Thanksgiving Day, 1967, Riis Park – Chicago, Illinois
It’s a cold, wet day. Rain is falling, and freezing on grass blades and the hairs of your arm, and you're wishing you were home, waiting for that delicious turkey to come out of the oven. Standing there in the rain, in a line abreast of 40 or 50 other nut cases, you wonder how you got yourself into this mess. In short order that guy in the raincoat with a clipboard in his hand is going to fire a silly little blank pistol into the air, and you’re going to dash off madly across this huge puddle, up a steep embankment, and run around this stupid park for three and a half miles.
You haven’t run in competition for seven years, and then it was just the hundred-yard dash. No distance. You’re out of shape, and you smoke for God’s sake, and your girl is sitting over there in the car, no doubt agreeing that you are out of your macho mind. Thank God, Jim Weldon is there too. He’s in better shape than you are, and that way you can drop out after a lap or so without looking like a complete fink. They'll still have the five necessary to finish a team. There’s Vince Wall, Tom Blake, Chuck Krause, and Jim Kinnehan, besides Jim and yourself. Of course, Weldon has on a pair of rather nice dress slacks and his shoes are dress Oxfords, but then he’s as crazy as the rest of you.
This is all Vince’s fault, of course. You have a dark suspicion that he planned it this way right from the start. Come on down to Riis park, he said. We’re running in the Central AAU Cross-Country Championships. Cheer us on. Yeah. Right. When you get there, he spots you sitting in the car (you’d have to be out of your mind to stand outside on a day like this), and hustles over to your window. We could take third-place in team competition! All we have to do is finish five guys! You and Weldon come on and run! Are you nuts? I’ve never run more than a quarter-mile in my life! Jim’s not a runner at all! Aw, c’mon - you can do it! So reluctantly, you go with him. You don’t have running shoes, or outfit. Heavy jeans for clothes. Ordinary street shoes. Will you be OK here, Jackie? Sure, don’t worry.
On your mark! Whoops! Time to stop wool-gathering. Bang! What? Weldon is turning around and heading for the car! Damn! Double-Damn! Now you have to finish the race! Damn, again! How could he do that to me? No time to argue – gotta get moving. Up the hill. Not so bad, the first time, but then there's a long flat stretch of grass. Starting to feel it now. Damn. Not even halfway around the first lap. This isn’t good. Dance across some rocks, along a little gully, back down the slope to the track. Already been lapped by the leaders. Starting to hurt now. Want to quit, but honor-bound to keep going. Can’t let the guys down. Back up that hill. On the flat. Passed now by my buddies. They give encouraging words, and promise to help after they finish, but by now you're concentrating on your pain. You don’t register much else.
Over the rocks, down the gully, back to the track. Starting to stagger . My buddies have almost finished. Embarrassing to be lapped twice in the same lap. Once more up the hill . At the back of the pack now, dead last and all alone out there. Hear a pounding behind you. Up runs Tom Blake; little guy, lots of guts. He’s already finished his race. How’s it going? Come on, Gary; you can do it. You wish you were as confident. Runs (slow jogs?) with you for a full lap. Then Jim Kinnehan, of all people, shows up. His tactics are completely different. No encouraging and kind words here. Instead, he insults you. He curses you, he reviles you and yours. He makes you mad. All the while running backwards ahead of you. You’re so mad that for a little while you forget your pain in the need to get your hands on him, to show him you’re made of sterner stuff.
On the last lap now. One more time around, then you can stop. God, that embankment gets steeper and taller with every time around. Just barely make it up, only slipping a bit. Kinnehan still in front of you, taunting, ever just out of reach. You know now of course, what method there is in his madness, but now it doesn’t matter either way. You know you'll make it, if only because that’s the way back to the car.
Down that last slope to the track and the finish line. There’s the starter. You don’t wonder at the time of course why he’s stayed out there all this time, when everyone else has been finished for 20-30 minutes. You find out later that Vince and Chuck did everything but hold a gun to his head to persuade him to stay until you finish. You summon up all the strength and will you have left. Gotta come in with class. Kinnehan has left you, to wait at the finish line with the rest. Ok, now for the kick. Your “kick” isn’t much, but your speed increases, and you're pounding along like you really are a runner. Oddly enough, that feels good. A great psychological boost. Finally, the finish line. You can stop.
Everything’s a blur for a while after that. You remember being inside the fieldhouse at the park, collapsed on the floor while they made the awards. Yes, you won the third-place team ribbon. Of course, only three teams entered, but nonetheless...
In one of the many bull sessions in the days following the race, somebody suggests that you all could start a track club. Huh? Well, why not? You placed third in the CAAU Cross Country Championships, didn’t you? OK, then whadda we call it? Can’t be anything conventional, like South Side Ramblers, or 79th Street Runners, or something common like that. What do we believe in? I have it! The 7 Deadly Sins! Great - the name is approved by acclamation. You doodle up a logo, with a big black number seven crossed by a Devil’s pitchfork, on a scarlet background, with “DEADLY SINS” in an arc above it, and “TRACK CLUB” in a reverse arc below. Uniforms are ordered, and received.
The club rules are simple. Each of the top seven finishing members of the seven founders (Phil Hicks and Mike Wall have by now been included) are assigned a title corresponding to one of the classic seven deadly sins, according to how they finish in the club’s Bastille Day Mile, with the top five places reserved for the original five finishers of the seminal event, the 1967 CAAU Cross-Country Championships. The winner, of course receives the most coveted title of “Lust”. You have a permanent lock on “Pride”, the fifth sin, since you’re always in last place in any distance run.
The club is active for only a couple of years, with the glory days being the summer of 1968. During that summer, dual meets are held with some regularity against the University of Chicago Track Club, whose coach took a fancy to the 7DSTC’s approach to the sport: Instead of water and Gator-Ade, a cooler of beer is brought to the meets. You didn’t win anything, but you had fun.
On Thanksgiving Day of 1977, one last resurrection of the old colors took place at Riis Park. We ran again in the CAAU Cross-Country Championships. It was the last time the Red and Black appeared in competition.
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