Before the ubiquitous phone cameras, we poor souls carried albatrosses around our necks, AKA heavy cameras or DSLRs, to take photographs. Then we had to wait patiently (years before the one-hour places) for our precious photos to be developed. Who knew what would be good or not? Many times, the last photo on the roll of film was my best shot of either 24 or 36 shots. Professional photographers may have had an edge, but a slight one. Blurred track pictures had to be part of their work.
So, when a high school competitor, then a college teammate, then roommate, and now lifetime (lifelong) friend, Rosalie Franek, sent me the photos below, I about fell out of my hot seat! Rosalie was cleaning up her "attic" and found these precious gems of track meet photos and results from the Cleveland, Ohio, newspaper, The Plain Dealer. The first picture is of me on the left in navy, representing Cleveland Rhodes HS; Sheryl Emery in red, representing John Marshall HS; and Rosalie in front in white, orange, and black, representing Midpark HS. Although I haven't seen Sheryl in many years, we are still friends, too!
The second photo is the entire field of runners in the 1600-meter run. I can still feel the pounding of hooves (cleats) on the worn and wet outdoor track, the yells from the coaches revealing our lap splits, and the cheering sections (small) for each competitor in the race. And you know what? I could discern my coach, Mr. Jim Zickes (deceased), voice above the cacophony of the crowd and other coaches as he nonchalantly mentioned each of the three-lap splits in the 1600 M.
The biggest fun on this windfall of memories was scrutinizing the results pages of a bona fide newspaper. Those days are long gone (primarily local newspapers). Sigh. However, these results are not too shabby based on my and all of my competitors' results. Thankfully, this race was run only seven or eight years after Title IX was passed for women's sports, including Track&Field.
Title IX is a groundbreaking piece of legislation that has played a pivotal role in transforming the landscape of women's sports. It is a federal civil rights law enacted in 1972 as part of the Education Amendments, which mainly affected public high schools, of which this race was comprised.
I was proud as my competitors to race against each other and not the boys after Title IX passed!
A shout-out to Rosalie for sharing her photos and sports news articles. It certainly was a blast from the past to receive them—all in a very positive way. I don't know if I have those same photos or even where to look in my putaway stuff.
bSoleille!
Terri
Comments