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My first autograph was one my Dad got me, Mickey Mantle signed a baseball when he met him in a restaurant in Dallas in the late 1960s. The first ones I got on my own were at a 1969 Kentucky Colonels-Washington Capitals ABA game. For the Colonels, Louis Dampier, Darrel Carrier, George Tinsley, Sam Smith. For the Caps, Rick Barry. Barry lives here in the Springs, neighbor to one of my medical partners who says she occasionally sees him in yellow Lycra tights, not looking so dignified for a guy in his seventies. We continued to get autographs after the occasional Colonels game the next few years. Artis Gilmore, at 7’2”, joined them after leaving Jacksonville. The first time my best friend and I went for his autograph, my friend said to me “whatever you do, don’t say ‘How’s the weather up there?’….they hate it when you say that!” Well, when I got to the front of the crowd, looking up from my 4’8” stance, what rolls out of my mouth but “How’s the weather up there?” I was mortified.
First track autographs were Jim Ryun and Madeline Manning, I was a camper at the Jim Ryun Running Camp at Oberlin College August 1977. They signed a book for everyone. Missed a chance for John Walker’s. He and Rod Dixon ran in the Mason-Dixon Games February 1980, my senior year in HS. One of the head guys in the MDAC, Lou Schneider, was co-founder/owner of the first running store in Louisville, Jogger Runner Racer. The day before the meet, they took Walker and Dixon to the store. I knew the two guys who worked there, wish I had known Walker would be there, I’d have gotten my Montreal 1500 final poster signed. They said while he was there, he got a bit mellow and, looking around the store, simply said, “You know, I really like being in a running store.”
Might have been MD Games 1979, Ray Flynn beat Liquori in the mile. After the meet, we spied the two of them doing a warm-down on the lower level concourse. My friends went charging after them, I tried to dissuade them from interrupting their warm-down. They asked Liquori for his autograph. He got a pretty irritated look on his face, maybe because they interrupted, but probably because Flynn had won the mile and they asked for Liquori’s but not Flynn’s.
I never chased track autographs but my two kids did at two OT, two editions of Pre, and a London DL. Gatlin, Bromell, Merritt, Reese, Lowe, Crouser, Shorter, Moses, Eaton, Duplantis, Kovacs, Farah and probably others. It was fun saying, “Hey, see that guy over by the water? That’s Frank Shorter. Marathon gold and silver in '72 and '76. Go ask him.” Etc. I was there for several of them. At the athletes bus stop at the south end of Hayward after Pre, Gatlin was very standoffish but I remember Kovacs, as he was signing, looked at my kids age 15 and 13, and so very sincerely said, “Hey, thanks for coming out today!”
First track autographs were Jim Ryun and Madeline Manning, I was a camper at the Jim Ryun Running Camp at Oberlin College August 1977. They signed a book for everyone. Missed a chance for John Walker’s. He and Rod Dixon ran in the Mason-Dixon Games February 1980, my senior year in HS. One of the head guys in the MDAC, Lou Schneider, was co-founder/owner of the first running store in Louisville, Jogger Runner Racer. The day before the meet, they took Walker and Dixon to the store. I knew the two guys who worked there, wish I had known Walker would be there, I’d have gotten my Montreal 1500 final poster signed. They said while he was there, he got a bit mellow and, looking around the store, simply said, “You know, I really like being in a running store.”
Might have been MD Games 1979, Ray Flynn beat Liquori in the mile. After the meet, we spied the two of them doing a warm-down on the lower level concourse. My friends went charging after them, I tried to dissuade them from interrupting their warm-down. They asked Liquori for his autograph. He got a pretty irritated look on his face, maybe because they interrupted, but probably because Flynn had won the mile and they asked for Liquori’s but not Flynn’s.
I never chased track autographs but my two kids did at two OT, two editions of Pre, and a London DL. Gatlin, Bromell, Merritt, Reese, Lowe, Crouser, Shorter, Moses, Eaton, Duplantis, Kovacs, Farah and probably others. It was fun saying, “Hey, see that guy over by the water? That’s Frank Shorter. Marathon gold and silver in '72 and '76. Go ask him.” Etc. I was there for several of them. At the athletes bus stop at the south end of Hayward after Pre, Gatlin was very standoffish but I remember Kovacs, as he was signing, looked at my kids age 15 and 13, and so very sincerely said, “Hey, thanks for coming out today!”
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