V 1 N. 20 The Vagaries of Running Track Design by Roger Howard

Roger Howard, author of this article was my roommate in 1965 during our three months of training to go into the Peace Corps as teachers in Tanzania.  We trained at Syracuse University which had a department of East African Studies that could provide us with experts who knew the lay of the land in that far off country.  For relief from the stress of training and knowing that we were still in a  pre-selection process, we could be entertained on the  campus of good ol' Syracuse U.  by Larry Czonka and Floyd Little on the football field and Dave Bing on the basketball court.  But when sport could not provide relief, we could also follow a narrow trail down a hill to Ozzie's Bar on the old two lane highway that led south out of town.   The challenge was getting back up that hill when the stress was no longer in our young frames.

Roger was a studious lad, ex-high school football player, graduate of a small liberal arts college in Nebraska called Doane College.  He had worked one summer with Saul Alinsky the famous community organizer in Kansas City.  After the Peace Corps, Roger would move on to the University of Wisconsin, get a doctorate and round out his career in education as the Dean of Students at that institution.   So it  is with no incertitude that I can present Roger as well credentialled to write in this blog.   

In the 1960's Peace Corps Volunteers were often short on skills but full of enthusiasm to go into strange lands and serve alongside people of those countries helping them move forward in education, economics, road building, agriculture and running track construction.   Well, maybe that last task was not part of John Kennedy's vision, but Peace Corps Volunteers never backed down from any challenge.  Sometimes we were greeted as saviours who could do anything. Witness the Volunteer who arrived at his school only a few minutes after a student had been bitten by a black mamba snake, one of the deadliest on the continent.  As the Peace Corps Volunteer was getting out of the car that had brought him to his post, a group of teachers and students dragged the dying victim to him and asked him to treat the individual and save his life.  Needless to say, it took some time for that volunteer to establish himself as someone who could help people get on with their lives.  Alas, here is the tale of a liberal arts major filling a role in civil engineering.

 

 The Vagaries of Running Track Design

By Roger Howard

I was looking forward to a teaching break in the spring of 1967 because I planned to

meet a retired professor of mine who would be arriving in Dar (Dar Es Salaam, the nation's

 capital) and wanted to tour the east African coast. But a week before the break, my 

headmaster told me that he had several assignments for me that would take most of the time 

for the break. So, no touring for me.

One of the assignments was to design a quarter mile running track around the schools’

current soccer pitch. The only available tools I could find at the school were a rusty 16-

foot retractable ruler and a 100 foot ball of twine. Fortunately, there was a government

road construction crew working nearby. The headmaster thought he could get them to

help once I had staked out the very rough dimensions of the track. I had six days to

complete my design before the headmaster wanted me to begin another project that

would take me away from the school.

The road building crew chief was a British surveyor on loan to the Tanzanian

government. He said he knew exactly how to lay out and grade the track once I had

completed the rough design outline. So I would not need the ball of twine.

The only real design decision I needed to make was what to do about the trees in the

way of what needed to be the southern end of the track. There was a beautiful grove of

eucalyptus trees within which the far curve of the track needed to fit. Cutting all those

trees down seemed overkill. I thought it was a brilliant idea to cut only the trees needed

for the track curve itself. The runners then would run through the trees around the

curve, disappearing from sight for a few seconds.

In a couple weeks, the track was done. The headmaster was happy, and he announced

an invitational tournament for the next month. There was a nice crowd for the meet. All

seemed to agree that the track looked great.

But the design flaw, my design flaw, quickly became apparent. During the first heat of

the quarter mile race, six boys entered the eucalyptus grove curve. Only four came out

the other side. The two slowest boys hid among the trees. The same thing happened

again and again in race after race. Even when we stationed “guards along the tree line

curve. We still lost many of the slow runners who refused to come out from the safety of

the trees.

As you might guess, within a couple weeks, all the rest of the trees were cut, and we no

longer had a beautiful grove lined curve on the far end of the track and my track design

days were over.

Now for the kicker.   When I asked Roger's permission to use the story, he said okay, but with the caveat that I did not use the name of the school.   Here is his letter on that subject.  I have removed the school's name for the following reason.   George

Hi George. Yes, please do use my story as you would as you would like. However, I have a favor to ask. 

The name of my school near Mbeya was (           ). About 10 or 12 years after we returned to the States I received a letter from someone I recognized as a student when I was there. I remember him as a very bright student a leader among students.  I don’t remember his name now.

 He told me that he had gotten a scholarship to attend a small college somewhere in the eastern part of the United States. He was then teaching back in Tanzania at (      ). 

After several letters, he asked if I would be able to write a letter describing some of my memories at (        ) to be used in a newsletter they were going to send to alumni of (          ). I agreed and sent him a short version of my memories of this track construction process. 

I didn’t hear from him for several months and then he wrote me a long letter saying that they had sent that newsletter out with my description and they had gotten painful responses from some of the alumni who were there when the track was built. He said that some of his colleagues, my former students, were ashamed to read this description I sent of that track building and what happened when students ran on the track. They didn’t dispute whether I was accurate or not, but they felt the story, especially coming from a Peace Corps teacher they all respected, was demeaning to the school’s reputation. 

I was very puzzled and saddened. I apologized and wrote another very different and clearly positive memory piece for their newsletter. 

We corresponded off and on for another year or so before I lost touch. 

I still don’t really understand the reason for the hurt feelings and there is almost zero chance any of those boys, now aging men, will come across your blog. But I ask that you not identify the school just in case.  Roger  

Another brief story of track building in Africa which I personally witnessed was in Mwanza, Tanzania on the shores of Lake Victoria.  It was a long process as the track was on the side of a slope and considerable build up had to be done to level the track.  This was done by hand, not as the case above by a road construction crew.  The dirt was hauled by a single wheelbarrow by any student under punishment for any sort of school rule violation.  Needless to say, it required years to complete.   And no special cinders were shipped in from  England.  

George