6/29/2023 0 Comments Captain kidd falmouth![]() ![]() ![]() Then, after the race, she also played host and gatekeeper at the press and medical tents, jobs requiring the temerity of a sinner and the patience of a saint. Hers was a thankless task that had taken the previous several months to stand up properly. Perhaps less visible than their husbands, but no less vital to the event’s success, were Lucia Carroll and Kathy Sherman. Lucia hovered in the background, making sure that all the office dominoes were in place and falling true and fast. ![]() To give you an idea of the depth of the fields back in the early days, in 1980, the year New Zealand’s Rod Dixon became the first non-American champion, Falmouth’s 44th-place finisher, Mark Murray of Boston, ran 34:58, sub-5:00 per mile pace. Egos were in short supply in this racing universe. You needed to win Falmouth in order to secure Road Runner of the Year honors, a coveted title once bestowed by magazines that used to cover the sport of running seriously. And no race in America had better pro fields than Falmouth’s, as its calendar date in late August lent it an end-of-the-summer championship quality. John’s tenure as head coach at Falmouth High and then the Falmouth Girl’s Track Club made him the obvious choice to head up athlete recruitment for the road race over the years. “I took over the girls’ outdoor team in ’74.” approached me about doing the race, I was teaching five classes of English at Falmouth High School, and coaching girls cross country, boys and girls’ indoor track, and the boys’ outdoor teams,” recalled John. It was Rich’s stint as director of the Falmouth Recreation Department in the 1970s that marked him as the operations man with a steady hand on the till.Īt another desk, co-director John Carroll rested his head on one hand while he cradled the telephone with the other, finalizing the field for Saturday evening’s Falmouth Mile, an event he championed since 1997 at the Falmouth High School track. His volunteer tee shirt dripped with sweat as it hung loose from a pair of wrinkled khaki shorts in the heavy air of the non-air-conditioned room as he assisted a young volunteer or another visiting race entrant. Marching from desk to desk at the old Rec Center like an army sergeant was its long-time director, Rich Sherman. ![]() Their legacy is one no salute can fully capture. But the memories remain vivid and enduring, nonetheless.įor the first forty years, four individuals ushered Tommy’s dream into reality, too caught up in their never-ending tasks to take part in the laid-back summer revelry taking place all around them. Though onetime Brothers Four bartender Tommy Leonard founded the great race back in 1973, it was the tireless work of the people of Falmouth who steered the seven-mile road classic through the shoals of obscurity to the safe harbor of legend over its first five decades. 28 North.īut in the last few days leading up to the event, whether in the days at the old Gus Canty Rec Center, or today at the Falmouth High School, a neighborly white clapboard feel prevailed as visitors poured in from around the country to pick up race numbers and attend the expo.Ĭolors were summer splashed, smiles brightened by framing sunglasses, and there in the center of the maelstrom was the Falmouth race crew answering the endless (and mostly repetitive) questions, handing out goody bags, and directing the army of young volunteers. With the Cape in the final throes of high summer season, the mood around town was both electric and not a little elegiac, for you could already feel the leading edge of fall on the race night air as the long line of red taillights headed for home past Sippewissett for Rte. Up the road, the line at the Dairy Queen window was only slightly less stalled as anxious hands awaited Blizzards and quickly dripping soft-serve cones. Shops bannered summer sales along the colorfully clad sidewalks, displaying their wares on tables and racks to lure the moseying passersby. Suntanned elbows propped out open car windowsills, shouts of recognition arched out, too. When Falmouth Road Race weekend arrived on old Cape Cod, traffic clogged tighter than an NFL fan’s descending arteries as license plates from the entire eastern seaboard lined up bumper to bumper along the town’s picturesque Main Street. ![]()
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