Mike Mahon Stories

I was an XC runner in the mid 90's in MA and loved being one of Mahon's "top guys" -- I remember seeing him at Franklin Park, having biked there from Framingham on a beat up bicycle.

He was so enthusiastic and loved setting up rivalries between the various top runners in Eastern/Central Mass.

I remember my junior year at the Bay State Invite, (for all non-MA people it's an invite held in late Sept. so many top runners don't compete in it) the race came down to Jarod Shoemaker and Richard Lincoln, with Lincoln pulling ahead in the final 100 meters. My teammates and I were at the finish line where Mahon was screaming, "It is official, Richard Lincoln is the new number one!!!" We didn't know who this guy was but we were sure that Richard Lincoln was not the new number one seeing as Mohamed was still competing. But his enthusiasm was still riotously funny. And excuse me for any misspelled names.

The Mayor

In the early 90s, went up to a kid from Concord Carlisle, one of the better runners in his conference, who also happened to be jewish and said:

"You're a fast runner for a jew"

Went up to a dark-complexioned exchange student from Australia who was competing in a track meet at Weston HS and said:

"I didn't know there were ni__ers in Australia"

(you know what the full word is, I'm not about to write it out)

and of course the various and sundry girls over the years who were made uncomfortable by him basically stalking them at meets. I coached a few myself, always fun to explain to him that it's not cool to chase girls running alone on their cooldown.

That head injury affected his personality in many ways, not all of them so entertaining. Think Phineas Gage.

This is no newsflash to anyone who's met him, but he's lost much of the ability to determine what's appropriate vs. inappropriate. It's just a question of how much of that skill was lost in the motorcycle crash that caused the closed head injury.

BTW before that he was a runner at Keefe Tech.

hey mayor, wanna run this afternoon...gimme a holla anytime after 3 if you do. bLank

For a year or two, Mahon used to come to my high school dual meets because my coach tolerated him. Well we found out lots of his interests, especially how much a Montreal Alouettes (canadian football league team) fan he is. He wore the same Alouettes jersey everytime i saw him. I can't remember the what player it was... anyone?

Anyways... he told us how he played fantasy football for the CFL on a messageboard. He use to always tell us how is team was doing. I dont know the rules of it but everyone was teamed up with other people. Well we always found it funny how his team was made up of Gary from Indiana and LORD ZED. Yes, Lord Zed from the power rangers, if any fans are out there. I can still remember him yelling LOORRRD ZED!

another time a kid on my team stole his coin collection can (dick move!) and all hell broke loose. Mahon was pretty much flipping out. In the end he got it back and the Mahon Banquet was able to go off without a hitch and everyone lived happily ever after with their "charles manson" awards.

The banquets were pretty nice, as were the awards. They were all financed through the collection of cans, I believe. I went to WEston high, class of '89. At the banquet I attended, it became clear that a big part of Mike's mission was to honor the memory of a close friend who died in a drunk driving accident. Mike held an annual road race, the "Frozen Foot" in honor of his friend. The parents of the friend were at the banquet, and the father cried while Mike explained what the Frozen Foot was all about. Everyone on my team felt terrible because it was damned hard not to laugh at Mike's hugely dramatic delivery of the speech, and not knowing how much of what he said was fake. Then the father stood up and thanked Mike for having the banquet and the race. "It sure means a lot to us." he said.

Mike had boundary issues, there's no doubt about it. One of my friends, a woman, was ranked number 1 in his individual standings, and he followed her around all the time. She liked him though and took it in stride, and we kind of adopted him at that point.

Mike would always refer to one of his friends, I forget his name, the "lead guitarist for the Neon Diamonds." We all deeply believed that this friend was imaginary. Then one day this dude showed up at a cross country meet looking for Mike wearing a leather jacket with "Neon Diamonds" painted on the back.

I already told this story on the other thread, but here goes.

We were at the Bay State Invitational (or some other race at Franklin Park), and my teammates and I were doing strides. We all came back to the starting line to do our pre-race cheer, and Mahon was in our huddle. No one knew what to do.

Mahon yells, "You've got Charlie Manson on your team!"

None of us knew who this guy was. Thankfully, he got distracted, probably by one of our female teammates, and we were able to do our cheer without a problem.

It was quite bizarre, however. No high school kid expects a grizzled, wild-eyed lunatic in their pre-race huddle.

Another time, after a race, we saw one of my teammates getting interviewed by what seemed like a newspaper reporter (from a distance). When we got closer, we realized that it was not a newspaper reporter but a street urchin named Mahon with a marker instead of a microphone. Instead of conducting an interview, Mahon was babbling about the internet with a really loud voice.

salad days wrote:

For a year or two, Mahon used to come to my high school dual meets because my coach tolerated him. Well we found out lots of his interests, especially how much a Montreal Alouettes (canadian football league team) fan he is. He wore the same Alouettes jersey everytime i saw him. I can't remember the what player it was... anyone?

I do believe the jersey says "Impala," I think this is Mike's nickname for himself. Still wears it, doesn't look like he washes it.

Nacho, I also graduated in '89, from A-B. I think I know who your friend is. Agreed Mike has boundary issues, what I neglected to mention is that he usually responds when he's told to calm it down a bit. Usually.

The dude who stole his coin can is heading to a special circle of hell.

That's cool. Did you run CC? I remember some of you A-B guys. Great team. Send me an email.

I remember going to a friends XC meet at Weston HS and seeing this crazy guy wearing a CFL jersey asking me for money for some cause. We talked for a few minutes about football and he rambled about how I'm a good person cause I put money into his cannister.

I can't believe other people know this guy.

Mike Mahon is a genius. Most of his predictions are right on the money. He takes all his notes and facts pretty seriously.

IMPALA!!!!!!!!!!

-it was mentioned in the other thread but when Salazar came out from CA to be the key speaker at the Mike Mahon banquet he definitely had no idea what he was in store for!

its still funny to think about. Mike Mahon Banquet... Alberto Salazar key speaker. haha.

more -

Mike Mahon definitely had his dad call a kid on my team's dad to complain about the kid harassing mike at the meets. This was probably the kid that is going to hell for stealing his can.

ALSO - i just want to get it clear that i think overall Mahon does great things for MA running. (if he knew about CFL fantasy football leagues online in 2000, he sure as hell must read letsrun in 2005!)

i remember some insanely funny (half english) conversations with Mahone on dyestat years back.

How old is this Mahon guy?

background please.

The legend....

That picture refreshed my memory. I used to run quite a few races around the central mass area, and I will never forget a 5K race in upton ma in the mid to early 80's.

This freaky looking guy...Mahon...takes out the race ..hard. I finally caught him before the mile..and went on to win...but he was running pretty fast. He definately had decent wheels. I think he faded alot at the end of the race..but still ran respectable. What I recall , was the strangest post race conversation with him. It was all over the place. I wish I could remember it all, but it was so disjointed it was difficult to follow any thread at all. I finally walked away not really knowing what the hell I had just experienced. now I know...i had been Mahoned!

Welcome to the Mike Mahon Mike Mahon cross country racing series. (spoken very garbled and fast)

This is hilarious. I have so many Mahon stories it is hard to recall a best one. He made it to almost every meet our team had. I believe he was living in Framingham at the time so it was only a 6 mile bike ride from his apartment.

Mike would always ride his beater of an mtn bike in front of the race on the road section and announce it as he rode a long. We had a race against a pretty weak team for this home meet and all the guys on the team had a pool bet I could not pass Mike. There is one 1/4 mi. down and up section on the course where he would always get up a head of steam to make it up the next side in front of the first runner. This race, when he started charging down the hill, I started hammering as hard as possible. He only got about 20 yards on me so on the uphill I caught him and went by. As I pass, I hear in Mahon babble speak "this is unprecedentable, a racer is passing the motorbike." It took a lot of strength not to laugh but I was laughing inside. Don't know what was more amusing, the word "unprecedentable" (I think he was looking for unprecedented) or the fact he thought he was on a motorbike.

After the race, he did his typical interview with the bic pen "How did it feel when you went by the motorbike?" High comedy by all accounts.

Mike is a good guy and obviously has his issues. He never did anything intentionally harmful. He could be annoying but you could just brush him off if it is time to get ready to race. I have serious problem with a spoiled high school kid who would steel from someone who is handicapped. As if he needed the $1.75 mike probably had in his can.

He cares about High School cross country. Maybe his methods are a bit unusual but his heart is in the right place.

Pretty funny shit, those characters are what makes the world go round

We'll probably see him in a couple weeks at Bay State, my son runs in the Tri-Valley league.

I had always wondered who this character was, now i know