Now here’s a column title I never thought I’d use. The words still leave a Very Bad taste in my mouth. One of the biggest precipitators to my falling out with a local group was constant accusations of “gravy training”, my supposed recruitment of athletes for TNB through that social/running media outlet. There were those that seriously thought Team Nebraska couldn’t exist/wouldn’t last without them or their suggestions on how to run it.
What’s this got to do with today’s column?
Most of you will recall my references to the Baytown “Bud” Heatwave 5 Miler. Held for 20+ years on the 4th of July in Baytown, Texas, it was one of the most competitive and well attended races of the Houston summers. A very small group of us calling ourselves the “Baytown Easy Striders” administered the event. Joel & Annie Moyer, Pete Cote, Ralph & Mary Fanello, and I hosted 1000+ runners to hot racing and cold beer at the Summer Classic in Houston. We last contested the event in 1999.
Received a call from Joel last night that the event had been revived. I was pretty excited and ready to reprise my role as Elite Athlete Coordinator. I started a mental list of athletes I would invite and then got the news that the race had been recussitated by a different group. Which isn’t such a bad thing until you consider that they supplanted our course, logos, artwork, and 21 year history of the event as their own. That sucks.
This is the exact logo that we used in 1999 for the final edition of Houston’s most popular summer race. The logo was actually produced by Allison Leeper of Omaha. It has been “reprised” without permission for this year’s race. Do I sound a little grumbly about this?
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