Laurel's Laurels

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of the first US Olympic Women's Marathon Trials, a reposting of this tribute to Laurel James, who conceived of and saw to fruition this historic event.

by Mark Cullen

Dubbed the “Godmother of Green Lake” by Seattle columnist Emmett Watson, Laurel James opened her legendary running store, Super Jock ‘n Jill, the day after Thanksgiving in 1975.

   

James was the single mother of five boys when she decided that the real estate and insurance licenses she held did not represent her future. “It wasn’t working at all,” said James. “This was the era of ‘Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights.’ ”

When her two oldest sons, Brent and Chet, went to college, her son Bryce came home one day in 1974 and asked if he could invite his new coach over for dinner.

Pat Tyson stayed for six years.

Tyson was the inspiration for James’ involvement with running, and he introduced her to his famous Oregon teammate and college roommate Steve Prefontaine. “Meeting Pre was like putting frosting on the cake,” she said. “I thought he was great and my Mom thought he was great, too.”

At 40, James had $10,000 and a dream. Stand-alone running stores were a novelty then; they were few and, quite literally, far between. But the running bug had bitten James.

“One reason I started Super Jock ‘n Jill was none of the sporting goods stores had a selection of good running shoes. All I had was a pair of Keds, and even track spikes were dated then.”

James opened “SJ+J” in a converted gas station near Seattle’s Green Lake where, ironically, Road Runner Sports now operates. This location, however, was her second choice. All along she had her eye on the Masonic Temple building where the store operates to this day, and after a two-and-a-half year wait, she occupied her dream location.

The fledgling business was a family enterprise, and all five sons helped clean years of dust out of the first facility. Chet is now the owner of Super Jock ‘n Jill and Brent - one of Nike’s early employees – has had a very successful career in shoe design. Allen was a ’92 and ’96 race walking Olympian. Says Chet, “My Mom gave birth to this; I adopted it.”

The store and the James home hosted prominent guests: Grete Waitz, Fred Lebow, Olympic and World champion Ernesto Canto and the Mexican race walking team, and none other than Arthur Lydiard.

The name of the store grew out of a trade show James attended in Phoenix. A friend had suggested The Jock Shop in honor of her energetic brood, but James flew home knowing that wasn’t quite right. “I came off the plane with Super Jock and four days later added Jill.”

This name generated threats of a lawsuit from the Jockey underwear company. Said James to their lawyer, “What makes you think you can take on a woman with five kids? What kind of press are you going to get out of that?”

Geography played a key role in the success of her enterprise. Green Lake became the go-to destination for Seattle’s running community as the 1970s running boom took off. James vowed that she would not start in a mall. “I don’t want looky-loos,” she recalled saying to herself. “I want clientele.”

Quick to recognize the opportunity, James organized timed runs around the lake, and an enterprising Seattle podiatrist, Bill Warnekros, sponsored Thursday evening clinics which drew grateful gimpy runners to the store for free advice.

Key to James’ success was her resourcefulness. “I remember one day a truck pulled up and they offloaded something like 577 pairs of Nikes – with a bill for $30,000. I didn’t have $30,000 and after three days, I called Nike’s credit manager, who really didn’t want me to have my own store. But their local rep, Al Miller, had faith that I’d make it.”

It was James’ irrefutable logic that carried the day. “I told the credit manager that he didn’t want these back, and that I didn’t want to pay a 15% surcharge if I did return them. I promised I’d send him a check every Friday.” In three months the bill was paid – and the shoes were sold. “It was 1979,” said James, “and it was one of the times we were hanging by a thread.”

Super Jock ‘n Jill was the first sponsor of the Seattle Marathon, and sponsorship made for some strange bedfellows in the early days. One underwriter of the Red Brick Road Half-Marathon was the lamb industry. “The night before the race we had a whole gang of people in my house making lamb sandwiches that we gave to the vendors the next day!”

It was James who conceived of the Olympia, WA, bid for the 1984 US Women’s Olympic Trials Marathon, and a point of pride for James is the trailblazing support she and her store gave women distance runners and running.

Olympia was up against heavyweights: New York (Fred Lebow and the New York Road Runners Club), Buffalo (which had already been awarded the US men’s marathon trials), Los Angeles (which had ‘84’s biggest meet of all), and Kansas City. Olympia pulled out all the stops, including having US Senator Slade Gorton narrate the presentation in person.

Olympia’s win is considered one of the most colossal upsets in bid history. No surprise, given the determined driving force behind it.

James, who in August turned twice the age of the store, views Super Jock ‘n Jill as a neighborhood store – with a very expansive neighborhood.

The store’s success has always been about the personal relationships it generates. In its early days it was “a great hangout place,” said James, a place where lifelong friendships were formed. “There was no other place to go to find this sense of a running community.”

For 40 years, a store forged from family has given Seattle’s running community its home.

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Editor's notes:

I shopped at Super Jock 'n' Jill the day it opened in 1975. The previous summer Pat Tyson had introduced me to Laurel James in Eugene. She told me of her dream and I promised I'd support it. Laurel and I remain friends to this day. In fact, a year ago, when Super Jock 'n' Jill opened their Redmond store a year ago, Chet made sure I was the very first customer.

A version of this story appeared in the November/December issue of Northwest Runner. Special thanks to publisher Frank Field for his gracious introduction in the magazine. 

First published on 11/26/2015

                        Super Jock 'n' Jill Founder Laurel James (l) and two-time 

                            marathon world record-setter, Jacqueline Hansen.

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Sixty's Seventieth: Parry O'Brien

Seventy years ago - May 8, 1954 - Parry O’Brien, one of the greatest male shot putters in history, broke the 60’ barrier. If ever he made a mistake, it was shattering 60’ two days after Roger Bannister ran the first sub-4:00 minute mile. While the world was understandably focused on Bannister, O’Brien did little to call attention to his own momentous achievement.

Parry O'Brien
photo credit: USC Trojans.com

Certainly, breaking the 4:00 barrier was to confer legendary status on the athlete first to accomplish it. Roger Bannister, who had a relatively brief career, is rightly accorded that status for his singular achievement. But while Bannister held his world record for 46 days, O’Brien held the shot put world record for over 1,400 more.

O’Brien set world records a staggering 17 times. Interestingly, the IAAF ratified only 10 of these. When O’Brien set multiple world records in the same meet - the most famous of these when he broke the WR three times on June 11, 1954 - IAAF ratified only his best world record of the day.

Olympic gold medalist in ‘52 and ‘56, O’Brien won silver in ‘60 and finished 4th in ’64. He improved the shot put world record by over four feet, from 59’ ¾” to 63’4”, a remarkable record rewrite of 7.23%. His personal best of 64’ 7 ¼” came when he was 34; the world record had by then been claimed by Randy Matson.

During his peak, O’Brien won 116 meets in a row, one of the greatest winning streaks in track and field history. O’Brien earned the highest accolade an American amateur athlete can win when he was recognized with the 1959 Sullivan Award. Perhaps the greatest appreciation of all came when his 1964 Olympic teammates elected him flag bearer for Opening Ceremonies in Tokyo.

Most of all, O’Brien was one of the very few athletes to permanently alter his event. He pioneered “The Glide” and was the first shot putter in history to make use of the entire ring. In a 1955 Sports Illustrated article, Herman Hickman called O’Brien’s Glide “completely revolutionary.”

I met O’Brien at the Legends of Gold Banquet, held in conjunction with the 10^th World Athletics Championships in Edmonton, Alberta, in 2001.

As I sat down at my table, I was thrilled to see a placard with his name on it. I was considerably less thrilled when, moments later, someone plucked it off our table and moved it to an adjacent one. In a hall filled with 26 of the most notable track and field gold medalists, ours was, sadly, a table without a legend.

Each legend was given a rousing introduction by the emcee, Canadian television broadcaster, Brian Williams. When he introduced Dick Fosbury, he said that Fosbury held the singular distinction of being the only athlete in the room to have transformed an event.

After dinner I went downstairs and stood in long lines to have my moment with at least a few of these legends.

O’Brien sat leaning forward at his table; it gave him a hunched effect: shoulders forward, head down.

O’Brien struck me as a shy man of great depth.

Humble, certainly.

We exchanged greetings, and as he signed my program, I said, “Mr. O’Brien, many of us cringed tonight when the announcer said that there was one person in the building who transformed an event. Everyone knows there are two."

I had not anticipated how deeply this would touch him; I think I had given voice to what he thought but could not say.

With great emphasis, he said, “Thank you.”

He looked down quickly and then up again.

“Thank you.”

He was trying to tell me something important.

“Thank you very much.”

Parry O’Brien, an athlete dedicated to his fitness for his entire life, passed away eight years later at 75 while competing in a masters swimming event in his native California.

*Note: This article was first published on May 7, 2014, under the title Sixty's Sixtieth.
I'm as surprised as anyone that ten years have passed.