Dacks and Toga Active Life August Issue For Web

When I was young, I could run
like the wind. I’m not kidding. I
was fast—the fastest kid in my
Elementary and Junior High School
gym classes. I was the fastest boy in
my group growing up in the Marlboro
Projects in Brooklyn (of French Connection
Movie fame) and the fastest boy
in my summer camp that my parents
saved for all year so our family could
spend a summer in the Catskills.
That said, there was no doubt that
when I went to High School, I’d try out
for the track team. Why not? I was the
famous “6-G” (a nickname my friends
gave me—it was my apartment number).
I’d surely be the fastest kid on the
team. What I did not know was that
Lafayette HS was known for its athletes.
It boasted a long list of famous
athlete alumni including: Sandy Koufax,
Bob and Ken Aspromonte, Pete
Falcone, John Franco, and Fred Wilpon.
I had only heard of Sandy Koufax
from that group when I entered
the school, which drew athletes from
that Italian part of Brooklyn (Bensonhurst)
and Jewish and black athletes
from the projects that were a short distance
away. I quickly found out at the
tryouts that I’d have to work hard to
distinguish myself on a team with so
many fast runners.
Growing up I was the only one in my
family who was athletic so I got little
Mission
Accomplished
A Teenager’s Quest For
Running Gear
Getting outfitted for the track team was a challenge in itself for this
determined high school student in the early 1970’s.
By Jody Katz
support when I needed a new glove, a
basketball or football, or when I needed
gear for the Lafayette HS Track Team.
After days of constant pleading and
arguing with my parents, they finally
agreed to give me $100 for all the track
gear I needed, even though that amount
was almost a month and a half’s rent
for our 3-bedroom apartment. I was
warned to use the money wisely since
there would be no more coming.
After days of constant pleading and arguing
with my parents, they finally agreed to give me
$100 for all the track gear I needed.
12 | DACKS & TOGA activelife
So here I was with this mission—buy
running gear and not overspend. I
made a list that included: a duffle bag,
trainers, running spikes, and a set of
team sweats. First off the list was the
sweats: two-pieces, bright red with
white graphics emblazoned with a running
foot with wings that looked suspiciously
like the Goodyear Tire logo.
They cost $15.00 through the coach.
Next was the duffle bag. It could not
be any bag; it had to be an adidas bag.
The running world in the late 1960’s
an early 1970’s was adidas and basically
no one else. Just about everyone
on the team had that huge, beautiful,
white adidas duffle bag, but there
was only one place locally I could get
it-- Thom McCann shoe stores. It was
expensive too—$20—but I had to have
it. So I went there for my first piece of
“luggage”. There were no Dick’s stores,
no running shoe stores, and Modells
and Herman’s (the only sporting good
stores I knew of when growing up) were
either in downtown Brooklyn, Manhattan,
or Long island—all places a naïve,
boy from Brooklyn was not allowed to
go to, at least not by himself.
Next to be purchased were running
shoes. Thom McCann only had one
pair of running shoes—a blue suede
shoe with a gray sponge like rubber
sole called “Teppa Sport”. The store rep
claimed they were great shoes, would
last a long time, and he pitched the allure
of them being made in Italy, which
was attractive to me even though I did
not know of any famous Italian runners,
but they did make fiendishly fast
cars. They too were $20.00.
Next up were the “game changers”—
the track spikes. Virtually all
the tracks we were going to race on
were outdoors and that meant tarmac,
cinder, and dirt. A racing shoe and
two sets of different height removable
spikes were mandatory. No local store
in Brooklyn (that I was allowed to walk
Virtually all the tracks we were going to race
on were outdoors and that meant tarmac, cinder,
and dirt. A racing shoe and two sets of different
height removable spikes were mandatory.
to) sold such race specific running
gear. I heard from teammates about
an adidas factory outlet in downtown
Manhattan. I had never been to Manhattan
by myself and that was understandable—I
was only 15.
To my surprise, my mother gave me
directions on how to get to the outlet
even though everyone in my family
knew I was awful with directions and
navigationally challenged. My first
thoughts were that she was insane to
let me go on this “trip” and that by
sending me there alone she was hoping
to “thin the herd” and reduce the
kid count to two. But, I still needed
the spikes—we had a race in three
days. So, the next day, after school, I
took the subway to some now forgotten
stop, transferred to a train line
I can’t remember, and ended up at
what I thought was the correct train
station in NYC. After going upstairs
I realized I had no clue where I was
and also realized I had forgotten the
address that I had carefully written
on a piece of paper. Was it East
14th Street or West 14th Street? Was
It 17th instead of 14th? What was
the store number? Too many questions
for a kid who could get lost if
you spun him around in his own
bedroom. So I came up with a plan
and walked up two blocks in one direction
looking at all the stores. No
adidas outlet. I tried the same for the
opposite direction, again with no outlet
found. I tried the remaining two
directions, and no street level store
had anything with the adidas name.
In fact I saw no shoe or sneaker
stores at all. It was now late and even
though I was in Manhattan it might
as well have been France. I was that
confused and no closer to finding the
outlet than I was an hour earlier. So
I went down to the subway station
and asked directions back home and
got there with nothing but a wasted
afternoon and a pounding headache
to show for my effort. The next day I
asked a friend of mine if he wanted to
accompany me to NYC to buy track
spikes and he said yes. Good for me
since I thought even if we got lost, at
least I would not be alone.
We arrived at the same station,
around the same exact time, and I had
a growing fear of a repeat performance
of the previous day. But Jeff brought
one thing to the table—the idea of
looking up. We walked halfway up
the first block that I walked the previous
day and sure enough, the adidas
outlet was on the second floor of this
old row of connected buildings. There
were huge, full-sized window posters
of adidas shoes, runners at the Olympics,
and the glorious adidas logo. It
was an adidas mecca and I could not
wait to go upstairs. But something was
I told him that I needed running spikes for a
race in a few days and to my amazement he came
down and opened up the outlet just for me.
wrong, the door would not open and I
then saw the sign with the store hours.
The store had just closed. I panicked
and could not think what to do but to
head back home. I then heard a faint
voice from above saying, “Hey, can I
help you?” Though far from religious,
I assumed the voice was an inner voice
and that the “man upstairs” was talking
to me to help me right my wrongs
and become a better person. Jeff, however,
responded differently and turned
me around to show me that there was
a man upstairs talking, and he was
standing behind an open window asking
us what we wanted. I told him that
I needed running spikes for a race in
a few days and to my amazement he
came down and opened up the outlet
just for me. 20 minutes later I walked
out grinning like a cat that just ate
a canary and holding a bag with my
brand new pair of adidas Meteor running
spikes. They were the coolest,
raciest shoes I’d ever owned. Cross another
$25.00 off the total.
The next day I tried my training
Teppas at track practice and learned
quickly that the experience did not
match the sales pitch. The Teppas
were no more comfortable than running
on pieces of steel strapped to my
feet: they gave me world-class blisters
but not world-class speed. After
three days of running, the soles did
not break in and if possible became
harder. My feet were in such pain with
blisters that were protected by double
layers of bandages. I spoke with the
coach about it after he saw me limping
(which wasn’t hard to miss), and
he told me that he had just put in an
order for multiple pairs of Onitsuka Tiger
training shoes and they would be
in in a week or so. If you’ve never seen
Tigers, they were the shoes made famous
by Bruce Lee. When they came
in I was amazed—they were incredibly
light, super comfortable and great for
indoor races like the Armory in NYC.
They cost $18.00.
So, with train fare I came in about
20 cents under the $100 budget and
learned a few things. Italy—great for
food and fast cars, not so good for running
shoes. Always remember to look
up. And, just because you are the fastest
guy in several groups (with people
of mixed skill levels) does not mean
you will be the fastest guy on a team.
So, always work harder.
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