Jimmy Carter's First Road Race

Try it again, Jimmy!

Phil Stewart, pictured at right, was the man to capture President Carter's collapse on film. Phil, looking back on the event says, "My feeling of sympathy for President Carter hasn't changed over the years. It was wonderfully human for the most powerful man in the world to place himself in the middle of the pack and try his best." In our 1999 September issue you can see Phil's famous photo.

On Saturday, September 15, President Carter collapsed in the middle of a 10 kilometer race at Catoctin Mt., Maryland. By Sunday morning, nearly everybody in America had heard about it. But what they heard was that Jimmy Carter had failed again. Already staggering under the burdens of runaway inflation, recession, and declining popularity, the president had now collapsed under the weight of his mounting stresses --- or so the stories went.

To some of his fellow runners, however, the newspaper stories were more notable for what they did not say. After all, the participation of Jimmy Carter in this race was a remarkable event, not because he collapsed but because he participated at all. The collapse itself is of little interest --- the sort of thing that need never happen but frequently does when an inexperienced runner isn't familiar with his own limits. There's really not much to say about the collapse except that it didn't hurt him physically but probably embarrassed him unduly. It also probably won't happen to him again, if he gets an experienced runner to give him a little coaching on how to breathe, listen to his body, and keep out of heavy oxygen debt. Enough said about Jimmy Carter's "failure." And now for the parts of the story that got left out of the popular press:

1. He is the first president of the United States in recent memory to do something about physical fitness instead of just making speeches about it. The American population is badly out of shape, and -- politics aside -- we are fortunate to have a chief executive who is willing to set an example. Particularly for other leaders, both governmental and corporate, who would be a lot sharper and more productive if they'd undertake a few Catoctin Mountains of their own. Who cares if he didn't finish? He was out there trying, which a lot of the people who carped at his dropping out wouldn't have dared to do.

2. He participated with a group of ordinary citizens in a non-protected role. How often do you see presidents, prime ministers, or kings mix freely with the people they govern? Not often, and when they do it is almost never on an equal footing. Either the occasion is ceremonial (a speech or dinner) or it is adulatory (shaking hands or waving).

But in the race at Catoctin Mountain, the president was not on a stage of his own. At the starting line, he stood in the road with 900 other men and women. On TV, he looks (as all famous people look) larger than life. Jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with other men, he seemed small and vulnerable. When the race started, nobody stepped aside to let him lead the way. Hundreds of runners rushed away at high speed, leaving him far behind. Presidents of countries are not used to being left behind, but Jimmy Carter apparently didn't mind. He was willing to pant and sweat and show strain on his face like everyone else. That, too, is a good sign. There are too many countries headed by men with large egos who cannot stand to show the slightest weakness or vulnerability.

3. While most accounts treated the president as a hapless loser, even the more sympathetic accounts depicted him as simply a foolish beginner. And these stories also suggested that his motives for running were basically opportunistic. We heard several people comment, "The reason he ran is political, just like everything else he does is political."

But in conveying the impression that Jimmy Carter had only started running with the approach of an election campaign, the media did him a disservice. As it turns out, the man who is now President started distance-running a long time ago --- 36 years ago, to be exact. In the fall of 1943, Jimmy Carter joined the plebe (freshman) cross-country team at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. According to Capt. Ellery Clark, Jr., USN (retired), who was his coach in 1943, Carter was an "excellent cross-country runner as a plebe." That year, he tied for first in one race and finished fourth and seventh in two others.

     Evidently, Jimmy Carter's interest in running predates his current political motives by many years. That is not to say that running in a road race couldn't have a political side. But a more probable interpretation would be that Jimmy Carter doesn't want to practice politics 24 hours a day. As his doctor pointed out, running is one of the few things Carter can do to get him away from all that. Chances are, when Jimmy Carter is jogging, he feels better, perhaps a bit closer to himself, than when he is sitting in the hot seat, carrying out the world's most impossible job. If that's the case, it's reason enough to explain why he was running at Catoctin. And all the more reason why he should be encouraged to try it again.

(Excerpted from an article that originally appeared in the December, 1979 Running Times)

For  further information on the Carter photos, please contact  jdarman@kennett.net.