Forty Years After a Dream Mile, a Harsh Reality for Track
Published: May 15, 2011
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Forty years on, it’s hard to imagine the average American giving a second thought to any track rivalry, never mind debating it on sports radio. That is probably why the move by Millrose, uptown and perhaps into obscurity, has been met with barely a shrug. It deserves better.
The event — part elite competition, part relay carnival for collegians, cops and high school students — has been a staple of the New York winter sports scene for generations. It derived much of its appeal from its location, the Garden. Its tight, steeply banked 180-yard board track was stingy with fast times, but that was part of the charm. It was not unusual for an uninitiated quarter-miler — from Arizona, say, or Southern California or some other place disadvantaged by perpetual sunshine — to hit the first turn and suddenly find himself slingshot to Lane 4, next stop Row 1, while Jaspers and Johnnies and Rams hugged the curve as if on a protractor, hunching, leaning, inside arms pumping cross-body. Welcome to the boards, amigo.
The meet’s new home, the expansive New Balance Track and Field Center at the armory, is an impressive facility, transformed utterly from the wooden splinterfest New Yorkers competed on for years in chaotic handicap races that went on so late that the streets were empty of everything but sanitation trucks.
But just as I wouldn’t condemn the armory to its coarse past, fascinating though it was, neither would I, if I could, consign Millrose to join its glistening future. Maybe, as the organizers suggest, 4,000 spectators jammed into the armory is better than 9,000 in a half-empty Garden. Maybe they will raise the money to attract the world’s elite — the caliber of runner, jumper, thrower and vaulter who graced the Garden year after year. But even so, it’s hard to see track and field as anything but diminished without a Millrose Games at 33rd and Seventh. Too bad that, unlike Liquori in those excruciating final yards, they couldn’t dig deep enough to hang on.