A History of the Falmouth Road Race: Running Cape Cod

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INTRODUCTION

Where in the world is Falmouth, Cape Cod? Geologically speaking, Cape Cod is a regional landmass in southeastern Massachusetts, a fishing hook–shaped peninsula—since 1914 an island when it was separated from the Bay State mainland via the manmade Cape Cod Canal.

Originally pertaining to only the easternmost portion, it was so named by Bartholomew Gosnold and his men, who, upon discovering the area in 1602, noticed the bounty of codfish. The name soon spread to cover the entire region, which technically reaches a bit west of the canal.

The original native inhabitants—the Wampanoag Indians—called the town Succanesset, loosely translated to where wampum was found near water (wampum being quahog-shell beads to wear, trade, and spend). The name Falmouth can be found in Cornwall County, England, from where Gosnold had set sail.

Woods Hole has a mix of sources. Early records indicate the use of Woods Holl, leaving some to trace its origins to Nordic times, when holl meant hill. Later, Hole was used, which leant credence to nautically referenced waterways. It is reported that Woods most likely originated from a family name, as several variations in its history—Wood, Wood’s, Woods—have been so connected. It’s been called Wood’s Holl, Wood’s Hole, and finally Woods Hole.

Settled in 1660, Falmouth was incorporated as a town in 1686. Just 286 years later, on Sunday, September 10, 1972, two strangers nearly four thousand transatlantic miles apart—Thomas Leonard, a Massachusetts born orphaned amateur runner working in a beachfront Cape Cod bar, and Frank Shorter, a German-born American elite runner competing on the Olympic stage of athletics—unwittingly became intertwined in an event that would soon transform the running calendar.

Cape Cod, including the island of Martha’s Vineyard (bottom left-hand corner). Just north of that is the shoreline race course from left to right. Landsat imagery courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS/NASA Landsat).

While at work behind The Pub bar inside the Brothers 4 in Falmouth Heights, Leonard watched the Munich Olympics on TV. One event in particular—the marathon—sparked great interest in him, as his reverence for the Boston Marathon reached pious levels every Patriots’ Day during his bartending shifts at the Eliot Lounge, a runners’ haven of libation inside the Eliot Hotel near the final mile of the Boston course. So, when Leonard stopped in his tracks to watch ABC-TV’s Jim McKay, Chris Schenkel, and Erich Segal call the marquee Olympic 26.2-miler, so, too, did the beer taps.

Cape Cod’s second-largest town. Photo by Paul C. Clerici.

The Falmouth village of Woods Hole. Photo by Paul C. Clerici.

Yeah, recalled Leonard, I refused to serve anybody when Frank Shorter came into the stadium. And George Robbat, one of the [owner] brothers, said, ‘Tommy, do whatever you want.’ And I did. And I was sort of giving commentary, he added with a laugh.

By the time Shorter finished in a gold medal–winning 2:12:19.8, enough time had passed for Leonard to begin to formulate a seemingly irrational idea. Over time, Leonard’s eyes glistened at the possibility, despite the obvious (to everyone else) obstacles involved.

I followed his career when he was at Mount Hermon, he said of Shorter’s college-prep boarding school days in central Massachusetts, and then at Yale. After the Olympics—it had been building up—I said to myself, talking to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be something if I could get Frank Shorter to Falmouth.’ I was dreaming about it—a subconscious mind thing. People said, ‘You’d never get him.’ That only made me think all the harder. By that Olympic year, five distinct people who would become instrumental as a team found Falmouth.

Lucia Carroll and John Carroll. Photo by Paul C. Clerici.

John Carroll and Lucia Carroll arrived in 1970. As a youngster, John spent time in the Cape. By the late ’60s, the teacher was ready to move out of the Connecticut school system and was hired as an English teacher and boys track coach at Falmouth’s Lawrence High School for the fall of 1970. He also noticed that the school lacked a cross-country girls team, for there was no statewide programs available.

Tommy Leonard outside the Eliot Lounge in Boston, 1996. Photo by Paul C. Clerici.

I had been over in Europe, and I had seen female runners in Europe training and running, said John, who became the harrier coach. We got twelve girls that first year. We ran a race against a team from Connecticut at halftime of a football game. Blew everybody’s socks off when two Falmouth girls finished one-two, hand in hand, in front of the stands. And the next year I had thirty-five girls.

Lucia, a post–high school self-educated Sicilian, eventually became a senior analyst at a Connecticut insurance company, where she had also written an extensive manual.

Leonard, who seasonally boomeranged between the Eliot and Brothers 4, came from Westfield as an exuberant former U.S. marine corporal marathoner/barkeep extraordinaire with a heart of gold, affectionately known as TL or Tommy. It was 1971 when I started working at the Brothers 4. I used to come [to the Cape] when I lived in Boston. I got a taste of it once, and it was some kind of magic in the air that just attracted me to it. I can’t pinpoint it, he recalled. I liked the people.

Rich Sherman and Kathy Sherman. Photo by Paul C. Clerici.

Rich Sherman and Kathy Sherman traveled from Palmer during the winter months of 1972. Rich had just completed his master’s degree at Springfield College and was hired as the Falmouth Recreation Center director; Kathy, who taught at Munson High School, was hired as a teacher at Falmouth’s Mullen-Hall School. I remember that winter when we arrived—how bleak it seemed, said Rich. Added Kathy, It was a pretty town. It was much quieter when we moved here in 1973. Falmouth village’s population in the nearest report (1970) was 5,806, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census.

Like any event that feeds off the oxygen of interest and experiences organic exponential growth, the race, over time, experienced varying degrees of growing pains—painful and joyous—that formed its overall success. This is the greatest road race in America. Really! stated marathon legend Bill Rodgers. Falmouth was then, and is still now, the greatest American road race.

While the race of today is obviously light years from those budding runs decades earlier, in some ways it also remains the same, and that balance is its lifeblood. The race is the successful product of a confluence of circumstance, happenstance, planning, and luck. And this—in much detail, of course—is that story.

CHAPTER 1

INAUGURAL

The Falmouth Road Race was born out of necessity as a fundraiser for high school girls to travel to meets. It wasn’t until 1971 that the first Massachusetts State High School Cross-Country Championship for girls occurred (Falmouth won six of the first seven). The state meet concluded the season.

There were women’s tournament meets, however, but girls were not permitted to compete as a high school team. That was solved when John Carroll created the Falmouth Track Club (FTC) in 1972. FTC quickly won several New England Amateur Athletic Union (NEAAU) women’s team championships and individual titles, with such high school–age standouts as Johanna Forman and Nancy Robinson. These are the types of kids Tommy Leonard saw and said, ‘Let’s raise some money.’ That’s sort of how it started, said John, who relinquished FTC when he realized he could not simultaneously be a board of director of the race and the FTC.

While the Frank Shorter dream still resonated with Leonard, he realized that there was a more immediate need closer to home. Everything was youth hockey; I was involved with the [benefit] bicycle race prior to that year, and I said [to myself], ‘What am I doing helping out hockey when I can’t even skate?’ he said with a self-deprecating laugh. That’s when I approached John.

Cape Cod offered plenty of excitement with its restaurants, theaters, beaches, souvenir shops, ice cream parlors, bars, and nightclubs. Summertime on the Cape was the place to be—off-season, not so much. The Cape hadn’t emerged to full-fledged status at that time, John noted. We lived here, but we didn’t imagine that Falmouth was different. Lucia Carroll added, Most people thought that Falmouth was just a summer place. Falmouth did not have a lot of town-wide events, but Falmouth was a thriving little town back then.

Falmouth first hosted a Christmas parade in 1964, Fourth of July fireworks in 1975, and an Arts & Crafts Street Festival in 1978, but events were few. There was no conscious effort—or need—to boost its global profile in the summer months with an international event that would attract ninety thousand people. However, there was a need, thought Leonard, to offer a small-town event to raise funds for some of their own.

While the impending running boom had yet to explode and Title IX in its infancy, races were not a new concept. There was the 1973 NEAAU 20K Silver Championship race in Bourne and the John J. Queenan race at the Aptucxet Auxiliary VFW.

Empowered with his new race idea, in about June 1973 Leonard began to contact people. First was John by way of a chance meeting with Lucia at Guv Fuller Field. Tommy wanted to know who this guy was, noted Lucia, and so I told him. He said, ‘Do you think he could run a race?’ I thought maybe he meant run himself in a race. Added Leonard with a laugh, I remember that. I said from the Captain Kidd to the Brothers 4. She was probably thinking, ‘Who was this nutcake?’

After John said, No problem, Leonard contacted selectman John DeMello Jr. and police chief John Ferreira. John DeMello told me to go see Chief Ferreira. ‘And whatever he says, it’s okay with me.’ I went to Chief Ferreira, and he said, ‘Whatever John DeMello said is okay with me.’ I didn’t have to have a hearing or anything, said Leonard.

Leonard contacted Rich Sherman, a Special Services navy man, Massachusetts Air National Guard member at Otis Air Force Base (Otis ANGB) in Bourne, and an athlete who had just run the 1973 Boston Marathon. Rich recalled that applications were most likely typed and mimeographed at the recreation center, where the race was added to the summer event schedule. Entry was two dollars.

Leonard had often run from Woods Hole to Falmouth Heights, so he was familiar with the two points he thought could form a course. And bar-to-bar runs were not a foreign concept to him, thanks to many such runs in Boston.

The Captain Kidd was the place to be, noted Charlie Rodgers, Bill’s brother. Everybody that was a runner wanted to be there. It was quite nice. You could sit out and look at the water—boats right next to you. And the Brothers 4 was the fraternity brothers gathering. Those were the glory days of the ’70s at the finish—a lot of beer drinking, having fun, laughing. Hardball runners! I really thought it was great.

The 1985 race in Woods Hole, with