With little or no fanfare, the Kansas Relays has reached the 20th anniversary of its zenith.
Never before and never since has there been a Kansas Relays like the one in 1972. . .and not just because that Saturday was sunny and pleasant with the thermometer registering in the 70s.
Even though the Kansas Relays conjures up visions of dark, blustery and wet weather, the annual track and field carnival has probably experienced more good weather than bad.
Only once, though, have as many as 32,000 people trudged to Memorial Stadium to watch it. Or at least part of it. Actually, thousands upon thousands of them mostly KU students descended on the stadium to view the Cunningham Mile.
They didn’t really come to see the race. They came to see Jim Ryun run in it. Ryun, now in his 40s and living in rural Lawrence, was in his prime in those days and pointing for the ’72 Olympics.
If you weren’t around in 1972, I know it’s difficult to believe that any athlete, much less and track and field performer, could lure so many people into a stadium. Ryun could, though.
Jim Ryun was a phenomenon, and had been ever since he broke the four-minute barrier as a senior at Wichita East. People flocked to watch the lanky Kansan run because every time he stepped on the track records went on the endangered list.
Perhaps around 25,000 folks sat in the stands during the opening ceremonies on that Saturday afternoon. Then, as the starting time for the Cunningham Mile drew nearer, people descended on the stadium in waves.
So long were the lines at the ticket booths that KU officials eventually just waved the latecomers in.
“Surprised?” one KU official remarked later that evening. “That’s not the word for it. We were setting up shop for about 22,000 because that’s how many we had last year.”
Obviously, the 32,000 figure they came up with was an estimate. Were there really that many people on hand? Maybe, but even if the crowd was in the upper 20s and surely it was it would have been a record because the previous attendance record was 23,700 set five years earlier. Uh, huh. . .Ryun was a featured performer in ’67, too.
Campanile Hill, as usual, was full of freeloaders in ’72. No telling how many people were massed on the grass hill overlooking the open south end zone that day, but curiously the majority weren’t there to see Ryun run.
Most of the Campanile Hill freebies weren’t playing frisbee, either. They were dissidents conducting an orderly but noisy demonstration about U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Before the Cunningham Mile they were allowed to use the public address system to voice their opinions.
Minutes later, Ryun remarked that the delay for the anti-war protest took away some of his edge. He toured the mile in a relatively pedestrian, for him, 3:57.1.
In time the pressure to produce a record every time he slipped into his spikes became a nagging burden that wasn’t resolved until Ryun eventually found refuge in his religious faith.
Regardless, moments after Ryun crossed the finish line in the southwest corner of the oval, thousands stood up and walked out. They’d come to watch Jim Ryun run. When he was done so were they.
Even though Ryun had not broken the existing mile record, he had nevertheless provided the impetus for the most historic day in the 67 years of the Kansas Relays.
