To hear Steve Hoag tell it, he wasn’t the most gifted runner
ever to come out of the Minnesota high school system. However, some friends and
running partners over the years may beg to differ.
“I went to Anoka High School where I was a good – maybe
better than average – but not a great runner. I was All-Conference and went to
State in cross country,” said Hoag. “I was a good, solid high school runner.”
Hoag ran at the U of M but was not on scholarship until his
sophomore year, after having proved his potential during his freshman year.
“I was a good to better-than-average collegiate runner. I
won the Big Ten two-mile my senior year, I was All-American at 10,000 meters,
placing third at Nationals, my junior year,” said Hoag. “I was captain of the
cross country team that was fourth in the NCAAs; that was the highlight of my
college career. All three of those things are highlights of my college
running.”
Roy Griak, the now-retired, long-time coach at the U of M
and previously at St. Louis Park High School, was in his first decade of
coaching at the U. “Steve was a real fine athlete. He became one of the premier
distance runners in the Conference during his tenure at the U,” said Griak. “He
was instrumental in the progress we made in our program. He was our number one
runner for cross country; and we had a very strong team.
“Steve was very coachable; he was a hard worker, and was
very interested in being the best,” said Griak. “And in the end he was the
best. Steve did not possess a lot of leg speed. What he did was set an early
pace and press the competition to the very end.”
And what he also did was make an impression on teammates
such as Jim Lundberg. “I went out for indoor track at the U. I was a walk-on.
Quite frankly I wasn’t destined to be a U of M runner because of the amount of
classwork I was doing at the time,” recalled Lundberg. “But I thought I’d give
it a try that winter.
“For my first workout I was running in the fieldhouse. Steve
Hoag was running too. We started talking. He was, at that time, one of the best
runners in the Big Ten, if not the
best runner. I was in awe,” said Lundberg. “I was surprised that he was a
down-to-earth decent guy, not arrogant; he seemed to like running like I did. I
don’t think he would remember that particular meeting but over the next few
years we got to be friends.”
When his collegiate career was over Hoag had toed the
starting line in cross country, indoor and outdoor track for a total of 92
races wearing the maroon and gold of the Golden Gophers.
“I was pretty much going to quit serious running after
college. I didn’t realize there were other opportunities out there. I knew
there was road running but that didn’t have any appeal to me,” said Hoag. “I
was actually looking forward to not running. I had just been getting tired of
the grind of four years in college. It was fun but there was also lots of
stress.
“I just wanted to get out of the U and find a job,” said
Hoag. “I did not really want to run anymore at any serious level.”
Life may have turned out very differently for Hoag if he had
followed his instincts at that point in his life. Instead, he chose to follow
the lead (and advice) of someone he had met a few years earlier; someone who
had a different attitude towards and an enthusiastic view of running.
“I had met Ron Daws when I was 18 or 19 years old. We worked
out together when I was at the U. He was 10 years older than me and was sort of
the guru of running,” said Hoag. “We always liked to have him run with us. He
was entertaining to say the least. He knew a lot about running.
“After college I went on a bunch of trips with Ron. We drove
in his car to Chicago. I got to liking distance runners – they were goofy –
college running was much more structured,” said Hoag. “This was different – we
would just wing-it – it was fun to travel. The races at the time were not well
organized.
“Ron talked me into extending my career as a runner through
road races. One thing led to another and one day he said, ‘You’d be a good
marathoner,’” said Hoag. “I was very efficient; I wasn’t super fast by a lot of
standards but by then I was a good runner – smooth and efficient.”
Hoag’s first marathon was in 1972. He ran 2:37 at Paavo
Nurmi. He says he ran with a couple of other guys and took it easy in the first
half. Then he picked it up in the second half to see what he could do. “It was
very enjoyable to finish like I did – passing people,” said Hoag. “Then I knew
I wanted to run the granddaddy of them all – Boston. I can’t remember if we had
to qualify, but somehow I did get into the 1973 race. Ron might have gotten me
in on his reputation; he put in a few good words for me.”
“When Steve Hoag and I
began training together some years back, I could thrash him, if I chose, on the
downhill sections. In anticipation to running his first Boston, I explained
that if he prepared himself to run fast downhill with a minimum of effort he
would gain a lot of ground over the 500-foot net drop. Anyone who can
free-wheel after climbing Heartbreak Hill can fly past the competition over the
2-3 miles of downhill where most runners are too tired and stiff to run
properly…”
–Ron Daws, Self-Made Olympian
“I trained real hard
through the winter and placed 13th in 2:25. It was a hot year with temperatures
in the 70s. I didn’t think I had run that fast,” said Hoag. “In the early days
they didn’t give you many splits. There were a couple of guys in the race who
had stopwatches and could tell pace. I ran about 5:30/mile. I was very happy
with my performance. Back then 2:30 was kind of a barrier for good regional
runners. So I broke it quite easily.
“The next year [1974] I trained a little harder and finished
sixth in 2:16:44, which again was another big breakthrough,” said Hoag. “2:20
was another milestone that people wanted to break; you were a world class
runner when you broke 2:20 back then.
“I came back with real good feelings from that race. I
remember I was in seventh place going into the final area. I passed a Canadian
at the end. That was the icing on the cake,” said Hoag. “Even if I hadn’t run
that well, it was still a fun race.
“One of those years [1973 of 1974] they went to qualifying
standards and that raised quite an uproar. It became more of an event to
qualify for,” said Hoag. “It still has that appeal. It’s a big goal for people.
But it took a lot better time back then to run Boston than it does now. The
times were more in line with what people ran back then.”
Happy with his 1974 performance but by no means finished
with Boston, Hoag was not willing to settle for his sixth place finish; even at
what was then the premier marathon in the country. But to take his running to
the next level, he was going to have to make some sacrifices.
“I really decided the third year – 1975 – I was going to go for it all. I ultimately had to quit my teaching job; I had a falling out with my principal; he didn’t like me running so much. Even though I did a good job and the kids liked me, the principal didn’t like the level I was running at,” said Hoag. “I have to admit my running and racing were very important to me. He gave me an ultimatum in 1974 – told me I couldn’t go to Boston – even though I was supposed to have one personal day each year. So I went anyway.
“I was sixth and it was in the newspaper. I knew he would be
mad,” said Hoag. “The kids and some of the other teachers threw a big party for
me when I returned. He was forced to let it go. He never said anything to me
but I knew he didn’t like it.
“I was supposed to go back for my second year to teach but
had been offered a free trip to Europe to run. It would have meant missing the
first week of school but he wouldn’t give me unpaid leave,” said Hoag. “So I
had to quit.
“I decided I was going to train real hard for Boston. We had
a terrible winter; lots of ice and snow. The footing was just terrible; we had
rain in early January. That froze and then we had snow on top of that. We were
always running on ice covered by snow,” said Hoag. “Still, 95% of our running
was outdoors. We just did a little indoors at the U’s fieldhouse.
“I did a couple of 30 mile runs; some 20-25 mile runs. Over
every other weekend I built up to 30 mile runs – they were tough, especially
the first one,” said Hoag. “Once you did one the second wasn’t so bad. Ron
pretty much acted like my coach. Probably as much of a coach as anything. But
he always said we helped each other. On the track I could help him work faster
on intervals. I was faster.
“But he knew how to train. We were doing Lydiard’s training.
We did some tough hill workouts for Boston. The weather, in a way, helped me.
If you could train through that it had to make you tougher,” said Hoag. “We
didn’t have Gore-Tex or even windbreakers. We just winged it – we found goofy
things to run in. We were young and crazy.”
“After a season or
two, Steve became so adept at coasting downhilll it now takes all I can do to
stay with him, and I suspect that had we raced he could pull away. Since he is
naturally proficient uphill, it’s now tough for the others to stay with him up
or down.”
–Ron Daws, Self-Made Olympian
After a tough winter of training Hoag felt he was ready for
1975 Boston. “I went into that race just as fit as I’ve ever been in my life –
including college days. I was in good shape,” said Hoag. “I couldn’t wait to
get to the starting line, I was so ready to run. We really lucked out with the
weather. The day before it was huge 30-40 mile/hour gusts of wind behind us.
The next day it settled down – with still somewhat of a tailwind.
“I remember waking up that morning ready to go. What I
remember the most prior to the race was I wanted to get it over. I wanted to
run fast; I knew I could,” said Hoag. “Ron taught me to run even pace; even
negative splits. He told me pace will kill you at Boston because of the
downhill at the start. I went out 5:00/5:05 pace. That’s what I thought I could
run. All of my workouts were geared towards that.
“I was in the top 10-15 places for the first 10 miles or so.
I was just settling in. We were running fast; five-minute miles. There were a
lot of guys that went out way too fast. I just knew that I couldn’t run any
faster than that and finish,” said Hoag. “I was probably right around 50
minutes for 10 miles. At that point I was running alongside Bill Rodgers who
was wearing a hand-lettered t-shirt, and getting lots of crowd support.
“At the halfway point he picked it up. I thought ‘I can’t
pick it up – I’m not going to.’ I stayed at 5:00,” said Hoag. “As we started
going up hills at 17 miles I was catching a lot of the guys who went out too
fast. I went quickly from eighth to sixth place and still kept picking guys up.
From miles 17 to 21 I picked off five or six runners. I was in third place at
22.
It was then that Hoag’s wife, Geri, stepped in. “She saved
me a little bit because I was in need of fluids. She was right there at 23
miles with de-fizzed Coke,” said Hoag. “That was a life-saver for me. Back then
they had very sporadic water at Boston.
“Then I heard on the radio – because there were fans with
pocket radios along the course - the first three runners were all Americans –
and I was one of them. They were making a big deal of that. Tom Fleming was in
second. But I had forgotten about Bill Rodgers. I didn’t know who was first. I
had beat Rodgers in 1974,” said Hoag. “I could not think of who the other
American was. At about 800 meters from the finish I caught Tom Fleming and
moved into second. Then I was just on a high all the way in. The course curves
around downtown and the next thing I know I’m coming down the long ramp into
the finish line.
“It was unbelievably exciting. I had run 2:11:54 – that blew
me away,” said Hoag. “The crowd cheers a lot for second place.
“I thought if I had a good day I’d run 2:13-2:14. That 2:11
was one of the best times in the world back then, especially for Americans,”
said Hoag. “It was great to have Americans going 1-2-3 at Boston. Bill Rodgers’
2:09:55 was a course record and an American record.”
Although Hoag set out to run well at the 1975 Boston
Marathon, his time and his place seemed to surprise him. “I was not a great
natural talent. But I worked hard. I was on a high for a year or so afterwards.
I was listed as one of the favorites for the 1976 Trials but I got hurt,” said
Hoag. “It’s a curse when that happens. In the fall of 1975 my sciatic nerve
went out on me. I could run okay, I still ran a 51 minute ten-mile that year.
“I ended up dropping out of the Trials in 1976 – at the
10-mile mark. I was running fast but I knew I wouldn’t make it,” said Hoag.
"My back was aching and getting more painful with each step. I was one of
a dozen or so that dropped out of that race.”
Even though Hoag may have been surprised by his 1975 Boston
performance, those who knew Hoag well in those days – running partners and
friends like Lundberg – knew better. “Steve’s Boston Marathon performance was absolutely
not a surprise for me. It was my belief that he was one of the three best
marathon runners in America going into the ‘76 Games,” said Lundberg. “The
sciatic nerve trouble that he experienced was just a very sad day for U.S.
Marathoning. I think he had an excellent opportunity of being a medalist in
those Games but for that injury.”
Jim Ferstle, a freelance writer and frequent contributor to Runner’s World online, also used to run
with both Daws and Hoag. “Steve had the most genetic gifts of the three of us.
I met him through Ron. It was just about the time that he was going to be
running Boston, before he was injured,” said Ferstle. “He was much more into
running as a means to an end – because he was good at it. He wanted to see how
far he could get with it.
“He wanted to make the Olympic Team. The Holy Grail for
runners at that point was to make the Olympic Team. Ron had done it. Steve
never quite made it,” said Ferstle. “It was very frustrating for him – getting
hurt and not being able to fulfill his potential.
“Ron Daws was part of this long line of Minnesota runners
that started with Edelen. All of those made an impact on the national scene;
sort of around the periphery,” said Ferstle. “Even though Steve didn’t make the
Olympic Team, he was included in there too.”
When his elite-level running career was over Hoag had
accumulated some impressive statistics over a relatively short-lived career.
Besides the second-place finish at the 1975 Boston Marathon – earning a second
place ranking in the U.S. and fourth in the World Men’s Marathon that same year
– he was the U.S. 25K champion in 1974 and 1975. He also was ranked sixth in
the U.S. in 1974 for the men’s marathon. He finished sixth at Boston in 1974
and 13th in 1973. He qualified for the Olympic Trials twice – in
1968 (10,000 meters) and in 1976 (marathon).
Closer to home he finished the inaugural St. Patrick’s Day
Mini-Marathon, predecessor to the current Human Race, second only to Ron Daws
in 1973. He went on to win the race in 1974 and 1975. He was the City of Lakes
Marathon Champion in 1973 and 1976. He still holds the course record at
Duluth’s Park Point 5-Miler, set in 1975 (24:16). In 2000 he became part of the
fifth class inducted into the Minnesota Track & Field Hall of Fame. And in
early 2004 he was honored with the MDRA’s Pat Lanin Award for Distinguished
Service and named a 2004 Human Race Hero along with his running partner, mentor
and coach, Ron Daws.
The Human Race Hero award brought Hoag’s life full-circle,
in a manner of speaking. After his elite running days were over he opened a
shoe resoling shop on Grand Avenue in St. Paul. Back then some runners thought
resoling would be the wave of the future.
During the 1979-80 school year Hoag also coached cross
country and track at Macalester College, right across from his resoling shop.
Chris Fuller was on the Macalester track team that spring.
“Steve coached me my junior year in track. The exposure to
Daws definitely affected both the way he coached and our training programs,”
said Fuller. “For an athlete like me, who definitely was not a blue-chip high
school runner, he saw the way that hard work, mileage and support can make a
big difference in somebody’s running career, as it did with Daws.”
Earlier that year, Hoag had merged his business with Garry
Bjorklund’s running store chain to become GBS Sports. Fuller, in the summer of
1980, after having been coached by Hoag that spring, was hired by him at the
store. “I basically replaced Paul Mausling, my roommate, who went home for the summer,”
said Fuller. “I took his job.” Years later Fuller would become the sole owner
of GBS Sports, eventually renaming it The Sporting Life.
In 1980 the seven-year-old St. Patrick’s Day Mini-Marathon
was floudering. The St. Patrick’s Committee in St. Paul was going to drop the
race. “Garry said this is something we should do. We talked to the police and
they said if you want to do it we’ll be glad to help out, for a fee, of
course,” said Hoag. “That year we gave the runners bibs with big numbers on them.
And they also got green race t-shirts; this was before race t-shirts were given
out at most races. Just for fun Garry put ‘McBjorklund Sports’ as a race
sponsor. We had a good-sized crowd. With the store promoting it we had 500-1000
runners.
“In 1981 we caught some beautiful weather. It was 50-60
degrees in the week before and 60 degrees on race day. Everyone was wearing
shorts,” said Hoag. “From 1981-1984 we doubled every year in size. It was, and
still is, the premier running race other than TCM now. We just always had a
real high quality of runners there; probably the best runners from the area.”
Hoag had already been a fan of this race when GBS took it
over. “It was a good test for Boston,” said Hoag. “We used it as speedwork for
Boston.”
GBS re-named the race The St. Patrick’s Day Five Mile. And
much later it would be called The Human Race. Hoag was the race director for a
few years before splitting off from GBS to open Steve Hoag’s Marathon Sports.
But his list of accomplishments and contributions to the
running community doesn’t end there. “I think Steve is invisible in terms of
his running store, and the success he had as a runner. He was an unbelievably
accomplished runner. That information is out there and you’ve probably heard a
lot about it,” said Lundberg. “Steve works with me as one of the coaches in
cross country at Richfield high school now.
“I started out volunteering over there. I ended up coaching
cross country and cross-country skiing,” said Lundberg. “It was obvious because
of my business I couldn’t be there every day. Steve has been one of the people
who has helped keep that program going.
“We’re pretty much on the same page as far as our outlook on
training. He’s been working with me for three years,” said Lundberg. “Kids
really like him. He’s a good listener. He understands that kids need adult role
models. He’s been a real role model for them. He’s quietly given those kids
opportunities to succeed.”
It hasn’t even just been the running community that’s been
touched by Hoag. “He also helped me out as a boy scout leader. When my sons
were in boy scouts, I was a scout master,” said Lundberg. “There were times
when I couldn’t get enough parents to help me with an overnight trip. So he
came along so we’d have an appropriate number of adults. He didn’t even have
any sons on the trip.
“He’s not just a running and training partner. We’ve been
very good friends for somewhere around 25 or 30 years. He does things for the
community and has done a lot of things for kids. People just don’t know about
it,” said Lundberg. “He just does it because he’s a caring person.”
Janice Ettle also met Hoag through Daws, who was coaching
her in the late 1980s. “I remember going into Steve’s store [Marathon Sports]
and seeing all these pictures from the running community over the years. I
loved that history, I was always impressed with the history of running they
kept in the store,” said Ettle. “When Steve was inducted into the Minnesota
Track & Field Hall of Fame he was one of the silent figures in the running
community. I don’t think people would expect that in a running store owner.
“People from his era know about him. But if you went up to
runners today – would they know about him? How fast his times were? His Boston
Marathon history? I don’t know,” said Ettle. “There are a lot of people who
think of Steve as Marathon Sports but don’t know his running times at all.”
In 2003 Hoag sold his Marathon Sports store to John Long
while retaining an interest in the store.
Hoag has been married to Geri for almost 32 years now. They
have one 26-year-old daughter, Alison, who will be getting married this August.
For Geri, that now-famous 1975 Boston was just the beginning of a long-line of
races she would watch her husband run. “She’s been at a lot of races; she’s always
been there helping,” said Hoag. “She’s the ultimate volunteer for me.”
Griak was another of Hoag’s fans who was never surprised by
the success Hoag found with his running after college. “Steve had an
illustrious career at the U of M and I knew if he continued to run he would do
well. He was very motivated,” said Griak. “But even more important? He’s been a
good friend. I wish him the best. I’m very proud to have been his coach.”
Daws was another coach in Hoag’s life and even today he
credits Daws with getting him to the elite level he achieved in his running. “I
wouldn’t have run as fast as I did. I may have run Boston at some point in my
life – just not with the training that I did with Ron,” said Hoag. “He shared
all of the knowledge he had of the course and running. There was a point where
he was a better runner than me; I had potential to beat him and he didn’t care.
He enjoyed helping people run faster even if it meant I’d run faster than him
at some point.”
And so he did. His 2:11 at Boston was faster than Daws ever
ran a marathon; and there was probably no one happier than Daws to see Hoag’s
Boston success.
To be continued...
Part IV: The Green Jacket
