11 February 2008. Comments by Don Carpenter
Dear AFA friends,
As many of you may already know, Jim Gere, one of the co-founders of the Ancients, passed away on January 30th. Jim, along with Alan Waterman and Dave Stevenson, started the AFA back in 1964. Now all three are gone, but we have wonderful memories of their impressive running and of their friendship with everyone of us who frequented Angell Field and the Stadium. Among our fond memories are Al’s downhill running technique, Dave’s high pain threshold and awful ties, and Jim’s posting of a Latin translation of the slogan ‘to start is to compete; to finish is to win.’
One of my first memories of running with a crowd of Ancients is of a day in 1972 when I tackled the 5-mile golf course for the first time after several years of running shorter distances around Angell field at noon. With Jim’s welcome and encouragement I managed to do the five miles, and immediately gave up any further thoughts of playing volleyball at noon. I soon became aware of the announcements Jim was posting about time trials and about competition with faculty-staff runners from other universities. It was an exciting era, as twenty or more of us would take off in a time trial in the stadium or travel to Hayward to run as many events as possible while also fielding four age group teams in a 4 by 440 relay. (During time trials in those days, someone would set a laboratory clock alongside the track in the stadium so that we could check our lap times.)
Jim was the author of some remarkable reference materials, one being a description of a variety of training courses extending out into Portola Valley, complete with elevations and intermediate distances. He set a very high standard in terms of arranging events while not appearing to have organized them at all. We loved the fact that the Ancients had no discernible organizational structure. That attitude enabled us to carry on in Jim’s low key tradition with bike and run, farewell relays at Zott’s, shortcut relays on campus, and the 4 Delights relay up on the hill.
A number of us have had the privilege of visiting Jim and Janice through the difficult last few months, and we found each visit a heart warming experience. We were able to share many memories, including a video record of our last AFA workout in the stadium on November 15, 2005. Jim had made a special effort to join us that day, and held forth with pride and enthusiasm about various events of the past, including the times when Payton Jordan would loan us Stanford track uniforms (not the newest ones) for our intercollegiate faculty-staff track meets.
Jim was one of the special few guys who got me interested in running, some 45 years ago. I carry his spirit with me now when I am out there walking biking, hiking, or even slowly jogging. Thank you, Jim!
Don