End Of January 2025 Reading

January is a month I do a lot of reading because I get books for the holidays, and the first few days of January are still school holidays, so that allows me to work up some reading momentum. 

I started reading 9 different books, but finished three. I loved reading the three books I finished and would strongly recommend all of them for those interested in the topics. Here is a brief write up of each. 

The Genius of Ted Haydon and the University of Chicago Track Club by Jim Knoedel came out this month and I got it right away. 

Next fall I believe will be 40 years since Haydon suddenly passed away. His dedication to the sport of track and field and athletes in the Chicago area is unparalleled. 

Every winter for over 20 years, I take Raider track and field athletes to a series of indoor track and field meets at the Henry Crown Field House at the University of Chicago. 

You still feel his presence around the University. The outdoor track is dedicated to him and the University of Chicago Track Club which he founded still exists - though since the pandemic has been diminished. Maybe the publishing of the book will help bring it back. 

There was nothing like the UCTC as it existed under Haydon. It was both an elite club for athletes which produced dozens of Olympic trials qualifiers and Olympians as well as a club anyone in the sport could join. You could literally be a 7 minute miler club member and rub elbows with American record holders. Ted encouraged everyone. 

His philosophy came out of his background as a social worker on the south side of Chicago. He saw the benefit of athletics for all and voluntarily ran the club to provide for any community member interested as well as the best from the area. 

Up until 2020, you could still attend summer all comer track meets at the University of Chicago, pay $1 to participate, and possibly see a local elite jumping in a race or an event. 

This book filled in a lot of gaps for me about the traditions of track and running in Chicago and how influential Ted Haydon was especially in the 1960s and 70s in USA Track and Field 

Here is a picture of a group of kids in 2012 getting ready to be put in heats at a UCTC summer meet including former Raider Tommy McHugh '17. 

Love Is A Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song At A Time by Rob Sheffield 

I discovered this book and the writing of Rob Sheffield through an Amazon algorithm. I traditionally don't trust algorithms telling me what I might like but this time they were right! Not only did I love the content and themes of this book but I loved Rob Sheffields writing about music. I think writing about music and why we love it is really hard. But Rob seems to be able to do it so well. 

For those of you who don't remember the era of mix tapes - an era long before iTunes and Spotify -- let me briefly explain. Mixtapes were cassettes that we played on our boom boxes and walkmen and were compilations of music we had recorded on our cassette players or even off the radio. They usually had a theme. Rob was both way into music and thus way into mixtapes. 

As a graduate student at UVA, he met a women who changed his life and loved music and mixtapes too. I am not going to give any spoilers here but the book is an amazing story about their relationship around music. 

Dark Marathon: The Mary Wazeter Story - The Ongoing Struggles of a World-Class Runner by Mary Wazeter

This book is tough to find as it came out in 1989. The author Mary Wazeter passed away on December 29th last month. Here is a link to her obituary: Mary Wazeter Mannhardt Obituary The book is a memoir of her life as an elite athlete and her struggles with anorexia nervosa and depression. 

Her brother David Wazeter was my college teammate at Franklin and Marshall College. I had known about the book but never read it. So when news spread of Mary's passing through our team, I quickly went on line, found a used copy and got it shipped to me. 

Coming out in 1989, it's the first memoir I know of written by an elite runner who struggled with these conditions. One has to remember that in 1980 when Mary's talent as a runner was becoming evident, girls athletics in high school was very different than today. 

Although now these conditions are much better understood in the running community, disordered eating still plagues top athletes in the sport as well as other aspiring athletes. 

The book is a tremendous legacy of Mary's life and her hope that through her suffering others could be helped. A sad and often frightening story, it is a powerful read. If you are involved in youth sports, I highly recommend finding it and reading it.