The podcast returns to take a dive into the 1985 film "On The Edge" starring Bruce Dern.  From Rotten Tomatoes: "Banned from competition 20 years ago for exposing payoffs in amateur athletics, former long-distance runner Wes Holman (Bruce Dern) decides to enter the Cielo-Sea Race, a punishing, mountainous footrace in the Pacific Northwest. The competition has bested many younger runners, but by seeking the help of his old coach (John Marley) and reconnecting with his ex-lover (Pam Grier) and...

Things like the American Track League and its recent string of meets are rare and a huge logistical undertaking. In United States history, I can think of another time when something simpler and similar has happened. I'm thinking of the International Track Association that launched in March 1973. It featured the likes of Lee Evans, Bob Seagren, Jim Ryun, Richmond Flowers, Marty Liquori, Randy Matson and founder Mike O'Hara. ✩ Follow CITIUS MAG: twitter.com/CitiusMag | instagram.com/citiusmag...

Jesse Squire sits down with Ken Goe – a sportswriter for The Oregonian for 43 years who just announced his retirement a few weeks ago. He’s got deep ties covering track and field since he was assigned the beat as he first got his start at the paper. He takes us through those early days in his career and the evolution he’s seen in the sport since. That and some thoughts on the state of the sport’s future. ✩ Follow Ken Goe: twitter.com/KenGoe ✩ Follow CITIUS MAG: twitter.com/CitiusMag |...

On Wednesday, November 4, the Bowling Green – Toledo rivalry will be renewed with its 85th football game. To celebrate this I will run from Doyt Perry Stadium, the home of the BG Falcons, to the Glass Bowl, the home of the UT Rockets. The course is 26.2 miles and the run will be known as The Marathon Of Hate. If you’re a runner you won’t ask why I’m running 26.2 miles. You know there isn’t any particularly good reason other than that I want to. But why am I so invested in this rivalry? Now...

"The club cross country championships are popular because of the team aspect. I can speak to this because when I owned my running stores (Big River Running Co.) we used to send our team (Big River Racing Team) to Clubs and it was our chance to re-live our high school and college glory days. You put on the spikes. You huddle up as a team before the race. You run the race. It kind of reminded you of the national meet back in the day when you'd go party afterward because it was the end of the...

Like many of you, I try to keep myself in shape by working out through running. I often need some sort of goal in my future to keep myself honest on following my workouts. Usually, that's a race. The problem is that no races have been held in the United States since early March and it doesn't appear as though we'll have any for a while yet. I need something else to keep myself honest. I needed something big enough that was a real actual challenge. Something popped up on my Facebook feed about...

Quick question: Which city has the record for most Olympic bids without winning or hosting? The answer is Detroit. Detroit is now a cautionary tale of a city built on a single industry and how white flight can destroy an entire region. However, Detroit was once one of the most important and wealthy cities in America. It was either the fourth or fifth largest city behind only New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and then later Los Angeles. It rose through the auto industry. It had a lot of money...

We're going to take a look at one of America's greatest and most forgotten competitors – Earlene Brown. She is the greatest American women's thrower of the 20th century. Four years ago, Michelle Carter won the women's shot put title at the Rio Olympics. She was the first American woman to win gold in that event at the Olympics. She was the first medalist since Brown in 1960. Brown is the only other woman to have won an Olympic shot put medal beside Carter.  In 1958, Brown finished the year...

It feels a bit uncomfortable for me to be blathering on about sports history with all that is going on in this nation right now. But no less a man than Pope John Paul II said “the dignity of the human person is the goal and criterion of all sporting activity”. And we desperately need humanity and dignity at the moment. So on we go. If you’re on Twitter and you like lighthearted takes on sports history you simply must follow Super 70s Sports, written by the fabulous Ricky Cobb. He does little...

If you run, jump or throw, it’s likely you have worn something that Ron Hill Sports has helped pioneer. This episode takes a look at Ron Hill, who is maybe best known as a marathon world record holder and definitely has a record-setting running streak, but you might not realize you wear his inventions every day. ▶ Follow CITIUS MAG: twitter.com/CitiusMag | instagram.com/citiusmag | facebook.com/citiusmag ✩ Connect with Jesse and the show via Email: [email protected] |...

I want to discuss a man who is largely not remembered a whole lot and certainly, many of today's younger runners probably haven't heard of him. He was an extremely important person in the history of long-distance running and marathoning. I'm talking about the British marathoner from the early 50s, Jim Peters. He did more to change the marathon than anyone before him or since him.  ▶ Follow CITIUS MAG: twitter.com/CitiusMag | instagram.com/citiusmag | facebook.com/citiusmag ✩ Connect with...

Let me tell you about one of the most-watched sprint races in history – at least in American history to an American audience. Sportswriter Bill Simmons calls it his favorite YouTube clip. It's not his favorite track and field YouTube clip or his favorite sports YouTube clip, it's just flat-out his favorite YouTube clip of all-time. To do this, we need to look back at the 1970s. That was the time of Olympic-style competition on television. To understand why, you have to think about the fact...

Just about two weeks ago, the wonderful show "Schitt's Creek" came to an end after six seasons. The plot seems very topical because people who had lots, suddenly have nothing due to circumstances out of their control. All they have is each other and their family. That seems very timely. I was thinking about something that CBC (the show's originator) did many years ago. They put together an online poll about the best Canadians of all-time. Terry Fox ended up being No. 2 on that list. There...

One of the things that I find very useful for history – especially while looking at track and field history – is looking at the past and allowing it to educate us on how we got to where we are now, how things changed and what we can learn from the past. Most recently, a very important point has been raised that we may have significantly less money to play around with than we used to...quite a bit less money. How that's going to play out is anybody's guess right now. Just a little over a week...

This week I talk about the influence of Don Canham. He was an NCAA champion high jumper for the University of Michigan, then the Wolverine head track coach for two decades, and then the athletic director for another two decades. He was a president of the USTFCCCA. He co-founded the USTFF which fought the AAU for control of track and field in the USA. He served as a coach for national teams – including the very first Kenyan Olympic team. He created the NCAA Indoor Track & Field...

This week, LetsRun.com released a bracket of 64 runners to determine the greatest American distance runner of all-time. It had 32 men's nominees and 32 women's nominees. They'll play it out over the next couple weeks to determine who the greatest of all-time is. I thought, 'This is a really hard thing to determine because there's so many different things, especially when you're looking at distance running.'  We have outdoor track, indoor track, road running, cross country and the Olympics get...

Episode 2 of the Track & Field History podcast takes a look at one of the great individual rivalries not only in track & field but in all of sports: Jim Ryun vs Marty Liquori. All nine of their head-to-head matchups took place between 1967 and 1971, the last of which was known as the "Dream Mile" and had as much hype as a title fight. Ryun was the first high schooler to ever run a sub-4:00 mile and became the world's best as a high school senior. Few dominated the mile as he did in...

"The things that he did for track and field are just too much to put into words. Besides building one of the best track facilities in the entire country – it still is one of the best track facilities in the countries, he then started up invitational meets to put together the best collegians and post-collegiates. Usually, these were sponsored by Pepsi and it was just known as the Pepsi Invitational. It started in the late 70s and that meet went on until it finally ran out of gas at about 1990...

Track and Field History is a new podcast from the CITIUS MAG Podcast Network, where Jesse Squire will re-visit, examine and inform listeners about the greatest athletes, races and moments from the world's greatest sport. ▶ Follow CITIUS MAG: twitter.com/CitiusMag | instagram.com/citiusmag | facebook.com/citiusmag ✩ Connect with Jesse and the show via Email: [email protected] | twitter.com/tracksuperfan