Georgia State University, primarily the founding force behind the historic Peachtree Road Race, has a long and storied history with the world famous event that has been run every July 4 since 1970 down the main city street in Atlanta.
"The Peachtree's Papa" was Georgia State cross country coach and school Dean of Men Tim Singleton. Before the Atlanta Track Club took over the event in 1976, the first six races were founded by Singleton and supporters, some among the then-small Track Club, and had massive support from Georgia State personnel, including staff and students. Singleton was inducted into the Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame on June 25, 2011 and many of those GSU co-workers were on hand.
Georgia State runners have also distinguished themselves early (from Wayne Roach who won the 1974 race in a then course-record time over 765 runners and Gillian Valk who won the female race in 1972) to previous years when former Georgia State runners (Andrew Letherby and Mike Fitzgerald) finished in the Top 10 overall and in the master's division, respectively.
In 2010, former Panther Zaven O’Bryant was the 74th fastest male runner and 86th overall finisher in the 55,000-runner field with his 35:11 time. Former female runners Jenn Feenstra and Janel Blancett were the 27th and 31st fastest females, finishing 170th and 203rd in the overall field.
In 2009, Feenstra and Blancett were among the women’s leaders in 22nd and 30th place to finish in the top 200 overall, while Blancett had also finished 44th and 240th in 2008.
This year in 2011, women’s cross country coach Lauren Blankenship, a former All-America runner at Samford, will participate as a runner. Current student-athletes may run, but they do so as a “fun run” and not as a competitive race.
The number 110 stands out in the history as 110 runners showed up for the first race and now the total prize money for the race is $110,000. That first race of 110 runners, included three women and 107 men. Last year, the race entrants were 51 percent male and 49 percent female. The number of runners has increased to 60,000 with an entrance fee of $33. The largest grouping for runners by age is the 40-44 bracket, meaning most of them were just being born when the first race was born in 1970.
Here is a story of Georgia State's involvement in founding the biggest, best and most famous 10k race in America.
Before the Beginning
Georgia State's Singleton, an avid distance runner himself, used the summer time to find races to keep his Georgia State team in shape for the fall racing season. On July 4 of 1969, Coach Singleton took some of his Georgia State runners to a race at Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga. Georgia State runner Bruce LaBudde, who would eventually follow Singleton as coach at Georgia State, won that Columbus race in 1969 and received one of the just three trophies. The trophy was so big Coach Singleton had to put the back seat down in his Ford Falcon station wagon to get the trophy back to Atlanta.
Because so many of the runners at that Fort Benning race were from Atlanta and because they only gave prizes to the top three finishers, Singleton began thinking why not run somewhere in Atlanta on July 4, 1970?
In the early winter of 1970, Coach Singleton decided a distance race would be run in Atlanta on July 4 and placed it on the Atlanta Track Club's list of races for the year to help draw runners.
Singleton also served as Chairman of the Road Race Committee for the Track Club and had started the Atlanta Marathon as well.
Longtime Track Club executive director Julia Emmons said of Singleton: "Tim has this amazing entrepreneurial vision, on much the same quality as Billy Payne (organizer of the committee to land the 1996 Olympic Games)."
Working Out Details For the First Race
Singleton organized one 10-mile race in the North Georgia Mountains (from Lake Winfield Scott to Vogel State Park) that included climbs of upwards to 900 feet. So, when he first thought of the race in Atlanta, Singleton thought of a run up Stone Mountain Park. But, the thought of dehydrated and disoriented racers roaming the top of the mountain didn't seem like such a great idea after all.
Eventually, Singleton settled on a course that would start in Buckhead at the Sears store at the intersection of Peachtree, West Paces Ferry and Roswell Road and end up in downtown Atlanta on Peachtree Street by the Equitable Building and water fountain near the Georgia State campus and his office.
One important task was to get a "Parade Permit" to run the race ($25). Singleton decided to start the race at 9:30 a.m. to then finish downtown where the noon July 4 parade would take place. He used three motorcycle policemen also assigned to the parade to help as escorts for the runners since the streets would not be closed off. All the runners had to be able to log 55 minutes or faster because they only had a one-hour parade permit and the use of three policemen for that time.
Was heat a factor? No, according to Singleton. "Because these were runners who were trained racers," Singleton said. "We would run six or eight-mile races every Saturday in August at 5 p.m. in the heat and humidity." Thus, there were no water stands or hoses along the way of this first Peachtree Road race as the runners ran alongside the traffic.
Driving his personal family station wagon, Singleton marked out a course that left the Sears Parking Lot on Peachtree Road and headed toward downtown. At Pershing Point, he directed the runners down West Peachtree Street (not the current Peachtree Street now). From West Peachtree downtown, the course then turned uphill on Baker Street (past where the Inforum now is) and then right on Peachtree Street and down the final four or five blocks to the Equitable Building at the corner of the Georgia State campus and close to Singleton’s office where there was a fountain and plenty of shade trees then.
Singleton had prepared a pre-race Information Sheet to distribute to runners to "promote the race" but it wasn't really a registration form and most of the runners just showed up and paid the $2 entrance fee on race day. In his Hall of Fame speech, he said he had records and cash that 98 runners paid.
One other entrepreneurial advantage was lining up a sponsor (Carling Beer) to help buy trophies for the top 20-25 runners and provide free beer at the end of the race.
Race Number One: July 4, 1970
Singleton and his family arrived early for that 9:30 race with a support staff that could probably have been counted on fingers.
He parked his Volkswagen microbus in the Sears Lot and put a cigar box atop to stuff the dollar bills into (entry fee was $2) as racers showed up to get a number to run. These were mostly "race runners" and not recreational joggers. The final count for that first run was 110 runners.
Those runners included four or five Georgia State cross country members, other college runners in the area wanting to stay in shape, some Chattanooga Track Club members and several local Atlanta Track Club members.
LaBudde, a 1968 Olympic Trials invitee and top 12 Boston Marathon finisher, remembers putting up poster boards taped to telephone poles to mark the miles. About 10 minutes before the race was to start, they put athletic white tape across Peachtree Street to mark the start.
Since the roads weren't closed, the runners stayed along the curb lane and ran pretty much alone and unnoticed by the general public. Hence, Singleton remembers his words to the competitors being "Y'all be careful and watch out for traffic."
The finish line downtown was equally unimpressive. A rope was tied to a folding picnic-type chair (with Singleton's 7-year old son sitting on it to keep it in place). As runners came inside the rope, Singleton's 9-year old son handed out place number cards to the runners. Singleton's wife, Shelly, and his Georgia State secretary, Adrienne Coker, helped record the finishers as Singleton and LaBudde kept things organized and “official.”
A future 1972 10k Olympian, 25-year old Jeff Galloway, won that first Peachtree race among the 107 men. Gayle Barron was first among just three female runners who entered the first event. Barron, a 22-year old former cheerleader, went on to win five more Peachtree Road Races and the 1978 Boston Marathon. Bill Thorn, then a coach at Headland High School in south Atlanta, ran that first one and is now the lone runner to have run every Peachtree.
When the race was over, Singleton had one volunteer with a sock full of nickels and another with a sock full of dimes to provide bus fare back to the Sears parking lot for those who needed to get back to their cars.
The next Five Races (1971-1975)
Singleton remained the Peachtree Race Director for the next five races and got more and more involvement from the Georgia State community and more from the Atlanta Track Club members, a then small organization.
"When one of my secretaries was leaving, she told her replacement that the most important thing she would be working on while at Georgia State was the Peachtree Road Race," Singleton remembers.
Bruce LaBudde worked at Georgia State with Singleton and then eventually replaced him as cross country coach in 1973 and stayed for 19 more seasons. LaBudde earned a spot on the 1968 Olympic Trials team and trained in Colorado as he was a world-class distance runner.
Billy Brackin was a Panther cross country runner and worked in Singleton's office for five years. McRae Williams was a student assistant for three years for Singleton as well. Tommy Raynor was another Panther runner who helped with the race preparations.
Tommy Barber, a Georgia State baseball player and president of Tau Kappa Epsilon, helped organize about 80 Georgia State students to help with the races. "Dean Singleton came to us and asked us to help with the little details and we were thrilled to because he was such a good leader," Barber recalls.
"We'd wear our frat jerseys and help anyway we could, stopping traffic, putting down and picking up cones, helping at the start or finish, just whatever we could to assist him."
Diane Goodman, who was the TKE "sweetheart," helped serve as a trophy presenter. Goodman later was on the TV show Hee-Haw for seven or eight years, had some minor parts in Burt Reynolds movies and even dated Elvis Presley.
The second race almost doubled from the first 110 runners to 198 in 1971.
By year three in 1972, the field was growing to 330. In 1974, the race had really become popular with 765 finishers and then it topped the 1,000-mark in 1975. That was when the Atlanta Track Club took over as Dean Singleton earned his Ph. D. and moved to Houston to teach.
The finish became so crowded by the Equitable Building that they moved it on down the street to Woodruff Park (then Central City Park). In 1978, the race was moved to start at Lenox and finish at Piedmont Park as it does now.
What About the Tee Shirt?
The first race did not have a tee shirt that is now one of the most prized possessions of the race.
When Singleton was running the Boston Marathon, he realized he needed a post race tee shirt and the 1971 race had about 125-150 shirts. So, not everyone who finished received one. And it was a simple white tee shirt featuring mainly the Carling logo and no date of the race.
In 1972, Singleton ordered 250 shirts, but when the 330 showed up, many left disappointed again. And the second shirt was identical in design to the first shirt. Remember there was no real advance registration, so no one knew how many might show up. The third shirt was identical to the first two with no date to signify the difference of the years and a continuing problem of not enough for all that finished.
Later in 1974, a Tuborg beer logo replaced the Carling, but it was still the same shirt with no date. Even in 1976 when the Journal-Constitution became sponsor, the logo changed. But there was not a date.
Georgia State's Peachtree runners
Singleton, a devout runner who ran more than 70 marathons and founded probably 15 road races, ran his own Peachtree Road Race 27 of the first 29 years. He did not run in the first one in 1970 or in the 1976 race when he was moving his family to Texas.
• LaBudde, invited to the Olympic Trials for the marathon in 1968, has run all but five of the Peachtree Road Races with a best finish of 14th. LaBudde, a runner at North Springs High School, participated in the first-ever Atlanta Marathon in 1963 and won that event three times later (1964, 1966 and 1967). That event was run on the Westminster School "double loop" up Nancy Creek Road to the crest of Mt. Paran. Tim Singleton became race director for the Atlanta Marathon in 1966 prior to the Peachtree Road Race.
• Barber has run in 25 of the Peachtree's since his days of helping with the TKE's.
• Brackin, another of the originals, has been a top 20 finisher.
• Raynor, now owner of Fleet Feet, was one of the original runners and a top finisher in the early years.
• Roach won the 1974 Peachtree with a then course record time of 30:47 on the multiple-hill course.
• Valk, who won that 1972 female race, was a member of the faculty (mathematics) here at Georgia State.
• Letherby, a Georgia State runner from 1994-97, came back in 2006 as a 30-year old and finished eighth overall as the first American with a time of 28:57. He also finished 8th in this spring's Boston Marathon in 2:19.31.
• Fitzgerald, a Georgia State All-Conference runner in 1986-87, was the top Georgian finisher in the Master's with his eighth place finish in 2006 at 33:59 at age 42.
• Lisa Lorraine, a former Lady Panther runner, has been near the top of the Peachtree and third in a Boston Marathon. Lorraine also had the distinction of running a race with the men's cross country team at Georgia State in a match vs. South Alabama in which the Panthers defeated the Jaguars.
Georgia State coaches through the years have stayed active in the Peachtree, too. John Rowland has served as a race escort for the top female finishers multiple times. Jessica Graham has finished in the top 100 and has served as a TV and radio announcer for a couple of the Peachtree Races. Current coach Blankenship is running in 2011.
Obviously, there have been hundreds and hundreds of others of Georgia State runners, but these are some of the ones who have distinguished themselves.
As Tommy Barber summed things up: "I think that had it not been for the groundwork of Georgia State, there simply would not be a famous Peachtree Road Race."
