Larry Brady:

MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN—the early years (1971-76)

Recollections by Larry Brady, February 2004

As was the case in the 1950s, '60s,and early '70s, few people followed the running route to continued fitness after their college days. I too followed this pattern and slowly the pounds mounted on my stocky frame. While teaching geology at Oklahoma State in Stillwater in the spring of 1971, I had initial thoughts that the time had come to control the continued weight gain, and I started running a few easy laps on the OSU stadium track.

In the fall of 1971, I took a position at the Kansas Geological Survey at KU, and Harold Yarger (also a KGS scientist) and I determined it was time to do a little running over our noon hour. I am not sure what month we started running, but it must have been in the late fall, possibly early November, because we went to Allen Field House to run on the indoor track. At that time it was a clay track, and this was also where the KU track team trained and competed during the indoor season. The track was watered down each day in preparation for the afternoon practices, and this occasionally caused some problems, often leading to the group later running on the second and third levels of Allen Field House.

Harold and I noticed people from the Mathematics Department who were also running on the track. The first persons we met were Fred Van Vleck, Phil Montgomery, Ed Rutter, and Charlie Himmelburg. I am not sure that Jim Brewer or John Bunce were there that first time, but we did meet them a short time afterwards. Of this group, the first person I met as a runner was Ed Rutter, when on an earlier fall day I went to the South Jr. High track for a few easy laps, and he was there for his run.

When Harold and I first met the "math guys," they were running two miles each day as fast as they could--trying to improve on their time each day. I indicated to Harold that you "can't do that, or you would drive yourself nuts." Harold and I chose to run on our own for the first few weeks, starting with a few stiff miles but mainly at an agreeable pace.

After that initial shock period, we started running with the "math guys" but we did not race their clock, and perhaps convinced them that they should limit their time trials to an occasional clocking. We started running some repeats at various short distances--mainly quarter miles to go with the middle-distance runs. During this time other persons started running with this group including Robin Davis. There was a rather fast "mystery runner" who was running on his own--that was later determined to be Mike Ott. During this time, Grover Everett was mainly running alone, but he occasionally ran with the new group.

A KU intramural track meet was held in the spring of 1972, and that meet included a faculty/staff half mile. Brewer and Yarger trained for that race. However, the "mystery runner"-Mike Ott--won the race. Brewer took 2nd, a runner from Architecture, Basil Honikman was 3rd (who then joined the running group), while Yarger was 4th. For some reason, Everett elected to not run the race, perhaps a schedule conflict. However, by then he was recognized as the elite runner of the group.

Contact of the "math guys" with colleagues in the Math Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln led to a faculty runners clearinghouse that was established for the 1973-4(?) school year. A scheme of point scoring was established where points were awarded for participation, times relative to other participants, and for certain distances from a quarter mile up to five miles--later to include 10 miles and a marathon. Several universities participated throughout the U.S. This continued for three or four years, and it was during this period that the Mad Dogs really increased in number of runners, since the core group recruited other KU faculty and staff to run various distances to increase our point total. This perhaps provided the critical mass that truly led to the "Mad Dogs" and its longevity. During that time, the emphasis of the group was on the shorter events, from a quarter to two miles, with a few running the longer events. Some very good times were established for "old guys." Training continued to emphasize "repeat training" on the track, generally outside.

An early runner, Ed Rutter, after a while refused to continue with the short-fast running and chose to go out on his own for more slow-easy runs. This seemed reasonable to the group, and longer, slower runs were incorporated into the group runs that were probably in the 7-8 minute/mile range, and commonly for four to six miles.

The idea of the clearinghouse track meet eventually failed after about four years. This was due to the sheer mass of information submitted by all schools that was necessary to be processed and calculated to determine an overall winner and places of the runners in the various distance categories. A good idea, but too much volunteer effort was needed. Stanford, based on sheer number of participants, was generally the winner, while KU was commonly second or third. Several of the runners, specifically Everett, Ott, and Brewer in many events and Jim Hamrick in the shorter events were winners or among the best in various events included in the clearinghouse.

One of the "math guys"-probably Jim Brewer(?) convinced the KU track coach--Bob Timmons--to include a faculty distance-relay event in the KU Relays program. This event was held for three years. During the first year, KU (Mad Dogs) entered two teams in a field of five. KU placed 1st and 3rd. The following year KU placed 1st and 4th out of six teams, and during the third year, Nebraska-Omaha came loaded with young ex-collegiate runners and moved the KU team to 2nd.

The next major change for the Mad Dogs was in the 1975-76 school year with the arrival of Major Mike Kelly, a USMC officer assigned to the KU Naval ROTC program. Mike ran a number of marathons prior to his arrival at KU, and he convinced the Mad Dogs that they too should include training for and running a marathon. With Kelly's advice and encouragement, several of the Mad Dogs entered and all completed the KU Relays marathon in April 1976. Following the bolder Mad Dogs successful completion of the '76 marathon, the following year a much larger group of Mad Dogs ran in the 1977 KU Relays marathon and a larger number still in the 1978 KU Relays marathon. Nearly all the Mad Dogs completed the marathons in less than four hours, with several of the Mad Dogs completing the distance in less than three hours. The Mad Dogs had two KU Relays Women marathon champions, Joy Meyen and Jo Stiles, and many high placings in the open and masters divisions by the men.

Marathons became the important training goal for many Mad Dogs for about a five-year period, and a lot of Mad Dogs competing in local and regional 10K's and occasional longer runs. During those days, noontime runs of six-miles were the standard, and a firm start time of 11:50 determined whether you were left behind or ran with the group. It was common for the group to stay together for the first two miles, then the group often split into smaller groups having a desire to run at faster or slower speeds.