Wednesday, December 3, 2014

For Once, We Can All Be United

Coach Bill Preston, newly minted Nittany Lion Coach of my daughter (the elder) and  PSU Mont Alto (and former Council Rock High School coach with plenty of Nittany Lions to his credit!) alerted me to an article in the blog http://www.runblogrun.com about our most distinguished Alumnus.





The Annual Ashenfelter 8K Classic went off without a hitch this year on Thanksgiving morning as one of thousands of "turkey trots" across the nation.  Except the 2,400 in Glen Ridge, NJ got a special treat the other races didn't have.  They got to finish in front of a true American hero.  Our very own Horace Ashenfelter III was there, as he is every year.

Read the full blog post at RunBlogRun.

Here's some points I wish to emphasize about Mr. Ashenfelter:

  • He is happily married now for 69 years.
  • He will soon turn 91 years old.
  • He still runs several miles every other day.
  • He is a far better golfer than almost all of us.
  • He loves his family.  (14 of which ran the race!)
  • He loves his Country.
Read the rest for the other facts you already know and forgot!
Posted by skwilli at 5:01 PM
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7 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 3, 2014 at 8:39 PM

    There is a distant (pun intended) connection to RunBlog and PSU. Larry Eder, RunBlog's blogger, coached with my cousin Joe Mangan at Foothill College back in the early '90s. Joe now coaches at the College of San Mateo and his son, Kevin Mangan, who ran for a spell at the University of Washington (now home to Jess Riden and TJ Crater), is a graduate assistant at Baylor University. Todd Harbour, Director of T&F/XC at Baylor was on the '78 US Junior team - a team I managed to make by not falling over any steeple barriers chasing John Gregorek as he became the 2nd (at the time) HS steepler under 9:00. So we went West, Southwest and back to the East in one post. I think I pulled a hammy.

    LTM

    ReplyDelete
  2. skwilliDecember 4, 2014 at 9:23 AM

    I am always amazed at the web that unites all of us in track and field.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousDecember 4, 2014 at 4:46 PM

    John Gregorek ran 9:04.0 to win the 1978 AAU Junior steeplechase.

    Fun factoid of the day: What was Horace Ashenfelter's best steeplechase at Penn State?

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousDecember 5, 2014 at 5:07 PM

    drumroll....Horace Ashenfelter never ran the steeplechase for Penn State.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousDecember 6, 2014 at 2:04 PM

    And yet he is PSU's greatest Steeplechaser! Funny how things work out. He used to practice by jumping park benches after work. All quality, never a single "garbage" mile.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. skwilliDecember 6, 2014 at 7:45 PM

      Every single one of my runs are now garbage miles. And I'm more likely to sleep on a park bench than to jump over one.

      Delete
  6. AnonymousDecember 6, 2014 at 8:37 PM

    Gregorek ran 8:56 in Donetsk (July 1978, to go to #2 HS behind Jim Shields. Same day Sanya Owalabi broke the HS TJ record.

    Gold medal, world record, PSU Alum. Seems like plenty of backup for the Greatest PSU Steepler title.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting. Keep up the good work! (Try to mention others to encourage them to comment too!)

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