The Little Meet That Could
We arrived in Syracuse Tuesday, March 9, 1993 never dreaming we were about to embark on a journey that would take us to Providence, RI, Albany, NY, New York City, airports all over the Midwest, the New York State Thruway and many cities throughout the United States. The aforementioned "we" refers to Jim Spier and myself. We were the advance team sent by Meet Director Tracy Sundlun to help prepare for the forthcoming National Scholastic Classic, the forerunner to today's Nike Indoor Nationals. Our job was to make sure the indoor track within the Carrier Dome was clean and all concerned were prepared for the coming of about 1800 athletes from somewhere in the neighborhood of 46-47 states. We checked everything and were assured all was in readiness.
Next, we went to a local computer store where we bartered advertising space for some equipment. That went well. By Thursday Spier and I relaxed although he kept me busy working on recruiting athletes. In those days, we had no deadlines. We were like the "Energizer Bunny", we kept going and going and… Spier and I expected success, the idea that we would lose a kid was not only abhorrent but unthinkable. But, even for us time ran out. Spier wanted another, "One more call," but I'd had it and so we stopped.
Friday the kids began arriving. For me this was the best part of the meet. Seeing athletes, coaches and/or parents I had only spoken to on the phone was a great experience. About 1:45pm Larry Byrne, one of our sports superb statisticians and keeper of the records for the meet, came up to me and asked, "Have you looked out the window?" I replied I had not. He said, "You'd better." All I could see was a white sheet. I continued checking but all I saw was that same white sheet.
The STORM OF THE CENTURY was upon us.
It started March 10 or so in Florida and gradually moved north. In places, winds were upward of 100mph. As it worked its way, north the rain turned to snow and the storm grew in intensity. It was huge. In Syracuse, snow was falling at the rate of 2-3" per hour. It fell steadily for 23.5 hours. For the first time in history, EVERY airport on the East Coast was closed! Dozens more throughout the Midwest either were closed or couldn't send passengers forward. There was simply no place to send them.
Syracuse is located in the middle of New York's snow belt. It's one of the best-prepared cities in the US for snow removal. They EXPECT big snowfalls. They were over- whelmed. For one of the few times in its history, the Syracuse airport was shut down. For the ONLY time in history, classes at the University were cancelled. The city was paralyzed. Nothing moved. 43" of snow had fallen in less than 24 hours! There were drifts 10-12' high. Of course, the meet had to be cancelled. Or did it?
Enter Tracy Sundlun.
He'd arrived as the storm was getting into New York State, driving up from Manhattan. He'd been working 18-20 hour days getting the paperwork for the meet finished, being sure the shirts were loaded into the truck (every athlete wore a shirt representative of his/her state), were the shots on board, record applications, hundreds of details that by themselves were unimportant but…if one was missing the meet was in trouble. He promptly went upstairs to take a well-deserved nap. It was a reasonable thing to do. There was no prediction as to the intensity of the storm and snow in Syracuse is as common as sour notes in country music. No one expected what was to come. The Chancellor's secretary, Gretchen Goldstein said, "No one had any idea. I came to work in a wool skirt and high heels. I had to put plastic bags around my feet and the snow still came over the top." The work crew unloaded the truck at the Carrier Dome.
When Sundlun awoke the enormity of what we were experiencing had begun to sink in. Efforts to drive to the Carrier Dome were in vain. All the streets were closed. A word about the Carrier Dome; it is a very big tent. A VERY big tent. It's held up by a constant flow of air pumped into its interior. It seats over 50,000, 16,000 for basketball and has an eight-lane track as well. Since earlier in the week our work crew had been putting up banners, bunting was everywhere, state flags, advertisements, etc. Rakes were in place, the timing set up, finish line banners at the ready, etc. The only thing missing were the athletes. They couldn't get out of the hotel.
The phone never stopped ringing. Coaches, athletes, parents were calling from everywhere. Stranded in Chicago. Stranded in Boston. Stranded in Detroit. Stranded in Dallas. Stranded in Cleveland. "Have to turn back, sorry," was a constant theme. Only one athlete prevailed, Texas high jumper Amy Acuff. Stranded in Cleveland, Acuff overheard a couple with a young child saying they were renting a car and heading east. She bummed a ride. When they let her out, she bummed another ride. We kept getting calls, "Don't start the meet, I'm on my way." Someone got a map and with every call, a new pin went up tracing her trip. Would she make it? Probably not. But…
The Mayor officially closed down the city. Nothing was moving. The Chancellor of the University, Dr. Kenneth Shaw did the same for the school. Now there was no doubt, the meet would have to be cancelled. Both Spier and I looked sagely at each other and nodded sadly, no meet. NOT SUNDLUN.
Let me tell you something about this man, Tracy Sundlun. He is smart and tenacious. When all others say "NO" he says "Wait a minute, let's go over this." That's what he said now. He immediately placed a call to his Dad, the Honorable Bruce Sundlun, Governor of Rhode Island and asked him to call his friend, the Honorable Mario Cuomo, the Governor of New York. I imagine the conversation went something like this, "Hi Mario, this is Bruce up in Providence. I need a small favor. Will you please call out the National Guard and have them dig out the street to the Carrier Dome in Syracuse and while they're at it dig out the parking lots at both the Dome and that other gym with a track, Manley Field house, OK? Thanks." "Sure thing Bruce, I'll get on it right away." That's how Governor's talk.
Next morning, Friday, the National Guard arrived and began digging. Suddenly the picture looked brighter. We had a chance.
Chancellor Shaw still had to give permission to reopen the school and he was in New York City and had left no number where he could be reached. Tracy tuned to me and said, "Byrnesy, find him."
FIND HIM??!! What, are you crazy?? HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO FIND SOMEONE IN NEW YORK CITY WITH NO ADDRESS NOR PHONE NUMBER???? I had done several impossible tasks for Tracy in prior years but this one not even I could handle. I handled it.
How? Watch basketball. It was Saturday and I knew Syracuse was playing in the Big East tournament. Shaw was bound to be there. I turned on the game. Andy Roberts, an Asst Coach at Syracuse who was sitting with me cried out, "That's him!! Right behind the bench."
I rushed to a phone, called information, got the number for Madison Square Garden, called there and got Security. The situation was explained to a cooperative Security Manager and a guard was sent to retrieve Dr. Shaw. Problem solved!! NO!
The game ended while the guard was on his way to get the good Doctor and he disappeared into the crowd, irretrievably lost. So near and yet…
I slumped into a chair. Defeated. Angry. I don't like to fail. Then, a break! The phone rang, "It's for you Mike," someone called. I picked it up. A voice (to this day I have no idea who it was) said, "If anyone finds out I made this call, I'll lose my job. The number where you can contact Chancellor Shaw is…" and they gave me a number. Click. Bzzz.
I sat stunned. Who could that have been? No matter. I placed the call. Jim and Tracy hovered nearby. A woman answered. "May I please speak to Chancellor Shaw?" Long silence. I explained why it was so urgent. "We have 1200 youngsters from all over the US waiting to compete in a track meet in the Carrier Dome and the only person who can give us permission to do so is Chancellor Shaw." Another lengthy silence. Then, "I'll tell him when he gets back." Gets back??!! Where did he go? To the movies. I didn't believe it. The movies??!! How could he go to the…movies?
We'd set a deadline for making a final decision, 11pm. It was now 8:42pm. We sat. We twitched. We watched the clock. How long was the movie? Would he go out to eat after the show? We sat and twitched.
11:00pm came, no call. 11:15, no call. Now coaches, aware of our deadline began calling. They needed an answer. Was there going to be a meet? We stalled. 11:23, the phone rang. I picked it up. "The is Dr. Shaw, to whom am I speaking?" Breathless, I handed the phone to Sundlun. Minutes passed. Did we have a medical staff? Did we have security? Suddenly we heard the words, "Thank you Dr. Shaw, I'm sure things will go well. Thank you again." We were IN!!! The meet could go on.
Then, believe it or not, the Dome collapsed! Despite hot air being pumped into the space between the two layers holding the Dome up, the snow accumulated so quickly it couldn't melt fast enough and approximately 2000 tons of snow fell onto the Dome floor. There was NO possibility of our having a meet in the Dome.
"No problem" enthused Sundlun. "We'll have it in the auxiliary gym, Manley Field house. It has a fast 200m track."
A crew of volunteers began transferring all they could from the Dome to Manley. They worked all night long. Everything important was moved.
One more small problem, Manley had neither heat nor electricity. Without those two minor items, no meet. BUT, Manley had its own generator. The head of the Maintenance Department was called in, the generator was frozen. His crew worked on it. Finally, he turned to Sundlun, "We can try it. It will either work or blow up, what do you want me to do?" You know the answer. We had light, heat and a meet!
(While we were doing our work what were the kids doing? Sitting snowbound in a hotel is not good. Fortunately, we had some terrific help, our high school coaches. One, a young woman from a prep school in New Jersey, whose name I simply can not recall, organized a Scavenger Hunt. That kept a lot of kids busy for almost a full day. Other coaches did similar things. Thus, we had no trouble.
What about food? Sundlun, always thinking, somehow managed to obtain 40-50 pounds of spaghetti and we treated the kids, coaches and parents to a huge pasta dinner.)
This is where the story should end. However, there's one more thing. ACUFF FINALLY MADE IT! Late Sunday afternoon she walked into Meet Headquarters. Now she was competing. She was higher on adrenaline than the Goodyear blimp on helium. She was soaring over the bar. Lisa Bernhagen's hsr of 6-4 was in serious danger. At 5-10 3/4, the slim Texan was over by a good 6-8 inches. Then, the fire alarm went off!! No kidding! We had a possible fire. 1200 kids in their underwear would have to evacuate the building. The Fire Chief was adamant, "They have to go outside. It's the law." Outside, into the 8-degree temperature they went.
The Chief had to search the entire building to look for a possible fire. It would take almost an hour. I begged and pleaded, he sadly shook his head. Sorry, it's the law. Suddenly two high school coaches came up to us. "We saw what happened," one said. "A guys coat got caught on the fire alarm door and when he walked away it pulled the handle and the alarm went off." The chief, to his everlasting credit, pondered a few moments and then said, "Let 'em back in." We finished the meet without further incident.
Was all this effort worth it? I'll let you be the judge. In almost every event, the #1 athlete in the US was present. Future Olympians and NCAA champions like Monique Hennagan, LaTasha Colander, Acuff, Jerome Young, Kevin Eastler, the ill-fated Robert Howard, Andrea Anderson, Karen Godlock, Aspen Burkett, Dominque Calloway, Tony Wheeler, Tameika Grizzle, Natalie Belfort (Canada), Myra Combs, Collinus Newsome, Yvonne Harrison, Karl Paranya, Robert Keino (Kenya), Darius Pemberton and two guys who became pretty good football players, Ronde and Tiki Barber all got a chance to shine. There were 24 #1-US performances, at least 8 meet records and 1 national record, Tony Wheeler's 21.29 in the 200m. In addition, about 1200 kids got to take part in one of the most memorable high school meets of all-time.
THE LITTLE MEET THAT COULD - DID!
(Ed. Note: The storm was responsible for over 200 deaths and $300,000,000 - 500,000,000 worth of damage. Over 3,000,000 lost power, in some places it took over two weeks to restore. Serious damage ranged from Florida up into Canada. There hasn't been a storm to approach this since 1993.)
