By Bob Burns

In all fairness, Modesto could be located on a map long before 1942. Modesto's recorded history dates to 1870, when the Central Pacific Railroad extended its line into the heart of the San Joaquin Valley.
But when track people credit Tom Moore, the legendary director of the Modesto Relays, for putting Modesto on the map, their bias is perfectly understandable. For if a cartographer drew up a map featuring the great track cities in the world - cities that played a leading role in the sport's history - Modesto would be featured in bold type Helsinki, Zurich, Los Angeles, Berlin, Oslo, London, Rome, Modesto. That's fast company, but Modesto belongs. The record book doesn't lie. A staggering 33 world records have been set in the Modesto Relays over 60 spring Saturdays at Modesto Junior College.

Carl Lewis competed here, as did Bob Hayes. Ralph Boston recorded the first 27-foot long jump in Modesto. Steve Prefontaine ran his next-to-last race here. Jim Ryun ran the mile here, as did Peter Snell. Cornelius "Dutch" Warmerdam set a world record in the pole vault here. Fifty-eight years later, so did Stacy Dragila.

Ron Clarke, Edwin Moses, Maurice Greene, Bobby Morrow, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Al Oerter, Florence Griffith Joyner, Herb Elliott, Evelyn Ashford, Parry O'Brien, Bob Beamon, Wilma Rudolph, Mac Wilkins, Renaldo Nehemiah - they were all able to find their way to Modesto without a map.

"I wouldn't miss Modesto for the world," Boston recalled. "It was like going home. Here you had this sleepy little town whose mainstay was Ernest and Julio Gallo wine. But it also had one hell of a track meet."
For that, the track world can thank a fast track, warm weather, an enthusiastic community, and benevolent valley winds. Mostly, though, it can thank Moore, the 89-year-old marvel who will be on the infield May 11 when the 61st annual Coca-Cola Modesto Relays Track & Field Festival takes place at Modesto JC.
Moore competed in the inaugural meet in 1942, winning the high hurdles. In 1945, he became the meet director - a position he has held ever since. He fired the starting gun on most every race, thousands all told. He single-handedly kept the meet alive when it hit a rough patch in the mid-1990s.

With Save Mart Supermarkets signing on as the event sponsor in 1999, the meet is on much safer footing. Gregg Miller, the co-meet director with Moore, firmly believes the event is worth keeping. For Modesto's sake, for the sport's sake, for Tom Moore's sake.
"It's hard to put into words what Tom Moore has meant to the Modesto Relays," Miller said. "He is the Modesto Relays. That's one of the biggest reasons why I want to see us bring this event back to its old stature. Tom deserves to see it himself, and I think we're getting there."

It was an uncertain time, 1942. The United States had just joined the Second World War. No great expectations surrounded the first meet. Fred Earle, the athletic director at Modesto Junior College, talked to a few of his colleagues about the possibility of holding a small track and field competition for athletes from the Bay Area schools. Out of those discussions came a suggestion: Earle should enlist the help of a newcomer to the valley, a fellow named Tom Moore.

Moore had moved to Ceres in 1940 to work in his father's lumberyard. A graduate of Petaluma High School and the University of California, Moore competed for the legendary Brutus Hamilton at Cal in the mid-1930s. He tied the world record in the 120-yard high hurdles in 1935, clocking 14.2 seconds.
Moore was semi-retired by 1942. He was on his way to becoming one of the best starters in the business. In fact, Moore started each of the races in 1942 with the exception of one - the high hurdles, which he won. "I had my track shorts on under my pants," Moore said. "When it came time for the highs, I stripped down and was ready to go."

Moore was a jack-of-all-trades from the start, climbing a rickety ladder with Earle and MJC custodian Gene Bradley to adjust the lights so they'd shine on the track instead of the football field. Athletes from nearby schools such as Cal, Stanford, Fresno State and Sacramento Junior College won most events with average marks. The top event was the pole vault, featuring Cornelius Warmerdam, who lived just a couple of hours down the road in Fresno.

To the delight of the 3,000 spectators, Warmerdam wound up breaking his own world record. But the event seemed more comical than historic in the early going. On an early miss by one of the lesser vaulters, the standard holding the crossbar was bent. Meet organizers took it to the campus welding shop, where it was repaired, but not before an hour's delay. With the bar set at 15-8, Warmerdam cleared for the sixth outdoor world record of his incomparable career. But an excited official, in hurrying to congratulate Warmerdam, plowed into the standard and dislodged the crossbar. The height was remeasured at 15-7¾, an outdoor record that would last for 15 years. Excited spectators stormed the field, and fisticuffs ensued as boys broke the crossbar into pieces for souvenirs. For his effort, Warmerdam received a homegrown case of fruit cocktail. Net value: $2.40.

"It was quite an amazing evening," Warmerdam recalled in 1991, prior to the 50th running of the meet. "But they did have a fast runway, and I had nice tailwind behind me." A few years later, in negotiating with Moore, Olympic champion Bob Richards asked for a cash bonus for a meet record. "He was told that if he set a meet record he'd get $75," Moore said. "He didn't know until he got here that the meet record was also the world record." Over the years, that became increasingly common in Modesto.

The Glory Years

Moore added the responsibilities of meet director in 1945, about the same time that USC and UCLA made Modesto a regular stop on their spring schedules. The addition of those collegiate powerhouses signaled a turning point in Modesto's history. Thirteen world records were set or tied in the 1950s, most coming in relay races.

Abilene Christian sprinter Bobby Morrow anchored two record-setting relay teams in 1956. He matched that feat in 1958. Morrow is best known for winning three gold medals at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, but he doesn't remember running on any tracks as fast as Modesto's.

"I found that in Modesto, they ran on clay tracks," Morrow told the Modesto Bee in a 1991 interview. "We were used to running on cinder tracks, which didn't have any spring to them. You stepped on a clay track and you felt different. They were all big races in Modesto, because you knew that clay track was waiting for you."
An inability to pay the going rate to professional athletes such as Carl Lewis nearly put the Modesto Relays out of business in the late 1980s, but that was a long ways off. The 1960s were brilliant years in Modesto, starting with the most hyped race in meet history, the 1960 mile pitting Australia's Herb Elliott against U.S. hope Dyrol Burleson.

Sports Illustrated put Elliott and Burleson on the cover of its magazine beforehand, calling it the "Mile of the Century." Few paid any attention to Jim Beatty, a relatively unknown from North Carolina. "The atmosphere was one of truly great anticipation," Beatty said. "It was an Olympic year, and I don't think Tom could have sold another ticket. Those were the days, remember, when track held its own with the other sports."
The sellout crowd was stunned into silence when Elliott, the world record holder at 3:54.5, withdrew five minutes before the race due to a sore knee. "The public-address announcer came on and announced Elliott's withdrawal," Beatty said. "The whole crowd went dead. Absolutely dead. I have never heard or felt anything like that in my life."

To this day, Moore thanks Beatty for saving Modesto from what could have been its darkest hour. Beatty sliced nearly seven seconds off his previous best in setting an American record of 3:58.0."The crowd was absolutely ecstatic," Beatty said. "What four minutes before had been a total bust was suddenly a success."

Three years later, Beatty was victimized by Peter Snell, Elliott's eventual successor as Olympic champion. Snell unleashed one of the fiercest last-lap kicks ever seen, winning in a near-record 3:54.9.
But Snell wasn't even named athlete of the meet - an indicator of Modesto's greatness in those days. Oregon State's two-mile relay team set a world record, and University of Washington sophomore Brian Sternberg set a world record in the pole vault (16-7).

But Sternberg wasn't athlete of the meet in 1963. That honor went to his Washington teammate, Phil Shinnick, who needed some cheering up afterward. Shinnick long jumped 27-4, but nobody was operating the wind gauge at the time, disallowing what was probably a legitimate world record. Shinnick had to be content with an upset win over Boston, the defending Olympic champion. "It was just an incredible meet," Shinnick said of the 1963 gathering. "Just on the field, there was something like 15 world record holders."

In the words of sprinter Charlie Greene, "Modesto was the place where the great ones came to look each other in the eye and talk the talk. Europeans were asking us how they could get into Modesto. The Modesto Relays for a sprinter was the absolute best place in the world to run."

In 1968, Jay Silvester set Modesto's 29th world record, throwing the discus 218-4. The record pace slowed from that point forward. Jamaican sprinter Don Quarrie tied the world mark in the 100 meters in 1976, clocking 9.9, and discus thrower Ben Plucknett took advantage of Modesto's legendary wind by throwing 233-5 in 1981.

By then, the economics of track and field favored the European meets, with their big budgets and five-figure appearance fees. Modesto had trouble keeping up, and when S&W Fine Foods withdrew its sponsorship in 1994, Moore managed to keep the meet breathing through sheer stubbornness. Save Mart Supermarkets filled the sponsorship void in 1999, and Dragila's record-matching vault in 2000 gave Modesto its first world mark in 19 years. Last year's meet featured several outstanding performances, including a long-jump comeback by Mike Powell and a sub-10-second 100 meters by Tim Montgomery. "The Modesto Relays needs this community," said former sprint great Charlie Greene. "Save Mart and Coca-Cola stepped up to the podium and kept things moving forward. I just hope the community reciprocates with its support. We all love Tom, and we all love this meet."

Greene attended a February 2002 dinner put on by the Sportsmen of Stanislaus (SOS) Club during which Moore was honored for his lifetime contributions to the Relays. Joining Greene at the banquet was John Carlos, the great San Jose State sprinter, and Erv Hunt, the longtime University of California coach who served as the 1996 U.S. Olympic coach in Atlanta. Hunt called Moore the finest man he's ever known.

"I'm not sure there's such a thing as a perfect man, but Tom's as close as you can come," Hunt said. Moore was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 1988. Few men in any country can match his longevity or breadth of experience. He was a record-setting athlete. He was one of the finest starters in the world, working 18 national championships meets and the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Moore still starts all Cal home meets in Berkeley.

"Track is Tom's passion," Carlos said. "I remember the family affairs that Tom would hold at his house each year. I was something of a little thug in those days, and I had thuggish friends. I'd bring them with me to Tom's house afterward. I remember he'd smile at me and say, 'John, I see you brought your friends. Well, come on in, because your friends are my friends.' Tom always had a kind word to say. He showed me what love is.

Moore was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 1988. Few men in any country can match his longevity or breadth of experience. He was a record-setting athlete. He was one of the finest starters in the world, working 18 national championships meets and the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

But Tom Moore’s greatest legacy is the Modesto Relays, and Tom Moore’s spirit lives on in the 66th edition of the Coca Cola Modesto Relays.