The Front Runner (18 page)

With Vince and Billy working on it, the gay studies program grew into a counseling service that was the

first of its kind on an American campus. Back in 1971 and 1972, a few tiny programs like this had sprung up at big universities, as well as administration-condoned "gay lounges" where the boys could meet, talk and be themselves. But our program at Prescott was something unique, and it grew out of athletics.

The two new gay runners were very gifted and very messed up mentally. One of them was UCLA two-miler Tom Harrigan, and the other I can't name because he never came out. We had a really difficult time with those two boys.

I was always mortally afraid of the track team splitting up into the "gay squad" and the "straight squad," with no communication or cooperation between the two. This would happen, I knew, if we started paying too much attention to the gay thing in front of the straight boys. They would start feeling crowded psychologically, feeling put on. They would start grumbling that the gays were taking over, and that all this had nothing to do with running.

So we solved this problem by establishing a rule that sex preferences were not to be mentioned at track practice, in the dressing room or anywhere else where the team was as a group. Only in my house on Mondays and Thursdays did we mention these things. And we mentioned them only in a bigger context that could be called "The Athlete and Society."

As the boys sat in front of my fire munching carrot sticks, we had open forum on feelings and hang-ups— any that were related to running and society. We spent a lot of time discussing the whole masculine mystique of the athlete. So timewise, we probably talked about gay problems only thirty percent of the time. The straight boys slowly learned to understand and respect the gay view of the world, and to understand the gay anguish. My heart used to hurt for Tom as he sat there struggling to come out with his feelings, fearful that he would be judged and punished. But when he finally did, he learned that the straights weren't always as smug as they seemed.

Vince and Billy were always at these open forums, sitting in, and Jacques came whenever he could. Vince was the great talker, and good at helping me direct the discussion. Jacques was a genius of the mind-provoking gag. Billy was less of a manipulator, but it was always to him that the boys turned when they had something to confide that they hesitated to tell me because I was older.

We finally decided that, one night a week, we would throw this forum open to the girls' team, and to anyone else on campus who wanted to attend. Quite a number of people did. It got so you couldn't shoehorn another person into my house on Thursday nights, and I thanked God that the head gardener had opted for a big living room. I needed a whole crew for KP afterwards.

One of the most startling newcomers to the forum was a little half-miler from the girls' team, Betsy He-den. She was about five foot two, with shorty wavy hair and big astonished long-lashed eyes a la Bette Midler, and she was the only militant lesbian on campus. She started coming, I think, to stir up conflicts, and she and Vince would sit there and smart-ass each other till the rest of us had to quiet them down.

But Billy took her on. There were evenings when the whole crowded living room would be silent and rapt as the two of them went at it. Betsy was the demagogue, waving her fist, jabbing her finger. Billy countered her with Buddhist nonviolence, putting out his simple observations in his quiet way, unruffled, sunny, always compassionate to her point of view. They fought their way through the whole verbal battle of male-female hostilities.

One night he finally forced her to admit, "It's true. I don't want you. But I feel, that you reject me."

Everybody laughed. The whole room just broke up.

She and Billy ended up by becoming close friends.

Vince would kid me, "Harlan, aren't you
worried
about this?" He would see Betsy hitching a ride across campus on Billy's bike, or Billy dropping by girls' track practice to give her a few pointers on half-miling

that he'd picked up from Jacques. They could even be seen dancing together in the canteen. "Harlan, aren't you
jealous?"

I used to laugh at Vince. Those two kids would no more investigate each other's bodies than they would put their hands in a fire.

But I found myself jealous of Tom Harrigan. The minute he landed on campus, he made a heavy cruise in Billy's direction, just to see if it would succeed. Billy rejected him, but Tom seemed to stay interested.

The gay program and open forum ended up growing into a counseling service available to students from any other campus. Joe Prescott brought in a top young psychotherapist, David Silver, whose aim was to help gay students adjust rather than attempt forcible "cures." We advertised in campus publications across the country.

In particular, athletes were welcome to our service. Here we were open not only to students, but to men and women in amateur open and pro competition. The strictest confidentiality was maintained. And gay athletes did come to us, nearly all of them in the dark of the night. If I could name names, I would include a list here that would not be very long, but would astound for the range of ages and sports that it covered.

We also had a gay switchboard. It was open from six
P.M.
to midnight and two of the boys were always on phone duty.

I can still hear Billy picking up the phone in his dorm room and saying, "Gay Prescott." At first he was a little nervous, dealing anonymously in this way with strangers' problems. But with some pointers from Silver, he finally relaxed, and was able to pour his compassion into the telephone.

On October 7, I went into New York for the Monday trackwriters' lunch at Mamma Leone's.

I hadn't been to one of these lunches since before leaving Penn State. Even after coming to Prescott, even after starting to coach my three star runners, I had stayed away, because I didn't feel confident enough. But this fall, I felt mentally ready for it. I had a whole

bunch of good runners to do PR for, and I wanted to announce that Prescott would be holding its own first college cross-country meet on campus in late October. What could be more simple?

Mamma Leone's looks a little like the Baths of Cara-calla, with gloomy arches and Roman busts everywhere, offset by the many tables with red-checked tablecloths.

About fifty people were there, mostly coaches and reporters, and they were putting away lasagna and spaghetti with clam sauce and many martinis and beers. They were all listening to coach after coach get up to the microphone and give news about his team or his upcoming meet and try to make it sound so compelling that the newspapers would write it up. The air was so full of cigarette smoke that my eyes watered, and the reporters were scribbing notes and asking questions. Only a single woman was present, a reporter. It was a very male, very conservative, very businesslike atmosphere.

I was sitting at a side table with Bruce Cayton, who had left the
Post
and was now freelancing, and with Aldo Franconi. Aldo was an old friend, one of the few who stayed on speaking terms with me during the dark days after Penn. He was coach of a Long Island team, head of the metropolitan AAU track and field committee, and one of twenty-five members of the executive committee of the U.S. Olympic Committee. Aldo was one of those gruff, paunchy guys who is the salt of the earth of track, and devotes his entire life to it.

Both of these old friends of mine were curiously subdued. I did my best to make conversation. As we were waiting for my turn at the mike, I said, "I notice a
few
more people are speaking to me these days. Just a few."

Aldo looked at me strangely for a moment. "They're jealous," he finally said. "None of them have gold-medal prospects like Matti or Sive on their teams."

I tried hard with Bruce. "Bruce," I said, "you didn't have much effect at the
Post.
They don't run any more track news than they used to."

"The
Post
is interested only in four-legged runners," said Bruce, swallowing a martini whole.

When I went up to the mike, I suddenly felt nervous. I was going into battle and they were going to shoot real bullets at me. I was a Marine making my first landing. The fifty faces, in the blue air, amid the glowering arches and the Roman busts, seemed hostile. I told myself I was imagining things.

I managed to give them my little spiel. I told them about my influx of class runners. I told them that Prescott would be a team to watch that year, that we were very strong on paper and that we planned to go to all the NCAA meets and burn everybody. I told them about our upcoming cross-country meet and urged the reporters to turn out in full force to cover it.

A last-minute rush of nervousness overcame me, and I didn't say anything specific about my three gay superstars and how their training was coming along.

The restaurant was silent.

"Any questions?" I asked.

Another silence. Finally one coach said, "You say you're going to have a girls' event at this meet?"

"That's right. A two-miler. We've got a strong girls' team now, and we're willing to put them up against anybody."

"You going in for women's lib?" somebody else cracked in a gravelly voice.

Everybody howled with laughter. There was, or so I thought, an undertone of malice in this laughter. I told myself that I was becoming a paranoid, and that this wouldn't do.

When the laughter died, I smiled my best, small, Parris Island smile and said, "I'm for equal rights for everybody. Any other questions?"

A silence that got longer and longer. Smoke curled up from cigarettes held in strong, thick fingers.

Finally, from the back of the room, the reporter from the
Daily News
said, "What about Billy Sive?"

The silence again. Heads turned toward the reporter, then back to me. Somehow, the way the question was phrased, it could mean anything. I knew he'd done

it deliberately. Under ordinary circumstances, a good reporter doesn't ask such a goddamn vague question.

"What do you want to know?" I said.

"Well, what about his progress?"

"Billy's coming along fine." It took all my self-control to keep my voice steady. "He's on the same type of program that he's been on since he came to Prescott. I thought this high-mileage stuff was crazy for him, and I've got him doing 100-110 miles a week, with emphasis on quality and strength-building. This program was what gave him all his success in Europe. If he continues to develop the way he has, we're hopeful that he'll make the Olympic team."

Another voice chimed in. "What about Vince Matti and Jacques LaFont?" Was this a conspiracy?

"Both of them have had setbacks," I said. "Vince, as you know, is very injury-prone. He injured his knee again about a week ago. Jacques is having some hamstring problems. If I can keep Vince in one piece till the Olympics, then we're going to have a very strong contender in the 1,500. The same goes for Jacques in the 800 meter."

When I sat down again, I actually felt a little weak in the legs.

Men were leaving already. Empty tables were littered with cigarette ashes, mimeographed literature, dishes with tomato sauce on them, glasses with melting ice cubes in them, half-full coffee cups. Bruce and Aldo looked very gloomy.

I sipped at the last of my 7-Up, which had gone warm and flat while I was up at the mike. "They were kinda hostile," I said.

Bruce and Aldo looked at each other. Finally Aldo said, "Look, Harlan, are you a total innocent or what?"

"Huh?" I said.

"Listen," said Aldo, "I know you're a brave guy, and it took guts to get up there and face them. But you oughta know there's only so far you can go."

I was getting a little irritated. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Sooner or later I have to be able to lead a normal life. If I can't get up there

and talk about my team, I might as well chuck it all and go live on a desert island."

"You must be completely naive," said Aldo. "Do you want me to fill you in? Can I be totally frank?"

"Sure," I said.

"If you go to that desert island," said Aldo, looking me straight in the eyes, "you'll be taking Billy Sive with you. Won't you?"

He put it just like that, brutally. Bruce heaved a heavy, gloomy sigh.

For a moment I thought I was going to lose my temper and break one of those marble busts in half over Aldo's bald head.

"What if I did?" I said. "I don't think it's anybody's business."

"You're wrong," said Aldo. "It's everybody's business, whether you like it or not. They're
making
it their business, is why. I can't think of anything in track right now that would get people more stirred up. The very idea touches a big, fat, throbbing nerve."

"All right, it's their business. So what? What does it have to do with running?"

"It has everything to do with that," said Aldo vehemently. "Harlan, you and Billy are damn fools. I'm sorry to put it that way, but it's the truth. I admire you both, so you've got to know the truth. You've destroyed Billy's chances of going to Montreal." He made an Italian-type cutting gesture with his hands.
"Finito."

"Who's going to stop him?" I said.

"At the last USOC executive meeting, that was all they talked about. The Billy Sive case, they call it. At the last met AAU meeting, ditto. I heard certain people say it with my own ears. There's no way that boy is going to Montreal. There's no way Matti or LaFont are going either. These guys are going to do everything they can to stop them."

"They're so greedy for medals," I said. "They'd pimp their own grandmother for gold medals."

"Not where something like this is concerned. They're perfectly willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces."

We sat silent. Bruce was morosely playing with pieces of drying-up Italian bread on the tablecloth. Nearly everybody had left, and the waiters were taking down the mike. At the bar outside, a few lingered—we could hear them laughing uproariously.

"Harlan," said Aldo, "I don't like to ask you, but is it true, about you and Billy?"