Featured Volunteer

[ As described below, I wrote this for the April 2009 issue of the Fleet Foot, the newsletter of the Gulf Winds Track Club. I hope no one suffers reading it as much as I did writing it. ]

A few weeks ago I heard from the Club President. "Congratulations!" she said. "You are Gulf Winds Track Club's featured volunteer of the month."

"That's funny," I said. "Aren't there hundreds of people in the club? It can't be my turn."

"Well, it is," she affirmed. "Could you write something for it?"

So that's it.

Because I don't know if I can be said to volunteer for much of anything. For instance, way back in the 1970s I used to work at FSU track meets as a hurdle setter. This was proud work, because I had been to many meets that lasted till almost midnight because of delays caused by the hurdles never being where they needed to be. However, the big incentive was getting into meets for free, getting to wear a "FSU HURDLE CREW" T-shirt, and being paid the princely sum of five dollars for the evening. I was no more a volunteer than an AIG trader is a volunteer.

Years later I tried to attend an FSU track meet as a spectator. After paying for a ticket, I was spotted in the stands and press-ganged into being a lane judge. This was volunteering like drawing a low draft lottery number in 1967 meant that you had volunteered to be one of Uncle Sam's tourists in southeast Asia. This wasn't fun work, because I never felt qualified to tell whether or not one of eight sprinters thundering by at 20 mph had stepped over a white line for more than one step. I only did lane judging at two or three track meets. The last time I worked, it started raining and I ducked into the press box to stay dry. The microphone happened to be open, because graduate assistant (trans.: slave) Mike Curcio was not only working the public address system but also directing the meet, keeping the rest rooms stocked with toilet paper, and polishing the safety pins for the bib numbers. As it turned out, the 5,000 meter run was on the track, and I knew most of the runners in the race, so I took the microphone and called the race. After the 5,000 I snuck out of the press box before the campus police arrived. The following year, on the theory that a dedicated announcer on the public address system was better than no announcer at all, I was invited to work a microphone at all of FSU's home meets. It was an indoor job, it wasn't lane judging, and it wasn't much like work at all (or wouldn't be, if most meets didn't occupy twelve hours of each day on which they're held). I'm still doing it occasionally, altho' nowadays I mostly work at high school meets.

I also worked at the high school regional cross-country championships for many years, but that wasn't exactly voluntary, because my mom was hosting the meet. I missed one year in the 1990s, and made sure that I never missed another. I would call out splits at the one-mile mark and work as a finish-line timer (working the finish chute at a high school cross-country race can be a real trial by fire).

My first "work" at road races involved the finish chute, too--taking one apart. After I ran the St Petersburg "Bay-to-Bay" road race one year and had already jogged down and everything else that I needed to do, I noticed the folks from the Suncoast Runners Club dismantling the chute and pitched in. This isn't exactly work, because finish line chutes are like big Tinkertoys or an erector set. This is why you see such elaborate finish line assemblies at road races, and why there are so many pages in sports equipment catalogs devoted to finish chute kits. I don't know why Lego hasn't come out with a finish line outfit yet. For some reason, though, this got to be a minor sensation in St Petersburg at the time. "He won the Bay-to-Bay, and then he helped us clean up afterwards!" More people might have helped if they knew they were allowed; it was at least as fun as running.

Back in Tallahassee, beginning in the mid-1990s I worked an aid station in the Tallahassee Marathon every year, usually staffed by members of the Hash House Harriers. This means that there is always beer available at our aid station; David Yon became our first customer when he accepted a bottle of Miller Cream Stout from us on Tram Road. I seem to remember that he ran well that year. Unfortunately, the Miller Brewing Company has discontinued their cream stout, and most recently Miller Lite was the only choice of suds we had to offer the marathoners. Maybe next year we can work out a sponsorship deal with Anchor Steam. Anyway, the aid station is work, but it is also a Sunday-morning party. We even had a full contingent show up the year the marathon was canceled due to weather.

I've also written for the Fleet Foot occasionally, but I usually had a reason for doing so, even if it's not what professional writers would call a "paying market." At one point I was simply tired of reading content-free articles in the newsletter, and wrote a series of runing history articles, starting with a history of the Rose City 10K. I think I also did a history of the Belle Vue Mile, a piece about an athlete from the Florida State College for Women who competed in the first women's track and field world championships in the 1920s, and the story of a hustler who staged a man-versus-horse race in Tallahassee back in the 1880s. During a year I lived in South Carolina, I also wrote an article about an annual Summerville-to-Charleston relay that was held in the 1910s; this ran in The Low Country Runner. I stopped writing the articles when I had nothing interesting left to say. Many writers could benefit from that example.

In 2002 the oldest 5,000-meter road race in Tallahassee needed a director. Reid Vannoy and Jeff Bryan stepped into the role, and I offered to help. You can't let a classic die, and I wanted to see what it would take to properly promote a Tallahassee road race. So at the 2002 Palace Saloon 5K, we managed to attract 189 finisher, 30 fewer than the year before. After that, we made nuisances of ourselves, taking every opportunity to mention the race. (this year it's April 11 at 8:00 am, by the way--have you entered yet?) In 2005 Jeff took his name off the race and Reid made me put my name on it. The 2008 Palace Saloon 5K had 782 finishers, making it the largest "stand-alone" 5K in Tallahassee. Race director isn't a paid position, so when it stops being fun I'll stop doing it--I'm not that selfless a volunteer.

I've also done some race photography over the past few years. This is just a chance to show off and play with gadgets. It also helps promote the Palace Saloon 5K, which is really a year-round exercise.

However, I suppose that there are one or two selfless, unrewarding things that I do for running in general and the club in particular. Writing this essay, for instance. Thank goodness it's over.