Larry Seifert - Passed @ 89

JAVMAN83

Well-known member
Reported on T&F News feed today:


I didn't know him, but have been well aware of his name since I was a kid myself. RIP
 
 
It was the summer of 1976 and I was at a coaches meeting the night before the Region 6 track meet where Larry was the meet director. He announced he was pulling out of the Region 6 cross country meet because of the possible weather conditions up in northeast Ohio the third week of November. I told Larry I could run the meet in Cincinnati and he went for it not really knowing a lot about me other than I was up there with the Ohio qualifiers who had run at the Ohio JO State meet at Reading. That meet made my club and my reputation to put on big meets thanks to Larry.
 
Lancermania,

I had no idea the JOs were ever run @ Reading. What years did that happen? My 1st JO was 1978 @ Mariemont with State @ Columbus. I believe you were meet director @ Mariemont as well?

I still have the results of that '78 JO @ Mariemont!
 
The state JOs were at Reading before the boxers siezed control of TAC Ohio when TAC became the national governing body and started running the state JOs in Collumbus. The USATF was known between 1979 and 1992 as The Athletics Congress (TAC) after its spin off from the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), which governed the sport in the US through most of the 20th century until the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 dissolved its responsibility.
 
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Wasn't it 1980 when we had a bus leaving from Finneytown high school to the meet in Columbus. Remember the summer track series was at Finneytown back then.
 
Hmm...I didn't know about the State AAU JO's at Reading. Did Jim Wright have anything to do with that?

I don't know about the bus from Finneytown in 1980 as my dad drove me to the '80 State JO in Columbus. However, you are correct about the Summer series @ Finneytown. It moved there from Princeton mid-run in 1979 and stayed @ Finneytown through 1981. We had some great performers at that meet those few years, some of which remain as the Finneytown field records (something only I know about).

Big marks at those series:
7' high jumps by former Greenhills star Scott Evans
15' 6" pole vault by Rick Christoph, and I believe we had a 16-footer by either Gary Hunter or someone else.
I think we also had some 14+ minute 5000s by some of the guys back then.

Biggest name ever to compete at those meets, however, was 1972 Olympic Silver medalist in the 400 meter hurdles & former world record holder over the 440yd hurdles, Ralph Mann. He ran a 50.5 400m hurdles at that summer series in 1980! Good times.
 
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