Rodgers Marathon favorite
By Joe Concannon
Globe Staff
On this weekend two years ago, he was a quiet spectator at a track meet, a host to a few friends at his apartment in Jamaica Plain. In the world of long distance running, he was still an outsider, a young man on the verge of a breakthrough.
When it came, on that ensuing Monday afternoon in the 79th BAA Marathon, it thrust Bill Rodgers into the limelight, put him on an international stage and, for the foreseeable future, made any weekend when he was preparing to run in Boston a very public one.
What he did, two years ago, was to win the race in an American record time of 2:09:55 and, after he bypassed Boston a year ago because of its proximity to the US Olympic Trials, he approaches the starting line of the 81st BAA Marathon at noon today in Hopkinton as the favorite.
Since he won in 1975, he has become the top American marathoner. Disappointed and upset by a low finish (48th) in the Olympic games last August, he came back to run 2:10:10 to win the New York City Marathon last October, meaning he has run the two fastest marathons on American soil.
As a result, Rodgers has been a very public person, indeed, for the past three or four days. Clinics. TV and newspaper interviews. Just answering questions. He was a young man in a crowd yesterday and the Copley Plaza, the Sheraton Boston, the Eliot Lounge.
"I get a chance to express my ideas on different things," he said during a rare idle moment. "I look forward to that. Talking to runners. To the media. I like it. I worked though that I’m getting zapped. I’m dizzy. I’m spaced out. But when I wake up I seem to have a lot of psyched up energy."
An informal poll of five people intimate with the marathon had Rodgers first on four ballots. The fifth was from Rodgers. Second was split between Jerome Drayton of Toronto and Tom Fleming of Bloomfield, N.J. These are clearly the three runners to watch.
The weather, in contrast to the heat and humidity of a year ago, should be very seasonable. The forecast reads "mostly sunny, high temperatures upper 50s along the coast, 60s inland. Light winds becoming East to Southeast 10 to 14 mph by afternoon." It could mean a fast time.
The top foreign entries, relative to this race, appear to be Neal Cusack, Danny McDaid and Jim McNamara of Ireland, Mario Cuevas of Mexico, Jose DeJesus of Puerto Rico, Vilho Paajanen of Finland, Rich Hughson of Canada and Akio Usami and Ichio Saito of Japan.
Of the American runners, Jeff Wells of Dallas, Gary Tuttle of Ventura, Calif., Jim Berka of Minneapolis, Bob Hodge of Lowell, Carl Hatfield of West Virginia and Benji Durden of Atlanta have been prominently mentioned. "Watch for some American," said Bill Squires, coach of the Greater Boston TC and advisor to Rodgers and Fleming, "to break through."
Jack Fultz, who won the "Race for the Hoses" marathon a year ago, suffered a slight foot injury on a Friday run. Steve Hoag, second to Rodgers two years ago in 2:11:54, is also injured and will watch as a spectator.
Concannon’s picks