Off the Record
with Jill M. Geer
Monday, February 26, 2007
Anybody who is not a track “insider” inevitably is incredulous when they are told that Fayetteville, Arkansas, is a track and field Mecca. Heck, I had no idea about that, myself, before I received recruiting materials from the women’s track team way back in 1980-something. I saw that the weather was nice, the women’s team was strong and that, most important, it was a long, long way from my Wisconsin homeland. So of course that’s where I went to college. Or, as my brother called it, “sports camp.”
The Fayetteville of 2007 is a far cry from the Fayetteville of the 1980s, several years after the men’s track and field dynasty began at Arkansas. In a town and a state where football reigned supreme, the sports facilities for any sport not ending in “-ball” weren’t exactly luxurious. But that’s part of what made and makes Arkansas track great: it was John McDonnell’s old-school philosophy that it is hard work that makes a winner, not money or flashy uniforms or glossy facilities. However, when even the tetherball courts are nicer than the track, you have to kinda wonder …
Back in the day, the indoor track was a flat oval that circled the indoor tennis courts. Although it was six lanes, realistically it was more like 3 or 4 at the most, since heavy vinyl drapes cordoned off the courts, extending into the first few lanes of the track. If there was a tennis match to be held later in the day, we not only had to run around the vinyl curtain but also around temporary bleachers, meaning that about 50 male and female athletes were sharing about 6 inches of track space as we did intervals in a barely heated facility.
Contrast that with the current track located in the Randal Tyson Center, which is rightly considered one of the premiere indoor facilities in the world. Perhaps not by accident, the new track has coincided with the Arkansas women’s team moving from a squad that hoped to do well at the conference meet to one that is perpetually in the national hunt. Sure, hard work makes a winner, but a shiny facility sure does impress 21st-century recruits. And that’s a good thing for Arkansas.
But nice facilities still don’t explain why as many people show up for a track meet in Fayetteville as they do in Boston or any other track or running hotbed in this country. Fayetteville isn’t populated by thousands of recreational runners, nor is it home to one of the country’s top track clubs. It doesn’t host a world-class road race, and it sure ain’t easy to get to, unless you call flying on small planes and then driving on country roads lined by chicken farms “easy to get to.”
What it has going for it is that it is populated by people who think out of the box. The stereotypical box is filled with good-ole, football-loving, old-money white boys who found their roots in Little Rock. But there are plenty of other people whose box filled with anything that is in direct opposition to that demographic. Their box is filled with things like Birkenstock sandals and incense and tie dye and used philosophy books and spectacles and canoes and a subversive streak.
The result is a fan base that includes history professors who approach their student after she finishes a cross country race in which the student really – to use the technical term – sucked, with a cheerful “good show!” (“Good show”?!?!? Has anybody actually ever uttered that phrase outside of “Masterpiece Theatre” reruns?) And it wasn’t even the history professor that the student ended up dating in graduate school! It was a different professor entirely, one whom the student would have dated if he had been maybe just 10 years younger, and not married! And he still thought it was a good show!
Where was I? Oh yeah: Fayetteville is the place to be if you like track. In 2007, it is also the place to be if you like great sports facilities, great restaurants, good culture and a true sense of place. It just so happens that track – and hopefully the Visa Championship Series – will always have a place, right there in the Ozarks.
Jill M.Geer is Director of Communications for USA Track & Field
