IT'S TIME TO SAY "AU REVOIR" ----- JACK BLACKBURN REMEMBERED; OHIO STATE ALUMNUS WAS TOP RUNNER AND RACE WALKER

By Elliott Denman

   The race took place over a half-century ago. But to the participants - there were at least two dozen of us - it remained etched in our memories, as long as we kept on circling the tracks of our respective lifetimes.
   Two hundred laps was the assignment that mid-April morning of 1971, our date with the Eastern Regional AAU 50-mile race walking championship at Monmouth College in West Long Branch, New Jersey.
   You get to know a lot about fellow participants when you sign up for a race like this one.  You know there will be miles and miles to simply cruise around the oval, with them, no problem whatsoever.  Eventually and inevitably followed by a list of mysterious cramps in an array of body parts, followed by blisters, sometime oozing bright red through your shoes of choice, followed by miles and miles of blessed relief as your body miraculously adapts to its changing status, some parts working quite well, others not so.
  All this felt by the respective racers to differing degrees. At last-at last-at last, if you have the patience to handle such irritations, along with an aid-station team that can keep you upright no matter the physical challenges, the finish line will 
eventually approach.
   I got there on April 18, 1971, in eight hours, 55 minutes and 26 seconds.
  Mr, George Braceland, a Philadelphia corporate printing executive, had tracked my footsteps the entire way. At the end - for George in 8:58.05 - the margin of difference represented only the time he took to change out of a pair of blistered/bloodied track shoes.
   Mr. Jack Blackburn of Ohio would place third in 9:46.29, Mr. Larry O'Neil of Montana fourth in 9;49.26.
    I'd been a 1956 Olympic 50K walker but this would be the biggest race I'd win over a 10-year span,  And, on reflection now, the last big one I'd ever win.
   The 2-3-4 finishers all had claims to fame.  George Braceland was a jack-of-all-sports, a founder of the Philly Masters movement, a noted pole vaulter and decathlete and proud father of an Olympic rower-daughter.  Ohio State alumnus Blackburn had reached major success as both a runner and race walker,  And O'Neil, a lumber company executive, was setting an array of American walk records - at distances up to 100 miles - well into his late 60's.  When Masters competition raged into popularity, all were among the first to embrace the world of new competitive opportunities.
    Braceland and O'Neil were to say their goodbyes to this world some years ago, but I write this now because the third of that 2-3-4 trio has just reached that other finish line, as well.
   Such is life in the world of Masters athletics. The sadness of departure is tempered by the joys of achievement, for all the successes of a life well spent, by the smiles brought back by remembrances of years-ago races well-run or well-walked .
  I remember Jack Blackburn as a young man who'd smiled his ways through life.  His most cherished wish would have to earned membership on a USA Olympic team, and he gave it the most valiant of tries - three times - only to fall narrowly short each time, after finishing sixth in the 1956 Olympic Trials 10,000-meter run, fourth in the 1960 Trials 50-kilometer walk, and sixth in the 1964 Trials 50K walk.
   The planet kept spinning and Jack Blackburn - true to form - would continue smiling through life nevertlheless, a Masterful man.
  Jack's final years were difficult. Dementia would steal so much of his essence. His best of friends was another Ohio Jack - Mortland - who did indeed get to be an Olympic 20K walker in 1964. The two Jacks had driven to the qualifying race in Buffalo together.
   "I felt some guilt on our trip home but he expressed nothing but joy for me," Mortland said recently.
   "Jack was a true friend."
   The two Jacks were founder-publishers of the "Ohio Racewalker" magazine that amazingly built a loyal subscriber-base of over 700 at a time when information about their speciality event was brutally difficult to come by.
    Jack Blackburn was a best man in at least two other ways. He drove to North Carolina to be best man at OSU teammate Dick Payne's wedding, Dick Payne happened to be an African-American.
    "Dick's wedding was held in North Carolina at a time when mixing of the races was verboten," said Mortland.
   "But Jack held no silly prejudices,"
   Later, Mortland was introduced to a young lady who was a Blackkburn co-worker at the Columbus Recreation Department.
  "A year later, Marty and I were married," said Mortland,  "With Jack (Blackburn) as our best man."
    And, to this day, Jack and Marty Mortland continue to smile at all those memories, all these years and races later, at their Columbus home.
xxxxxx
    
WE'VE SAID OTHER GOODBYES to dear Masters friends and notables in recent weeks and months. Shore AC member and Lynchburg College graduate Todd Scully was the first man to racewalk a mile under six minutes (with his historic 5:55.8 win at the 1979 Millrose Games) but never got the universal recognition he truly deserved as "The Roger Bannister of Racewalking,"  A two-time USA 20K Olympian (Montreal 1976 and the boycotted 1980 Moscow Games), he excelled at all distances up to 50 kilometers….And famously wearing those great “Hush Puppies” straight out of his local Thom McAn.  Anyone out there remember Thom McAn?. 

   New York City product Rudy Haluza, who competed for Queens College, the NY Pioneer Club, the Southern California Striders and the US Air Force, was a two-time USA Olympic 20K walker and his fourth place at the 1968 Mexico  City Games remains the highest-ever  20K American placing in Olympic history.
And Capt. Rudy flew the world for years and years – for USAF and then United Airlines.
 
Don DeNoon was a world-record-breaker in the 1-mile racewalk, one of the swiftest “sprint walkers” in track and field history. He excelled at all distances and continued excelling through the Masters ranks – yes, as a World Masters champion. And Don was as good a coach as he was a competitor. Who was Mary Decker’s first coach as a California age-group prodigy? Don DeNoon, of course.  And he did a terrific job, too, at Drake U. And Southern Illinois U. And at the National Training Center in Clermont, Fla.
 
John Knifton learned all about the racewalking game through his growing-up years in England.
And he added immensely to his credentials once he emigrated to the USA, to New York, and then to Texas, to  pursue a distinguished career in catalytic chemistry, and author or co-author over 225 patents.   He joined the American walking corps and proudly 
represented his new nation in the Pan American Games and World Cup walks and as a multi- U.S. champion at an assortment of distances, usually the longer ones.
 
  Col. Alan Sherman of West Long Branch, a graduate of Rutgers University, with advanced credentials from NYU, Princeton and Army War College, was a finisher in 32 NYC Marathons and an array of other distance events in New Jersey and Florida,
 
  Richard "Dick" Hill was a varsity distance runner in his Rutgers days, and rose to top corporate positions in the  insurance industry.  Competing for Shore AC, he was a divisional gold medalist in the USATF National 15K road racing championship, and in numerous events far and wide at assorted distances.   His sons and grandchildren continue adding to the Hill family legacy.
 
Au Revoir, dear friends and frequent companions on racing trails far and wide.
 
For those reading this at home – Be Well, Be Strong, Be Well, Be Fast (if possible) and wherever possible, be the best you can possibly be.
 
Elliott Denman. 732-222-9213. [email protected]m
28 North Locust Avenue, West Long Branch, NJ USA  Planet Earth.  Galaxy #11,975