The 34th running of Hospital Hill was staged Saturday. But it did not come off without a hitch.
Make that glitch.
Actually, it was the Hospital Hill Run in name only. That's because the names who have been most closely associated with this prime Kansas City event for the last 33 years were not involved, not even invited to the party they created in 1974. I, like many of the thousands of a loyal KC running community, find it inexplicable. Some consider it inexcusable.
Hospital Hill without Russ Niemi? Or Rich Ayers?
Or, perhaps more importantly, without The Mid-America Running Association (us old timers know it as Mid-America Masters)?
Without question, this is a rather sensitive subject in some circles. Some high-profile sponsors of this event don't do well with controversy. And the new management team and its Chicago-based race director are understandably a little thin-skinned about being seen as the bad guys in the ex-communication of the old guard. Or "kicked to the curb" as The Pitch recently described.
Ironic, huh, that the new board is a tad sensitive about this whole issue, when many believe it was this group that so heartlessly got rid of the very people who invented the race.
Geez, can't we all just get along? After all, this is just about a running event, not a confrontation of Sunnis and Shiites. Well, apparently it has become a lot more than just a running event on the first Saturday in June at Crown Center. Sadly.
If you read between the spin, it's now about numbers ... exposure, power and, ultimately, about money. No such thing as 'Fun Runs' in the new world, I guess. How has this happened to a casual, fun event that began with a $1 entry fee and this year was $50?
The soft-spoken Niemi, a retired electrical engineer, has spent much of his life dedicated to the development of the Hospital Hill Run. He is, in fact, the founding father.
Dr. Ralph Hall went to him in early '74 and asked if he and his Mid-America Masters group would put together a simple jogging event in conjunction with a medical symposium being held that spring in the Hospital Hill area near downtown. Of course, Russ would.
And before anyone could say Nike swoosh, 99 of Niemi's best running pals had quietly begun a Kansas City tradition.
The following spring of '75, the Hospital Hill Run reputation was off and running, attracting 288 ... then 372 and 887 by 1977. In 1978, 2,000 showed up at the starting line while five years later the number had exploded to 4,173. Of course, the running boom had much to do with this explosion of interest, as did the challenging route and the spectacular setting of Crown Center Square for the starting and finishing lines.
Various distances, and fun runs, were added so there was a doable challenge for just about everybody in the family. But most of all, Hospital Hill was about people, and Niemi and Mid-America Masters were about as people friendly as any organization on earth.
In time, Niemi's protégé, Rich Ayers, became the race director and along with Russ, catered to the "people atmosphere" for three decades. Three decades!
Above all, Russ and Rich are race managers, and darn good ones. They will be the first to admit, though, that they are not promoters, nor did they want to be ... back then or now. Nor is Mid-America in the biz of blaring megaphones.
But the sponsors and powers that be noticed one day that the Hospital Hill numbers had leveled out around 3,000. Never mind that the Square was still packed with not only runners, but multiple family members cheering on their loved ones. Someone, somewhere decided this event should be drawing 4,000 ... maybe even 5,000.
Apparently somebody believes this event is no longer valid unless it is bigger and better than the year before. Gotta grow, gotta get bigger. Out with the old, in with the new! Perhaps you know the mantra if you've been outsourced lately.
Suddenly, with visions of even bigger throngs and more exposure, there was a new board of directors of HH. New blood is good, but the trouble was that the new board did not include Russ, Rich or anyone from Mid-America. Emboldened, the new board went out and got itself a "professional" race director from the big city - the Windy City.
Even still, Mid-America was hopeful it still would have a place in the new world. Oops, think again.
Russ and Mid-America made a bid for race management, submitting an offer of $5 a head...or $15,000 based on 3,000 runners. The $5 per runner was what the nonprofit had always gotten from the share of entry fees.
But what the organization didn't figure on was that there was a new sheriff in town.
Instead of 3,000, the new race director envisioned 5,000 being lured to the line with better party favors and Windy City hoopla. And $5 x 5,000 meant having to shell out $25,000 from the $250,000 gross, which apparently was too much money to cough up to Mid-America, even if they were the founding fathers.
When Russ and his board came to realize the mix up in communication (that they had based their bid on 3,000 runners not 5,000), the group asked if it could re-submit a lower per-head figure. They were told flat out, 'No!' according to Russ.
Russ, Rich and Mid-America members are classy folks. They are, surely, crestfallen that their baby has grown up and moved away, although there are those who would suggest the baby was kidnapped. Honestly and genuinely, they want this race to thrive; that what they created is far more important for the community than any one person or organization.
Change, obviously, sometimes comes with a hiccup.
And they are right, of course. Although for many of us old timers it just won't be the same old Hospital Hill course that we cut our waffle-soles on in the '70s. With Mid-America Masters now out of the picture, this event definitely is going in a different direction.
God speed new guys.
NOTE: Russ Niemi, Rich Ayers and Sandy Cohen, media spokesman for the new Hospital Hill board, were all invited to attend an informational meeting on the Crown Center Square in early May to discuss the Hospital Hill changes. Only Niemi and Ayers attended. Business obligations prevented Cohen from attending, as well on as several other alternative dates.