THE PENN RELAYS: Celebrating 100 years of memories

It is much more than a track meet. It is a social gathering. It's a happening. It's an occurrence. Once you become involved in it, and once you're directly involved in participating in it, you need to be involved in it every year. Without the Penn Relays in my life, a whole section of my life would be absent. It's hard to describe. It's addicting. There are so many meaningful things that happen -- from little kids running to old fellows coming, to young new studs coming along, to dropping the baton and kids rushing back and picking it up, to kids crying when they win and kids crying when they lose, coaches yelling when they win, coaches yelling when they lose. So many aspects. The whole microcosm of sports is put into the Penn Relays, and no matter what you've seen in any other sports, you can find that aspect in the Penn Relays. -- Bob Burdette, secondary school chairman Dr. Tim Baker was never an athlete in the Penn Relays. He was the fourth shot putter on the Springfield High School team, with only three shot putters going to the meets. He practiced every day, and was devoted to the sport, but he admits he was "totally uncoordinated." Somebody had to be sick for him to compete in a meet. Now Baker, director of the Penn Relays, can boast two things no other track and field coordinator can challenge: the Penn Relay Carnival is the oldest, and it is the largest. Proudly, he says, it has not lost the purity of competition on which it was founded. Tomorrow through Sunday, more than 13,000 athletes will take to the track of historic Franklin Field and have their own special memories to cherish for a lifetime. It will be the 100th running of the Relays, and the spectators, many former participants themselves, will be pumped. "It's very difficult for me to talk about the Penn Relays without feeling the emotion of it," Baker says. "I've been involved in the Penn Relays since 1960-61, and it's still magical. Every year it's magical." What differentiates the Penn Relays is the emotion. While sports have changed, and fans cheer multimillionaire athletes elsewhere, the Penn Relays has remained with its original luster and charm and innocence, as if to mock its venerable age. A race between two high school athletes, if close down the home stretch, will generate a roar from the 60,00-plus onlookers expected, just as the Championship of America. Many of the fans in attendance ran on the fabled track once, and they see themselves in the competitors. That's the beauty. Spectators are not passive observers here -- they are a part of the history. "I see young kids that are struggling. I see young kids that are pushing forward. I think to myself, 'I was like that.' I remember that," says Bob Burdette, a former competitor who is now secondary school chairman. "I find athletes and I say, 'That's me.' I'm going to root for that kid. You do identify." Burdette's first Penn Relays was special. He says the Relays became more special three or four years later, at ages 14 and 15, when on Penn Relays weekend, on Saturday, he would leave his house early in the morning and sneak a ride on a train bound for West Philadelphia. On arrival at the stadium at 33rd and Spruce, he would wait until a team would assemble to enter the Franklin Field gate, and then enter with the team without a ticket. That evening, Burdette would return home and his father, who he had a good relationship with, would say, "Where were you today?" "I was playing basketball," the teen would respond. "The guys and I were up at the school all day." Burdette knew he was lying, but he also knew he wouldn't be allowed to travel to the Relays by himself. "When I got to be 16 and was competing, I finally admitted to the fact that for two or three years I sneaked in," says Burdette. Forty-one years later, Burdette has been involved in all levels of the Relays. He competed as an athlete on junior high, high school, college and club levels, and made his officiating debut in glamorous fashion raking pits. Burdette still gets goose bumps when the crowd tunes into a race, regardless of the level of the athletes involved. The most important thing about the Relays is it gives people on all levels a chance to participate. In a sporting world in which society is increasingly looking for gladiators, says Baker, the Penn Relays offers participation and innocence. There are races for elementary school kids, perhaps some not yet old enough to tie the sneakers they run in. Yes, there are Olympians too. But it is just as much the kids' Penn Relays as it it the Olympians'. The thrill many will derive stems from the crowd. It buzzes for three straight days, and roars whenever there is competition. And it doesn't matter who is competing. "It could be two unknown high school participants from St. Somebody in East Nowhere, who if they are locked in competition in the back straight will bring the crowd to its feet," Baker says. "There is nothing more thrilling than to watch that happen, and to watch the reaction of that." The size and volume of the crowd this weekend would no doubt dwarf the first Penn Relays', which drew approximately 5,000 fans. The idea for the Penn Relays, and the sport of relay running, was born in 1893 at Penn. In an attempt to draw interest to a dwindling track program, chair Frank B. Ellis and the University Track Committee decided to stage a relay of four men running a quarter mile each. There was sufficient interest, and Princeton came on May 12 to the present Quad location at 37th and Spruce to challenge the Quakers. The Tigers won by eight yards. Penn defeated Princeton the following year and on April 12, 1895, the first Penn Relays was held at the present Franklin Field location, although all that stood at the time was a wooden bleacher on the south side. There were no locker rooms then, just tents set up around the track. The tents gave the Penn Relays an appearrance of a carnival, and in 1910, the meet officially became known as the Penn Relay Carnival. Tomorrow morning the old iron gates which seal Franklin Field will open to usher in the 100th Penn Relay Carnival. The Relays hasn't lost its magic. I think it's the greatest event in Philly. It's certainly the greatest track meet in the world -- there's no question. I think it's better than the Olympics because you don't have to be a world-class athlete to compete in this. The great thing about this is the kids who compete, all levels. You have elementary school kids and you have world-class athletes. But the magic part of the Relays to me are the high school and the colleges. All the fuss they make over the Santa Monica Track Club competing, Carl Lewis, that's not the Penn Relays. The Penn Relays is those kids running out here hour after hour, getting all excited, getting a chance to compete before 30,000 to 40,000 people. I go over to England a lot and there's an awful lot of things we get excited about here that people over there don't know the first thing about, but they all know the Penn Relays. You'd be amazed. You go to England, you go to Ireland, you go to any number of places, all far away, and people know what the Penn Relays are all about. It means something to them. It's a once-in-a-lifetime event. And for these kids who compete in it, they never forget it. -- Frank Doulsen, who attended his first Penn Relays in 1951 while a student at Penn, and is now the Philadelphia Inquirer sports editor