a much, much better player.

The biggest disappointment was Quinton Grimes.  I think he actually played very well for a freshman.  His standout opening game against Michigan State put Grimes in a position of never being able to live up to what fans expected.  What I saw was a better than average defender who is going to be a next level player if he sticks around for more seasoning.

Marcus Garrett proved to be a lock down defender when healthy.  Mitch Lightfoot was an underrated and under appreciated spark plug to the Jayhawks's front court woes  K.J. Lawson contributed energy at times when you would least expected.  David McCormack is going to be a load next season.  Charlie Moore is a waste of a scholarship.
 
Bill Self got an incredible defensive effort out of this squad that lacked a dominating interior force.  Yes, you saw moments of stupidity on the defensive end from the freshmen but for God's sake, they were freshmen.  The same held true for the offense.  But when they were on, they were as good as any team in the country.  That's right, any team in the country.  But with four starting freshman, you never know what you're going to get.

Self won't abandoned Kansas for the Bulls.  He saw what Chicago did to Fred Hoiberg.  San Antonio would be a different story but I don't think Greg Popovich is ready to leave his coaching seat.  But all bets are off if the Adidas debacle reaches deep within the program.  Self will be gone and the Jayhawks will be hiring Mark Turgeon in quick order.

If DeSouza isn't ready for the NBA.  If he can get his punishment slashed, Kansas will be a top five team next season and yes that's without Dedrick Lawson.  The future is bright.  Jayhawk nation should be celebrating a remarkable year. 

My Marathon Journeys: East Valley 1989

Racing smart, racing to your best, requires something that I have little of, patience.  I would go through periods of good training and run races far slower than my conditioning indicated.  This was an ongoing problem since I had moved to Phoenix.

I was working with a well regarded coach, Fred Moore.  Over the course of 1988 Fred kept telling me, read The Tao of Pooh.  I shrugged it off.  I didn't see how a book about Winnie the Pooh was going to help me with anything.

I can't recall the exact moment when the light bulb went off and I have searched my logs to find the workout that I connect with all of it but I remember a phone call that happened shortly after.  I did repeat miles with Coach Moore and his group.  Brent Steiner, a Kansas All-American, who had moved to the Phoenix area shortly after I did was at the workout.  It was strange because Brent had never been at one of our workouts.

I tried something different during the workout.  I listened to Fred and instead of trying to crush each of the four repeat miles I ran them under control.  I called Tom Dowling after the workout and discussed with him my frustration with my running.  Dowling told me to listen to Moore and read the damn book.

I did and some interesting things began to happen.  First, the irrepressible Craig Davidson talked me into running an 8K race the same morning as our 16 mile long run.  I went to the Scottsdale race in mid-December 1988 nice and relaxed.  I ended up running an evenly paced race and a big PR.

My next race was a 10K three weeks later and took the words of wisdom from Poo to heart.  The Tao of Poo preaches to go with the flow.  Poo never rushes, never hurries and simply lets the world envelop him.  I took it to mean that I should run under control and within myself until I find myself and then slowly ratchet up the tempo.

I did that at the Park Central 10K and ran a PR in 35:35 on very little mileage.  I remember Steiner was at this race and that he had battled a couple of Kenyans or three.  I don't think he won.  I know I wasn't even close to an age group award.

Now for some reason, short on mileage and good conditioning, I had agreed to pace a guy from our Saturday morning group to a sub-three hour marathon.  So Gary Sprague and I toed the line at the East Valley Marathon Saturday January 14.

It was a crisp winter morning when we set out from Tempe on a pancake flat course that would take us to Mesa.  Gary and I hit the half marathon in 1:29:05 and everything seemed great.  Gary was sailing along and I didn't see why sub-3 should even be an issue.

Things started getting shaky after mile 20.  We were averaging 6:52 pace leaving very little room for error.  Gary stopped shortly after 20 and started to walk.  I walked with him encouraging him not to give up.

We started running again and went another mile before Gary, clearly out of gas, stopped and started walking again after 21.  I stopped again and was mildly upset because I felt full of run and couldn't understand what was happening to Gary.  He wasn't built for marathons and was doing his level best but unfortunately I was short on sympathy.  Gary had trained hard but he had hit the wall.  Gary told me to go on and I reluctantly decided to leave him because sub-3 was out of the question for him.

I started cruising along at 6:45 pace and was quickly back under sub-3 hour marathon pace.  I was flying by runner after runner struggling to the finish.  I hit the finish in 2:58:54 feeling as fresh as a daisy.  Poor Gary said that he walked to mile 22, felt fine and finished in 3:05.  I don't think he ever broke three hours.

One month later I would run my 10K PR of 34:49.  While my training frame of mind and racing tactics were headed in the right direction my life was a hot mess.  I hated my job and the events of the previous year were nagging at me.  After my 10K PR my training lagged and the mileage began to shrink.  The next six months were among the worst for me personally that I have ever experienced.  I wouldn't start running seriously again until late August.