This year's Boston Marathon marks a silver anniversary for BillRodgers, and much will be written about that 1975 breakthrough racein which the hometown hero blistered the course in 2:09.55.
But in 1978 Rodgers snapped the tape again - as an individual tobe sure - but also sporting the colors of one of New England's mostfamous running teams, the Greater Boston Track Club.
That year, under the steady hand of legendary coach Bill Squires,the GBTC placed three finishers in the top five - Rodgers, Jack Fultz(4th), and Randy Thomas (5th), not to mention Jim Donovan (20th).
This year, with the Kenyans still dominating the men's field andthe top Americans skipping Boston because of Olympic trials inPittsburgh next month, it would seem an off year for US runners.
But beyond the individuals, team competition still is very much apart of the scene as two old rivals - the GBTC and the BostonAthletic Association - continue to slug it out, with the BAAdefending the men's title won last year with the fastest threecumulative times (7:30:17) since 1995.
'We want to beat the BAA,' said GBTC member Tom Derderian in thebest spirit of the Red Sox and Yankees, or any other such melodrama.'They're just pure evil to us.'
Derderian, author of the Marathon's bible - 'Boston Marathon: TheHistory of the World's Premiere Running Event' - said the team aspectof the race maintains a tradition that goes back to the early days ofthe event.
'The teams are interesting to people in the way the Red Sox andYankees are interesting,' said Derderian, who finished 164th in the'78 race. 'The runners are different from each other - not just asindividuals - but by what team they run for.'
Derderian believes team competition aids those for whom 'runningand racing well is their serious artistic pursuit.'
And though team competition now exists at a level well below world-class times, it is true that the top clubs train together all year,meet and develop strategy together, and approach the spring classicwith an intense focus.
Which team, for instance, will be the first to knock off theGreater Lowell Road Runners, with their dominance of the male mastersdivision (eight straight wins)?
And can the BAA repeat its win in the male open class, or regainits 1998 female open title from last year's winner, Forerunners TrackClub of Florida?
And in the female masters class, can the Cambridge Sports Union,the winner two years ago, retake its title from the Atlanta TrackClub, which won last year's race with a cumulative time just twominutes off the record pace set in '94 by the Buffalo Chips?
'Club competition, with a whole group of people running and racingwell, [is] like runners of the old Boston Marathon,' said Derderian.They have full-time careers in various fields, 'and yet they manageto get in a world-class amount of training.'
On the GBTC team, he said, there's an MIT grad student, a 40-year-old math professor at Boston College, a Harvard doctor, and a WestPoint graduate studying aeronautics.
'Each of them has a different story to tell,' said Derderian,'but they have a common devotion to running, and that's a traditionthat hasn't changed.'
He remembers the salad days of team racing, when Alberto Salazarwas 'a geeky kid' hanging around luminaries such as Rodgers, RandyThomas, and Bob Hodge, who called Salazar 'the rookie' but let himtry to keep up in training runs as Squires had them toil again andagain through the Newton Hills. To Derderian, the GBTC was a model ofhow teams developed talent.
'Alberto was so young he'd come out on training runs with theolder guys. He'd try and try to keep up with them, and then he wasable to keep up with them.'
Salazar came back from the University of Oregon in 1982 to set aBoston record of 2:08:52 in a slugfest with Dick Beardsley (2:08:54)in one of the closest (and possibly most painful) Marathons ever.After finishing six strides apart, both needed medical treatment andnow point to that race as the zenith of their careers and also thebeginning of their physical decline
The GBTC in those days was a model for runner development, saidDerderian, before the big contracts with shoe companies began tobreak up the old powerhouse teams where 'top runners came aboutslowly, gradually through training sessions. A runner had someonefaster in front of him to catch, and someone slower behind trying tocatch him. Everybody got faster. That's what team running is about.'
Squires, who honed the first GBTC squad more than 25 years ago bypushing runners up and down hills, agrees. Before the great runningboom of the '80s, he says, there were only a few track clubs and thecompetition was fierce.
'In the Boston area you had the BAA, the North Medford Club,Springfield had a track club, New York AC - maybe 10 clubs along theEastern Seaboard. They were pretty regional, but I had been coachingat Boston State when I was asked to coach this new club.'
Almost immediately the GBTC began winning prestige events that hadthe established clubs asking, said Squires, 'Who the hell is theGreater Boston Track Club?'
The way the GBTC came together under Squires was simple. 'All mydistance runners had to run track,' he said. 'They were all kids onthe MBTA line who all lived within about 8 miles of each other. Butwe all ran track - Randy Thomas was a Nationals 5K winner, and he andBobby Hodge ran the 10,000 meters on the track and did very, verywell. Rodgers finished fourth in the Olympic Trials 10,000 meters onthe track.
'So all the speed guys learned endurance and the long-distanceguys learned speed. And we went along for a few years doing all rightwith no sponsors. We had to run raffles and put on the Freedom TrailRace. That worked for us.'
In 1975 as the GBTC broke into the Marathon, Rodgers got the inkfor winning, but, said Squires, 'I had four or five guys who finishedin the top 30.
'From '75 to '83,' said Squires, 'we were at the top. We rankedthree years as the best club in the world.'
Few believe that even the fiercest club competition can bring backsuch a golden era, yet the clubs thrive.
'We'll field teams in all four divisions,' said BAA coach MikePieroni. 'We start planning for the next Marathon on the day afterthe one we just ran. Training for a marathon is an individualpursuit, but the training goes easier and the friendships are kindledin a club atmosphere.
'Several groups will train with long runs along the course - theClubhouse Run - through the Newton Hills,' Pieroni said. 'We like thestructure and plan to maximize the athletes' time and ability. That'sa benefit of group running.'
With such tremendous incentives for individuals to win the big-money marathons, the clubs still compete as they did before the ageof prize money and shoe company contracts, for few tangible rewards.
'Will we ever have runners from these clubs coming down BoylstonStreet in first place?' said Pieroni. 'Probably not. But there areeras with peaks and valleys. But no matter what, we've all been outtraining through January and February to try and beat each other.
'There's still a spirited rivalry among clubs. We're all battlingit out for bragging rights.'
