Jon Hendershott: Every Story Matters

There aren’t many people I can think of who have written about hurdles and hurdlers more than I have, but if I had to come up with a name, it would be that of long-time Track & Field News journalist Jon Hendershott. Hendershott has been writing for T&FN, “the Bible of the sport,” since 1967, making this his 47^th year of covering track and field for the magazine that all track and field nuts subscribe to. Over the course of his career, Hendershott has covered nine Olympic Games dating back to 1972, he has covered thirteen World Championship meets (all of them except for 1987), he has been witness to several world records, and has interviewed some of the greatest athletes to ever compete in the sport. A former hurdler himself, Hendershott is T&FN’s “hurdle guy.” Which means that when it comes time to interview a hurdler or to write a hurdle-related article, Hendershott is the man called upon to complete the task. Over the years, Hendershott has interviewed the likes of Rodney Milburn, Guy Drut, Renaldo Nehemiah, Roger Kingdom, Edwin Moses, Kevin Young, Kim Batten, Gail Devers, Lolo Jones, David Oliver, Colin Jackson, and many, many others.

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When I asked him for an interview for the June issue of The Hurdle Magazine, Hendershott jokingly remarked that I must’ve run out of hurdlers to interview. But his impact on the hurdling world has been as significant as that of any hurdler anyone could name. Hendershott’s interviews have a tendency to allow the reader to gain insight into the mindset of hurdlers. As I told him, the interview he did with Nehemiah in 1979 that was reprinted in Ken Doherty’s Track & Field Omnibook did as much to inspire my love of hurdling as any other source.

Last week I had the good fortune to talk with Hendershott for 90 minutes about track, hurdles, and life. At 67 years of age, he has seen many generations of track athletes come and go, and has watched many athletes grow up right before his eyes.

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McGill: Tell us about your background, your upbringing, since most of us only know you as the writer for Track & Field News.

Hendershott: I was born July 20, 1946 in Bend, Oregon (the same birthplace as decathlete Ashton Eaton). Bend is in the middle of the state; the major universities are on the western side. My family moved to Klamath Falls, in the southern part of the state, when I was one month old. I spent the first eight years of my life in Klamath Falls before my dad found a job teaching and coaching at the University of Washington in Seattle. That’s where I grew up. I went to Theodore Roosevelt High School in Seattle.

McGill: Tell us about your athletic background.

Hendershott: Well my dad was a pole vaulter at (the University of) Oregon for Bill Hayward. He competed from 1939-1941. This was back in the days of the bamboo poles, so it was a strong man’s event, a power event. My dad was 6-1, 200 pounds. One of his teammates, George Varoff, was the world record holder. It was a very good team. Dad also played football. My older brother was a football player first and track guy second. I always liked track first, then football.

McGill: How did you first get involved in track?

Hendershott: I always liked track. As a little kid, one of my earliest memories was going to the track where my dad coached and watching practice, watching my dad start guys. My dad was an assistant at the University of Washington. When I was playing organized football, I was 6 feet, 120 pounds. I was getting hammered. I was not a very good athlete, but I had aspirations. I hoped to get good enough to run in the Olympics. But I learned right away I wasn’t going to make it. I never made the varsity track team in junior high or high school. I don’t know why I tried the hurdles in junior high, but I did. For the longest time I couldn’t get the three strides between the high hurdles to save my soul.

McGill: When did your interest in the Olympics begin?

Hendershott: I was ten. My older brother, three years older than me, swiped an old issue of Life Magazine out of the junior high library. That issue was on the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. It had all these incredible photographs. There were photos of the eight-man rowing team. Photos of Bobby Morrow, the American sprinter who won three gold medals. There was lots of track and field. I was just fascinated. I had never heard of the Olympics. I was like, What is this? What does it mean? I still have a copy of that issue of Life. After that, I started finding all I could find to read on the Olympics. It just went on from there. The Rome Olympics in 1960, some major meets on television. The US vs. the USSR meet. The very first broadcast of The Wide World of Sports was the Penn Relays. I was captivated by that level of the sport, but also just in general. I would go to my dad’s team’s dual meets and help out. I got to know a lot of the guys on the team. It became very much a part of my life and my identity to follow track and field.

McGill: Sounds like you were already training to be a journalist before you even realized you were.

Hendershott: Yes I was. I did well in English in junior high and high school. I was an editor for the high school newspaper. I would always sneak track articles into the sports section, and I didn’t even work in the sports department.

McGill: When did you begin to realize that you wanted to write about track as a career? How did you even know you could?

Hendershott: I discovered Track & Field News as a sophomore in high school. One day during my free period I was sitting in the office of the basketball coach, who also coached track. I looked on the shelf and saw this publication. I had no clue it even existed. I started reading, and felt like I’d gone to heaven. I subscribed right away. That was 1962. I graduated in 1964, then went to the University of Washington, where I majored in journalism. Then in the summer of ’67, right after my junior year, Track & Field News ran a small notice in the magazine about an “editorial assistant” position. I talked to my wife about it, and she said sure, check it out. I came down to California in October of 1967, interviewed, got the job, then drove down for good. My wife and I were just two kids; I had just turned 22. I was able to transfer to San Jose State, where I was able to major in magazine journalism. I graduated from there in 1970. T&FN was very accommodating in letting me work and finish school at the same time. After finishing school, the managing editor let me stay on full-time. I’ve been here ever since.

McGill: So when did your own athletic career officially come to an end?

Hendershott: I ran for a club after moving to Northern California. I hurdled, and did better than I expected to do. But it was just for fun. I knew I was never going to get anywhere. I just wanted to see how fast I could run. Part of the reason I got back into hurdling after college was because of how I had so much trouble three-stepping when I was younger. Over 42’s I could do it just fine. I have no idea why. I ran 15.2 over the highs and 57.2 in the intermediates. On very minimal training, with no coaching.

McGill: So how, would you say, does being a world class journalist compensate for not being a world class athlete?

Hendershott: I guess you could say that through journalism I found a way to be able to experience the Olympic games and enjoy the top level of track and field without having to be good enough to participate. But not just the top level. All levels. It’s taken me places I wouldn’t have had a dream of going to any other way. I’ve been to Stockholm, Beijing, Daegu…. So the sport and the magazine have really broadened my life and my world view. It’s been priceless.

McGill: Can you discuss that further – how the sport and magazine have broadened your world view?

Hendershott: I’ve gotten to see how people in other countries live, to learn how to get along in a lot of different circumstances. Last summer the World Championships were in Moscow. All the street signs are in the Cyrillic alphabet. All the signs in the subway. I learned a route to get to the stadium more than really following the signs. Same thing in Japan, Korea, China. The languages are so totally opposed to English. There are very few signs in English. Russia had none. You were on your own.

McGill: Of all your international experiences, can you point to one that was the most memorable?

Hendershott: That’s easy. My first international experience was the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. I had seen so many historic races on television, but to see them live and in person really personalized it. It included the [John] Akii-Bua world record [of 47.82 in the 400 hurdles], and [Rod] Milburn won the first FAT world record [in the 110 hurdles, in 13.24]. Then there was the not-fun parts – the Israeli athletes being killed.

McGill: What was that like? Can you describe the atmosphere in the Olympic village at the time that happened?

Hendershott: I actually was not in Munich at the time. We at Track & Field News were taking fans on a tour in the south of Bavaria, near the Austrian border, in Mittenwald. I found out about the Israeli athletes 8am on a weekday. There was a news broadcast put out  by US armed forces radio. It was the most rudimentary report. “There’s been shootings. There are terrorists on the building.” We felt so disconnected. It all happened at dinner time in the US. On ABC, Jim McKay became famous reporting on that. Americans knew a heck of a lot more than we did.

It changed everything. Just like the events of 9/11 changed America. I had a friend, Jim Seymour, who was a 400 hurdler [and ended up finishing fourth in 48.64]. I had gone into the village a couple days earlier to visit him. It was a festival-like atmosphere there. I went in a couple days later, there were literally soldiers inside and outside the metal chain-link fence with guns and German Shepherds. Montreal in ’76 was the same way. [The terrorist attack] changed the whole approach to the Olympics. I had friends who said in the ’68 Games security was basically non-existent. You could put on a sweatsuit and the guard would just wave you in.

The Olympic movement used to think, “We’re above the petty squabbles of the world,” but no you’re not. You can’t deny there’s a huge world out there, and it’s gotten nothing but more complicated since then.

McGill: Let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about some of the athletes you’ve covered – hurdlers in particular. Do any of them stand out as being particularly intriguing?

Hendershott: I’ve come to learn, and it’s true about life in general, that every single person on the face of this earth has got a story. Therefore they are important. I am lucky enough to be able to talk to people, and we have a common ground – a bond in the sport of track and field, and in certain cases in the hurdles. I have discovered that it takes time to develop some perspective. I would be talking to Rod Milburn or [1968 Olympic champion Willie] Davenport or [1976 Olympic champion Guy] Drut at the time that they were world class hurdlers, Olympic champions, and that’s what I was doing. I was treating them as contemporaries. It takes some time to develop a distance and think back and realize how unique each one of those guys was. Milburn and Davenport coming from the deep South of the US during a time of social change. Drut, the very sophisticated Frenchman. [Intermediate hurdler Harald] Schmid, who was very well-spoken in English. I learned to keep myself open to the idea that every person, man and woman, has got a story. Even the newest athletes.

It’s true that I have gotten to know some athletes better than others. Kevin Young [world record holder in the 400 meter hurdles] was one. He came to our [T&FN] tour dinner after the ’93 Worlds and did a rap song about hurdling. He had everybody cracking up. I was first interviewing Nehemiah when he was a junior in high school. Now that he’s an athlete agent, I see him on a whole different side of his life from when he was the best hurdler in the world and the successor of Rod Milburn. It’s cool seeing what they become, how they branch out. Ralph Mann [1972 Olympic silver medalist in the 400h] is another one. He’s very much into biomechanics for all events. He’s helped a lot of hurdlers, a lot of athletes.

Looking at [the T&FN] world rankings, both men and women, I’ll note to myself, I’ve talked to that person, and him, and her. That’s fun for me. I have to be reminded of that because I’ve enjoyed them all because they’re athletes in our sport. I feel tremendously lucky. One of the all-time great people in our sport is [1952 110h Olympic gold medalist] Harrison Dillard. He defines the word gentleman. He is so unprepossessing. If you didn’t know he was a four-time Olympic champion, you wouldn’t know it, because he wouldn’t tell you. I’ve had a couple lunches with him, a couple conversations, and he’s a tremendous guy. This past fall the IAAF inducted him into its hall of fame. I’ve seen photos of him with Renaldo, Colin Jackson, Aries Merritt. That’s a lot of great hurdling talent, quite a few eras.

I’ve often wondered what could someone like Dillard have done on a synthetic track with the lighter hurdles. What might he have run? He ran 13.7 on dirt with heavier track shoes. And by the same token what might Nehemiah have run on dirt? Kingdom? Merritt? That was a whole different world back then. I wouldn’t want to go back to it. It was a completely different event. The surfaces and the hurdles themselves were so different.

McGill: Along those lines, do you feel that the hurdling events should constantly be evolving? I for one have argued for several years that the height of the hurdles in the women’s 100m hurdle race should be raised. What are your thoughts on that?

Hendershott: As a fan, I would like to see it. It would make it more of a hurdle event, less of a sprint event. Not to say that the women aren’t good technicians. They are. But I think that adding three inches would be a real plus. It might make it a new event, but I think it would be good. For a long time the women didn’t have the 400 hurdles. But once the IAAF made it into a World Championship event, it exploded. Same with steeplechase, hammer, triple jump. Give athletes an opportunity and they’ll respond to it. It would take some time to adapt, but it would be a positive thing for the athletes.

McGill: How about the women’s 400 hurdles? Should they be raised to 33 inches?

Hendershott: Yeah, that would be more of a challenge. It would be great for everybody involved. Even at the high school level. Four hundred meters should be the official high school distance [in every state]. When I was in college trying to be a 400 meter hurdler, there were certain guys who could run the 300 hurdles like gangbusters, but I had one guy admit to me – a 51 guy named Dave Williams who played pro football – he said a lot of people can run the 330 [yards], but you throw in those last two [hurdles], and the extra 40 yards [off the last hurdle], that separates the men from the boys. I think it would be so much better for the development of the long hurdles. Make the standard high school intermediates distance 400 meters.

[Editor’s Note: I wrote about this topic, making the same argument, ten years ago: https://hurdlesfirstbeta.com/free-articles/issues/300m-400m-hurdles-high-school-level/]

McGill: What about increasing the spacing in the men’s 110 hurdles? I know, as a coach, when I have my athletes doing a workout and I increase the height of the hurdles, I increase the spacing right along with it. It would seem natural that when the hurdles go from 39 inches in high school to 42 inches in college, they need to be spaced further apart.

Hendershott: Part of that goes back to the inception of artificial tracks. You get a rebound effect on these surfaces. If you get a wind behind the hurdlers, that pushes them into the incoming hurdles. If you have a big man – a Greg Foster, Tonie Campbell, Oliver, Kingdom – they’re gonna have problems. Foster and I would talk, and he said he’d rather have a bit of a headwind to keep him from running up too close.

Increasing the spacing might be a good idea. Have them 11 yards apart, make the [race] distance 120 meters. It seems now that guys are tiptoeing just to fit in their three steps. The guys have to hold back as they get charging forward. Then add in the adrenaline of the athletes at an Olympic Trials, an Olympic Games or World Championships. Lengthening the distance between the hurdles wouldn’t be ill-advised. Again, it would take an adjustment. When the women went from 80 meters – which was the international distance for decades – then it went to 100, two more hurdles, the ladies adapted. So these things are certainly adaptable. It takes some forward-thinking coaches and administrators to make these things happen.

McGill: You mentioned earlier that Milburn ran the first FAT world record back in 1972. I’ve noticed that in a lot of meets nowadays, times are recorded to the thousandth of a second. Do you see recording times to the thousandth as being something that will be done regularly in the future?

Hendershott: As it is right now, as I understand it, the most modern timing systems are used to record times to the thousandth to break ties. That is where it is very important. I think that listing times to the thousandths regularly would be a case of TMI (too much information). I don’t think the average fan really cares if someone ran the 10,000 in 27:10.004. As long as you have the capability, when you need it, to determine a tie, that’s critical and wonderful to have. It means the right people will be rewarded. But for everyday timing, like for a college meet to go to thousandths, I don’t know.

McGill: I know this is going to be an impossible question to answer, but if you can, please identify the most impressive hurdle race you’ve ever seen in person. If you can’t narrow it down to one, then give us a few.

Hendershott: Well any world record is obviously impressive. John Akii-Bua’s 47.82 in 1972, making him the first guy under 48-flat. And he did it from lane one. I was in awe. As I said before, my friend Jim Seymour was in the race, and he just got buried. The whole field got buried.

Another one that was certainly a surprise was when Renaldo ran 13.16 for the world record at the Bruce Jenner Classic. It was the middle of April, 1979. Not a big meet, not a championship meet. At a time of year when people were still getting in shape. It surprised Renaldo as much as the rest of us. He went on that year to run 13.00 at the Pepsi meet at UCLA. Incredible.

Edwin Moses’ world record at the ’77 US Nationals at UCLA was another one. 47.42 I believe it was. And even his world record in the Olympic final in Montreal. Here’s this guy who had just come out of the blue and was on this roll. In ’77 the season was just starting. I had a wonderful opportunity to go into the hotel room with him and his coach and just sit and talk with him afterward. Sitting with a guy who had just broken the world record, that was pretty special. Edwin was wonderfully intelligent, a real scientist. Brilliant guy. He was a doctor of hurdling. He was very interested in every aspect of physiology, hurdling technique. He perfected the 13-stride pattern that revolutionized the 400 hurdles. He could’ve been a 3-time Olympic champion if not for the 1980 boycott. He was always very well-spoken. We’ve had a great friendship over the years.

If you’re talking about a close race, and a surprise winner, then I’d say the 1984 Olympic final in the 110 hurdles. Kingdom was in lane one, Foster was in lane eight. Kingdom had won NCAA’s and Pan-Am’s the year before, but Foster was by far better known and more highly regarded. Then Kingdom came back and won again in Seoul in ’88.

Oliver’s victory at the World Championships last year was tremendous. He didn’t make the team in 2012 after being a bronze winner in 2008. He won that race decisively. It was a huge emotional win. He’s another guy … I started talking to him just out of college. He was running the C circuit in Eastern Europe. To see him come that far, to reach the highest level, it was very emotional.

Another fabulous race was the women’s 400 hurdles at the ’95 World Championships with Kim Batten and Tonja Buford. There was a .01 difference in their times, they both dipped under the previous world record. They were so evenly matched. Two great athletes. Two great people. It was an incredible performance in championship conditions. That’s why I refer back to the Nehemiah world record. It wasn’t an important meet. He was the type of guy who said, “I don’t ever want to lose.” So world record races are often what you’re gonna get from a guy like that.

As for being mind-boggling to watch, I’d say the 1992 Olympic women’s 100 meter hurdles. That’s when Gail Devers was leading then went parallel to the track after hitting the last hurdle. And she still went something like 12.72.

Then there was Joanna Hayes in Athens in 2004. She ran the race of her life, a personal best, to win the Olympic championship.

Even the sad moments. Lolo Jones in 2008, when she hit the ninth hurdle. It’s the race she’ll always be remembered by. It totally changed her life, totally changed her career. That was a sad moment. She was very generous to talk with us after that. She made a comment about how fast the hurdles were coming. Might another foot between the hurdles have made a difference? You have these dramatic developments, these dramatic moments….

McGill: What are your thoughts about “dead” years with no Olympics or World Championships, such as 2014? Do you think a year like this one gives athletes a chance to recharge, or do you think it makes track irrelevant for a year, or are you somewhere in between?

Hendershott: I will say first that there really isn’t such a thing, in my view.  Rather than a “dead” year, I prefer to use the term “off year.”  Meaning there isn’t an outdoor U.S. national team for elite-level athletes to try to make for the World Championships or Olympics.  But the domestic season still cranks along at all levels, with essentially the same intensity of a Worlds or Olympic season.  High school athletes still want to win a city or regional or state title; collegians still want to win conference and NCAA titles. Post-grad athletes still want to win national titles.

So the competitiveness inherent in track & field is always there.  It’s just that the big goal of a berth on a Worlds or Olympic team isn’t.  But all athletes still train to compete to their best level and win honors as high as they can go.

Also, just because there is no major championship team to make doesn’t mean there aren’t important goals for elite-level athletes.  For the established stars, there is maintaining their global status in their event. That means being fully prepared to meet, and beat, the best competitors in his or her event.  No athlete can slack off in preparation when he or she knows the event’s best from other parts of the world is hitting training as hard as ever.  A season with a championship team to make just ratchets up the intensity another notch or two.  But everybody still has to be ready to compete at their best.

Then, too, younger athletes — maybe just graduated from college or in their first or second post-grad seasons — likely are looking to make a big breakthrough to the elite level.  So they are motivated to get to the very top, while those athletes at the top level are looking to stay there.

So, to me, an “off year” just means off from trying to make an outdoor championships team.  But the sport has become so competitive today that no year can be called “dead.”

McGill: Along those lines, you mentioned earlier that it’s not just the big meets that get you excited. Can you elaborate on that?

Hendershott: What I try to do is, I try to take each meet on its own merits. I go to the Cal-Stanford dual meet. This is a great college atmosphere. That kind of thing. I try to look at every competition as unique unto itself. I love world championships and Olympic Games and USA’s and NCAA’s, but you go to a meet like the Payton-Jordan Invitational, I love it. It’s all distance races, not a hurdle to be seen, but it’s wonderful to watch. Watching the athletes perform, watching athletes striving to do their best.

My first “that guy is special” moment happened in 1961. I was living in Seattle, and my dad and I drove up to the small town of Everett, WA specifically to see this guy named Otis Davis run the 220. He had won the Olympic 400 the year before in Rome. I don’t remember how I found out he would run the 220 in this meet, but that was one of the first times I realized, “that’s a special guy; he has something few other people have.”

Before then, I immersed myself in reading about the Olympics. Bob Mathias, Jesse Owens, Paavo Nurmi. But when you actually seen an athlete of that caliber perform, that was really memorable for me. But naturally, anything of a championship level is going to be special because the nature of the competition is going to raise the responses of the athletes to their best.

In track and field, the athlete rises to the occasion, succeeds on his or her own merits. It’s not like football where you have ten other guys to depend on. It’s all you. You live or die on your own. It’s a wonderful attraction.

 

 

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