January 1962 at North Hollywood High School in the San Fernando Valley.
First (& only) team--I was 3rd Miler (behind Burt Ballentine & Mike Adams).
A man came to visit--H Archie Richardson??--selling books about T&F--and subscriptions to T&FN.
That was my initial "hook-up" with the "Bible of the Sport"!
Like every relationship, it went through all the changes, bumpy rides, emotional separations, the life-and-death situations of LIFE!
Till death do us part?
Well, not exactly!
The 1st issue I read was January 1962.
Peter Snell's 3:54.4 Mile WR run on a 385 yard grass track in New Zealand!
INdoor meets--then abundant & thriving--covered in detail.
Lists--World, US, HS, even Collegiate Frosh & JC!
The "European Report"
Columns like Last Lap, On Your Marks, and my favorite--Letters to the Editor!
(I had a few printed there!)
But to this lifelong sports stat freak, it was the numbers I loved most!
Track & Field NEWS was exactly that--filled with NEWS about my new "BFF"!
Because the News was mostly statistical in nature--the times, the feet & inches (Not much metric then--except from Europe!)--I devoured every word of every issue--hungrily!
It was a few years later that I noticed the lack of T&F statistical "almanacs"--collections of all the Records & Lists from ALL the varied sectors of our sport!
There was the HS Track book--which covered HS T&F like no one else!
I found some NCAA Guides, which had good material on the Collegiate scene!
(It was only decades later that I discovered Roberto Quercetani's Histories, the Athletics & FAST Annuals, and other Stat Histories!)
So, about 1965, I began compiling a series of Lists of the Records & Marks inherent to the health & welfare of the sport!
It began as a "filler" to what T&FN did NOT provide--at least not all in one place--in a compact tome--a compendium of all things Statistical about T&F!
As with all affairs, it started in private--just one man sitting in a room--pen & paper in hand--scouring every issue of T&FN he had at that time, the NCAA & HS books--even newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, which then had GREAT coverage of T&F!
(Many years later, the Eugene Register-Guard's coverage put the Times to shame!!)
So my dependence on, my addiction to, my love for--T&FN changed!
Expanding my then un-named T&F Record Book, I USED the magazine to satisfy my own needs & whims!
Exactly as happens in any extra-marital tryst!
And then 2 things happened.
My life's direction headed to hippieland--the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, then the revolutionary streets of Berkeley CA!!
And I LOST all those pages & pages (about 250 at that time??) of numbers I'd compiled so painstakingly & lovingly while reading T&FN!
In 1973, I ended (or more to the point--separated from) my relationship with the freakdom of LSD, grass, and the Berkeley Barb--moving to Arcata in Humboldt County!
It was there that I revived my running career--AND my Record Book!!
During the years in the Bay Area, my reading of T&FN came in once-yearly doses--through their Bound Volumes--full years of the magazine bound between cardboard covers!
Also, during that time, I'd procured previous years of the mag--the 1957 through 1961 Bound Volumes!
And while browsing a Portland used bookstore's magazine section, I found the Olympic Games issue from 1956!
(I've never read the initial years of T&FN--from 1948 on--and probably never will!)
My Record Book became a 600-plus page compendium of Lists (my DDD's) and Records (World, US, Collegiate, HS, Meet, National, Place, Age, Class, Combined Events) that, sadly, T&FN slowly deleted from their coverage!!
The 60's issues (& those earlier years I'd read in retrospect) were TYPED--mimeographed--about as "professional" in style as the "Barb" & other hippie alternative papers were!
But this isn't a complaint!
I LOVED that "homey" "cozy" nature of the beast!
It was like receiving a handwritten letter from a friend--a friend who had the exact same passions I did!
So many historic names, so many great records & marks, so much CANDY!!
I couldn't get enough!!
In 1970, this started to change.
T&FN called it progress.
I saw it differently.
Instead of NEWS on the front cover (Really the 1st PAGE!!), we got photos!
Studio stills, or frozen "action" shots--of star athletes of the month!
Then the lists began to disappear--even as the number of yearly issues expanded to 18--with 2 issues during the spring & summer months!
In 1973, T&FN tried Psychedelia!
Using "Fillmore lightshow-style colors", these splashes of paint sometimes made reading the words impossible!
(Some Letters agreed!!)
Maybe it was the era we were living in--the post-hippie eye-glaze and brain-haze of the recovering long-haired freak!
Or maybe it was just T&FN trying to be "hip"!
Whatever the case, it eroded the JOY I felt when I received my issue in the mail (Though I bought many issues at various newsstands & bookstores!).
And with my Record Book now "complete"--and with T&FN's ending their Diet of Lists (to a great extent!)--I no longer NEEDED Track and Field News!
But the habit was ingrained!
I'd become an addict.
I craved my monthly fix!!
So I continued to read every word, search for every number, look at every photo as if it were a Van Gogh artwork in some Museum!
My collection of the magazine had grown to large piles in a closet or in boxes on the floor!
All those Bound Volumes ('57 to '61--then '67 to '72)!
All those individual issues--that '56 OG issue, the years from 1962 to 1966--and then again from January 1973 forward!
The '70's, the 80's, the 90's!!
All those changes in the Record Book, all reported in fine detail on the pages of T&FN!
Sure, the reportage became less and less "newsy"--more & more an attempt at "literature"!
There were frequent interviews with star athletes from every segment of the sport!
Distance runners, Pole Vaulters, a Shot putter, Sprinters, Hurdlers, Decathletes!
In the mid-70's, Women's news & features began appearing!
T&FN had always been a "stag mag"--for Men Only--without the lurid or obscene!
Then "Little Mary Decker" began her controversial but highly successful career--a 14 year old in pigtails!
Apparently liking its readers reactions, T&FN continued its "coverage" of the distaff side of the sport!
In the late '70's, with Grete Waitz and Joan Samuelson winning marathons, and with European icons like Marlies Gohr, Marita Koch, and several Throwers setting Records that wouldn't be surpassed to this day--T&FN initiated FULL coverage of Women's T&F!!
Their Rankings expanded to both sexes!
Their year-ending Top 40 Lists now had the same for Women!
And the photos now included many of the "opposite sex".
The health of the marriage was improving.
For awhile!
The lists--except for HS--for all intents ENDED as the century of World Wars ended!
And that--the HS list exception--gave me pause!
WHY would they (She, my "wife"!) stop providing monthly lists for the World & US--but continue having deep lists for HS'ers??
I mean, I LOVED that they continued the HS depth of coverage--but why not the others?
It was like having a few children, but deciding only ONE was worth having around all the time!!
A few years later--early 2009, to be exact--I discovered the computer!
With this new "lover", I found that the "magazine" (In fact, ALL printed works!!) was dying!
T&FN had its "website"--with all sorts of material--including LISTS!!
(Albeit "comprehensive"--later "absolute"--lists!!)
All of the "news" found in the paper magazine could now be viewed "online"!
And it was instantaneous!
Instead of waiting days & weeks to read those juicy news items, you could now just "google" the T&FN website--and it was like entering a delicatessen, a supermarket, a MALL!!
Everything T&F--including Cross Country, Road Racing, even the Walks--was all there with one little move of the "mouse"!!
Marvelous---or grotesque?
Progress--or regress?
Life--or impending death??
The "writing" was on the wall---or more to the point, on your computer's monitor!!
And on the T&FN website's Message Board!
This--with its 100's & 100's of "threads"--became what was once the "Letters" section of the printed magazine!!
And with my now-round-the-clock involvement with all-things computer--and having been a writer for five decades-and counting--I soon discovered "blogging".
This was, in essence, putting your Diary or Journal scribblings out into cyberspace for all to see!
On December 9, 2013, I began this blog--named after my Record Book--and using IT as my main source of material!
My need---even if that need was now on life support--for T&FN was closing down!
And so was Track and Field News!
What once was a thrilling excursion into the dynamic world of T&F--had evolved into a boring chore which "needed" doing--or completion!
In 1990--with the lists getting less & less frequent--I began subscribing to their Track Newsletter!
This was normally an 8 to 16 page collection of ALL the the results from meets large & small--from the US and around the globe--with added Lists in several of its yearly 40 to 50 issues!
It filled many of the holes that had eroded my interest in the magazine over the past 20 years or so!
I'd found that sweet lover who could satisfy ALL my T&F-related needs!
But they KILLED the Newsletter at the end of 2001.
At least the PRINTED version of it!
Not then on computers, I didn't know about (or see) the "e" version of the TN!!
(But in 2012, when I began adding the "digital" mag to my sub, I received access to the archives of all the eTN's--from January 2002 onward!!)
So this beautiful "marriage"--from its honeymoon in early 1962--to the onset of online--continued--and was reinvigorated--with access to those digital TN's!
And my T&F Record Book had reached full maturity!
It was now an ageing "GrandDad"--an obstreperous, argumentative, egomaniacal chronicler of the greatest sport--Track and Field!
With my Blog now a blossoming "child"--a student, yet a teacher--and with other long-lived magazines also going online only--the PRINT version of T&FN--while desired--was no longer a necessity!
Yes, this marriage had evolved to the point where the passions had ripened, then slowly waned into memories!
Memories of those typed pages, of those lists, of that European Report, of the black & white photos, of reports of births & deaths (from Prefontaine's to the potential death of the sport itself--see the May 1991 issue of T&FN!), and all the other "body parts" of the magazine called Track and Field News!!
It's ironic--and maybe even fraudulent, to an extent!--that in its "final" printed issue--December 2017--in its Preview of its "next issue"--they wrote "this issue will soon become dog-eared" (because of its frequent handling!).
How can an ONLINE edition become "dog-eared", pray tell??
I mean, come ON!!
And so it goes, as my favorite novelist Kurt Vonnegut repeatedly lamented about various forms of death in his classic "Slaughterhouse-Five"!
And so it's GONE!
Rest in Peace, my dear sweet friend--and lifelong companion!!
Make ours an amicable divorce!
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