Surprised to see this hasn't already been posted, but the sport one of its true giants this morning: Bob Hersh
World class announcer, statistician, writer, anti-doping advocate and voice of the sport; long-standing member of the World Athletics Council, as well as former Senior Vice President, Competition Committee Chair, Juridical Commission member and Technical Committee member; board member and many other duties for USATF.
I enjoyed the article. It was neat to learn how he got into the sport. His dad took him a meet at MSG (Millrose presumably) and he thought it was awesome at age 12. He then was the student manager in HS and college at Columbia.
He announced 6 different Olympic games but said his favorite race was the Penn Relays 4 x 800 in 2005 which was won by Columbia.
"It was one time when I was sorry I was on the microphone, because I had to keep my composure," he said of the Penn Relays race. "What I really wanted to do was start jumping up and down and screaming. If people ask me what's the greatest track race I've ever seen, that's what immediately comes to mind."
PS. I remember watching that race intently. One of my goals at Cornell was to have the first Ivy League team win a Penn Relays race since 1974 or something crazy and thinking, "Damn. They did it. There goes that goal."
Can we put a tiny asterisk next to it :) as Michigan tripled some of their guys, didnt' they? Either tripled them or didn't run them? Something like that. It's been 15+ years and I can't quite remember. Great job by them and I can only imagine how happy a track nut like him was.
This post was edited 7 minutes after it was posted.
40+ years ago I was a messenger for him in a invitational in New Jersey- I’d thought his voice would live forever. What a great treasure for our sport! I hope there is some young blood in the pipeline either the gravitas he possessed.
I have great memories of Hersh. His passion for t&f was deep and authentic. His announcing reflected deep respect for all athletes, regardless of their ethnicity, race, religion, nation, etc., and of course his voice was wonderful to listen to and his knowledge of the participants was encyclopedic. As someone else mentioned he was undeservedly "eased out" of Usatf. I'm so glad that this thread is here to honor him.
I first started working with Bob at the 1979 Millrose Games as his statistician. He was brilliant with an unmatchable skill set (legal, technical, presentation, statistical) and one of the sports greatest fans. RIP my friend
Wish I had gotten to know him from these tributes.
RIP my friend.
This was nuts when I read it: How has the sport overall changed since you first became involved? When I first became involved there were five meets at Madison Square Garden every indoor season, and there were major, major, meets in California outdoors, and they were well attended.
There was also a thriving indoor circuit, mainly in the east but also elsewhere. Over the years, the sport's popularity diminished to what it is today, which is quite different. We could talk for days about why that happened, but that's the most dramatic change. At some point after I started following the sport, women became more important. There were very few women's events, if any, back in the 50s and 60s. That started to change rapidly in the 1970s and after, and that of course has been a good change.
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Couldn't we have one major meet at the Garden like every 4 years?! Not sure if the portable tracks even exist anymore.
Editor's note: Wejo's quote comes from the USATF press release which he forgot to link to:
Wish I had gotten to know him from these tributes.
RIP my friend.
This was nuts when I read it: How has the sport overall changed since you first became involved? When I first became involved there were five meets at Madison Square Garden every indoor season, and there were major, major, meets in California outdoors, and they were well attended.
There was also a thriving indoor circuit, mainly in the east but also elsewhere. Over the years, the sport's popularity diminished to what it is today, which is quite different. We could talk for days about why that happened, but that's the most dramatic change. At some point after I started following the sport, women became more important. There were very few women's events, if any, back in the 50s and 60s. That started to change rapidly in the 1970s and after, and that of course has been a good change.
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Couldn't we have one major meet at the Garden like every 4 years?! Not sure if the portable tracks even exist anymore.
We can't get American athletes to commit (and show up) to meets on quality outdoor tracks (forget indoor track) and you want them to show up for a meet on a track the would be deadly slow? Also Millrose with its crowd just over 5000 has trouble selling out each year and you think you will get people to show up to MSG for a meet? Why do you think Millrose at Msg died. The stars would not run and there were no fans in the stands. In the last year or 2 USATF lots tons of money
We can't get American athletes to commit (and show up) to meets on quality outdoor tracks (forget indoor track) and you want them to show up for a meet on a track the would be deadly slow? Also Millrose with its crowd just over 5000 has trouble selling out each year and you think you will get people to show up to MSG for a meet? Why do you think Millrose at Msg died. The stars would not run and there were no fans in the stands. In the last year or 2 USATF lots tons of money
Is Seigel didn't make $3 million + they could afford to 'lose' $1 million on 3 meets a year. That's called marketing.
I enjoyed the article. It was neat to learn how he got into the sport. His dad took him a meet at MSG (Millrose presumably) and he thought it was awesome at age 12. He then was the student manager in HS and college at Columbia.
He announced 6 different Olympic games but said his favorite race was the Penn Relays 4 x 800 in 2005 which was won by Columbia.
"It was one time when I was sorry I was on the microphone, because I had to keep my composure," he said of the Penn Relays race. "What I really wanted to do was start jumping up and down and screaming. If people ask me what's the greatest track race I've ever seen, that's what immediately comes to mind."
PS. I remember watching that race intently. One of my goals at Cornell was to have the first Ivy League team win a Penn Relays race since 1974 or something crazy and thinking, "Damn. They did it. There goes that goal."
Can we put a tiny asterisk next to it :) as Michigan tripled some of their guys, didnt' they? Either tripled them or didn't run them? Something like that. It's been 15+ years and I can't quite remember. Great job by them and I can only imagine how happy a track nut like him was.
Columbia 4x8 COA was in 2007. Michigan won the triple crown (DMR, 4xmile, 4x8) in 2005.
This post was edited 36 seconds after it was posted.
Reason provided:
Autocorrected to Columbus
Here is some nice things that Walt Murphy wrote about Bob for Walt Murphy's News and Results Service:
R.I.P.-Bob Hersh, who worked tirelessly for the betterment of the sport for decades, passed away this morning (January 18), at the age of 82 after a long bout with cancer. This is a tough one to write, since Bob and I were friends for more than 50 years. Long after we bonded through T&F, we discovered that we grew up just a few blocks from each other in the same Brooklyn neighborhood, within walking distance of Ebbets Field, the home of our beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. Of all the items that Bob accumulated during his time in the sport, his prized possession was a letter from Steve Prefontaine, thanking Bob for his support of athletes’ rights. He also had the original “Stop Pre” t-shirt he wore during the 1972 U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene! Bob often dealt with serious issues within the sport, but he also knew how to have fun. He was competitive in T&F fantasy games and he loved to play “quarters” with other like-minded “gamblers” on the stats row at the Penn Relays while betting on the Saturday morning series of H.S. Boys 4x400 races! And then there was the media 4x100 at the 1988 Relays. Held in front of the big Saturday crowd, it was a battle (for last place) between T&F News West and T&F News East. It was close heading into the anchor leg, as Scott Davis (West) and Bob (East) went stride-for-stride down the homestretch. Bob had a slight lead, repeatedly trying to smack Davis across the chest with his baton to fend him off. He was unsuccessful, as Davis won the race to finish next-to-last and gain bragging rights for the West Coast! It was all in good fun as the two future Hall-of-Famers shared a laugh as they made their way off the track.
Great article about one of the great men of our sport.
I particularly appreciated his comments in his HOF induction interview about his thorough and detailed preparation for announcing a meet. Which of course is why he was so incredibly good at it. Talk about a lost art. Why can't we get even one, just one, meet or race announcer to do half the job he did today? This ranks high on the list of reasons for the sport's decline in popularity.
To clarify, I'm referring mainly to TV and streaming announcers and commentators. There are some excellent in the house meet announcers who know their stuff. But as many on these boards have said for a long time, it's usually better to watch our sport on TV with the sound muted.
I was one of those " gamblers", betting quarters on the winners and last place finishers in the HS Boys 4X400 Relays. I invariably lost my entire $ 10 roll of quarters within minutes....of course, some of our group never passed down their quarters when they lost!
