It's Penn Relays Week!!

We'll start off the week with a bang!  Steve Shisler sends us this short story about his memories of Penn.  I'll repost Randy Moore's memories of Penn later in the week.  And I'll post any others sent my way this week, no matter how short.  The greatest track meet in the world has touched all of us somehow.  This will be Coach Groves' 65th out of 66 straight Penn Relays.  He only missed one the first year in the Army.  When they wouldn't let him come that first year he started his coaching career by forming an Army team for the next year.  Saturday will be Coach's 80th birthday and he'll be celebrating it right where he belongs, along the bricks at Franklin Field.

Penn Relays – The Agony & Ecstasy 

                by Steve Shisler

To say the Penn Relays represent the pinnacle of my running career would be an understatement, but it certainly was a long and winding road.

Growing up as a Track athlete in the Philadelphia suburbs Penn represented a rite of spring.  I was fortunate to run on Pennridge Highs 4x400 in 1980 & ‘81 in the now defunct Bux-Mont League event.  By the time I ran as a Senior I had already committed to running for Penn State as a walk on.  I couldn’t have predicted at that time what the next 5 years at Franklin Field might hold.

As a Freshman 800 runner in ’82 I was happy to grab a spot anchoring the Sprint Medley (in the days when trials were held Friday and finals were held Saturday).  We qualified for the IC4A final on Saturday and if memory serves me right finished DFL.  PSU’s 4x800 was a group of all juniors and ran a school record 7:21 that year but was well off the 7:12 pace of no fewer than 3 teams bested by Villanova.

My sophomore year began a 2 year stretch of frustration.  Some local State High kid named Randy Moore came along as a transfer from Franklin & Marshall and had the nerve to bump me as the odd man out on a 4x800 that was destined for big things.  I was again relegated to anchoring the Sprint Medley for PSU in ‘83, and while it was nice to run a 1:49 split in the trials, I knew I’d be sitting in the stands as a spectator for the Championship of America 4x800 final on Saturday.   Watching PSU take home the Championship that day in 7:19 was bittersweet.  I was cheering the entire time for my running mates but wondered if my shot at the coveted PENNSYLVANIA Relays watch had evaporated in front of me that day.

Surely my junior year in ’84 could be the year.  While Arizona State was coming in with their 7:08 Collegiate Record team and Villanova had John Marshall anchoring their usual stable of horses, we were the defending Champs sporting Super frosh Vance Watson (1983 High School Athlete of the meet, anchoring the Record Setting DMR to victory as well as anchoring the winning 4x800), a pair of 1:47 men in Randy Moore and Kenny Wynn and myself. 

One small problem, I injured my foot 2 weeks before Penn.  Determined not be shut out at the chance for a title, I rode the bike for the next 2 weeks and told Coach Groves I was running at all costs.  John Norwig, our trainer at the time and now the Pittsburgh Steelers Super trainer, slipped me a couple of pills (sugar I’m sure) before we headed to the cow pen but things just never came together for us that day.  Villanova took the title, my season was ended from injury and we went home empty handed.  Coach started calling me the “hard luck kid”.  As twisted irony would have it, I was granted a redshirt season for that spring which gave me 2 more years to run at Penn (how many collegians do you know that ran for their school 5 years straight?).

We arrived at Penn in 1985 healthy and hungry. Wynn was replaced by another State High product, frosh Chris Mills.  We warmed with a 7:17 win at Dogwood and were invited to run at

Arizona State the week before Penn.  Coach took us aside and asked if we wanted to go to Arizona or stay close to home to gear up.  To a man we chose to stay home. While a trip to sunny Tempe was tempting, nothing can replace a Championship of America title and a watch where letters replace numbers.

History shows we made the right decision to stay home and one could say things clicked that last Saturday in April 1985. Track and Field News summarized the race this way:

“Almost as impressive as Arkansas was in the 4x1500 (14:50.2) was Penn State in the 4x800. Each Nittany Lion ran faster than anyone else on his leg, i.e., they started in front and kept increasing their lead. Soph Vance Watson (the outstanding prep athlete here 2 years ago) opened a 2y lead with a 1:49.2. Steve Shisler widened it to 7y with a 1:47.9. Chris Mills ran it to 10 with a 1:48.5 and Randy Moore blasted a 1:45.5 to finish in 7:11.17, the No. 10 time in history (and second fastest collegiate mark ever).”

After the race I found my family in the stands to show them the watch. Knowing I had one more year ahead of me I told my father (an avid track lover long before I came along and Penn Relays participant in 1947 & ‘48) that I’d win him a watch next year.

1986 brought a new challenge for me.  We had a bunch of hard working PA kids who maybe just maybe could give the 4x1500 a run for the money. Coach wanted me to tackle something I’d never done, double at Penn.  Who was I to tell him no.

State High’s Bob Hudson put us in the thick of things with a great 3:46 lead leg.  Edinboro’s favorite son Mark Overheim did yeoman’s work in 3:42 hanging with an insane 2^nd leg by Arkansas’s Gary Taylor (can you say 3:36.2-fastest ever at Penn-to his 3:38.6 from 1985). Penn Hills Cross Country star Eric Carter dropped down and went all out for a fast 3:47 leg to hand me the baton in 3^rd just behind Auburn.  I ran the 1500 race of my life in 3:42 and managed to squeak by Auburn’s team of Americans at the tape for a solid 2^nd place finish in 14:58.71, and an American record.

I heard after the race that while I was trying to get by Auburn in the final 100 meters that Coach Groves managed to put together a string of expletives in new and unheard of ways that would have made a hooker blush. He told me that while he was never happy with 2^nd place, he wasn’t complaining this time.

A few hours later it was time to defend our 4x800 title. While we lost the fastest 800 runner ever at Penn to graduation, we replaced him with workhorse 400 meter hurdler Ray Levitre.  Watson did his usual job of running a great 1:48 lead leg. I kept us in the thick of things with a 1:49 leg. Levitre proved he would be an 800 force for the future and ran 1:48 to give the baton in the lead to Mills who proceeded to stretch the lead with a blistering opening 400. Paying the price in the final 200, Mills held on strong in 1:48 to beat his High School nemesis Mark Fowler of LSU for the win in 7:16.02.

That day capped a career at Penn that just a couple of years earlier I could only dream of.  Best of all I found my father after the race to give him his watch.  At first he didn’t want to accept it but I insisted, after all I already had one.  He wore his watch every day for the next 2 decades until he passed away.  I proudly wear it to this day.

What time is it?   -   It’s Penn Relays time!