Running backward: a historical view of Youngstown's Peace Race

EDITOR:
Please allow me to reminisce and to recall clearly the events that led to Youngstown's national prominence on the road-running scene in the 1970s, when the sport was being propelled to its peak of popularity by such running greats as Bill Rodgers and Frank Shorter.
It was August of 1975, two months after Sam Fasline had won the first Youngstown Road Runners Club race in Mill Creek Park that I, as first president of the YRRC, approached Councilman Jerome McNally about funds for a world class 20Km race in the park that would begin and end in downtown Youngstown. The funds were approved and on Nov. 22, 1975, Connecticut's John Vitale won the first nationally recognized road race in Youngstown.
One of the celebrities at that race was Ted Corbitt, a 1948 U.S. Olympic Marathon runner, who founded the Road Runners Club of America, and is known today as "the father of long distance running" in the United States. Shortly after the race, Ted wrote an article for the New York Road Runners Magazine calling the race "The Youngstown Shoot Out" because we managed to find many of the "top guns" from the East Coast. A few of these included 1964 U.S. Olympian Oscar Moore, Ireland's Father Sean Healy, and Tom Fleming who was 2nd, 2nd and 3rd in the 1973, 74 and 75 Boston Marathons.
The success of the 20Km Race and Ted Corbitt's support inspired us to apply for the 1976 U.S. AAU National 25Km Championship Race, and we won the bid over four major U.S. cities. The race featured one of the most exciting finishes one could wish for, as Olympic Gold and Silver Medallist Frank Shorter beat the 1975 20Km winner, John Vitale, by just a quarter of a second.
Two months before, I had been in Czechoslovakia at the Kosice Peace Race, and before I left Kosice, I knew that Youngstown, with its rich multi-diversity, would be the site for the first international peace race in America.
The first International Peace Race on Nov. 13, 1977, would be the largest race ever in Youngstown with 1,980 paid entrants. The evening before the race, Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers and Canadian Jerome Drayton conducted a runner's clinic and were interviewed for half-hour YSU TV special about the race. A snow storm on the morning of the race covered the roads, and the park looked like a winter wonderland. But by the time the starting gun sounded, park maintenance had miraculously plowed the entire 15.5 mile course.
Seventeen countries were represented in the 10 and 25Km events, on a budget of only $18,000. We managed to do this by going to the New York City Marathon three weeks earlier than our race and busing many of the international runners to Youngstown where many gracious people took them into their homes. The major sponsors that year were Arby's, Strouss Department Stores, Tri County Datsun and Commercial Shearing.
In the 25Km Race Bill Rodgers and Jerome Drayton finished one and two, just as they had weeks before in the New York City Marathon, and West Virginia's Carl Hatfield captured the 10Km Race. Frank Shorter did not run for fear of aggravating an old injury but was seen on the Federal Plaza throwing snowballs with children before the start of the Race.
The Peace Race received worldwide publicity by making the front cover of The Running Times Magazine and by breaking into the Runner's World Magazine ranking of the top 15 road races of the year.
Rodgers and Shorter, of course, honored us by their mere presence, given their impressive records and popularity.
Shorter, besides wining Gold and Silver Medals in the 1972 and 76 Olympic Marathons and four consecutive Marathons was a dominant figure in U.S. track. Rodgers was known as "the king of the road," winning four New York and Boston Marathons and a streak of some 20 consecutive road races.
Shorter made two appearances in Youngstown; this will be Rodgers' seventh.
It is good to see the Peace Race continue as one of the major events in Northeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, and I wish the best to all at today's race.
JACK CESSNA
Massena, N.Y.