MARATHONER RODGERS ON A NEW MISSION

October 8, 2005

By Ed Daigneault

Waterbury Republican American

WATERBURY -- Four times Bill Rodgers won the Boston Marathon. Four times he won the New York City Marathon.

He won the inaugural Litchfield Hills Road Race in 1977 and defended his title a year later. In 1975, 1977 and 1979, the Hartford native was the top-ranked marathoner in the world. Rodgers is indeed at the top of a short list of legendary American distance runners.

Yet it was only a few years before his first Boston victory, 30 years ago, that Rodgers had "retired" from running and was toiling in Boston, a pack of Winston cigarettes at the ready, running usually limited to late-night sprints home after bar hopping.

The moral of the story?

"Anybody can be a runner," Rodgers said Thursday night, a few minutes before conducting a clinic before a cozy crowd of about 100 at the Drubner Center on the Post University campus. "We were meant to move. We were meant to run. It's the easiest sport."

Rodgers delivered that message to high schoolers and graybeards Thursday night, and does so numerous times throughout the year across the country. He spoke of his humble beginnings as a member of the first cross country team at Newington High School. He recalled joining the team simply because his older brother, Charlie, and a friend did.

Rodgers had done the traditional baseball, basketball, football thing, but found his niche in running. Despite all his titles and the worldwide acclaim his ability gave him, Rodgers said the grass roots portion of his career is the part he recalls most fondly.

When he vaulted onto the international running scene, the sport was undergoing a boom, as it seems to do once every decade or so. He made his name long before the world's best runners were paid to simply show up at a race. Rodgers got nothing but a medal and beef stew for winning in Boston. He said he lived "in poverty" for a good portion of his competitive career, but the love of the sport kept him going even if it didn't pay the rent.

He can capitalize on it now, extolling the virtues of a sport that doesn't discriminate against its participants. Big, small, heavy thin, doesn't matter. Anybody can run. All it takes is commitment and a bit of instruction.

"People don't have coaches when they're starting out and they really need somebody to show them the right way," said the 57-year-old Rodgers, who still pounds out 50-60 miles every week. "They need to know that they don't have to kill themselves doing a ton of miles or going fast. It's just the repetition of getting out there.

"You go out and do it, then you get faster and it gets easier. There's not a lot to it. People just need a strategy."

Rodgers had one that made him the best distance runner in the world. Now his mission is to educate people to make them the best distance runner on their blocks. The same way he started.