The First Professional Road Race of the Modern Era
2:31:06 Wins $15,000!!
By Phil Stewart
As featured in the December 1980 issue of Running Times Magazine
1980 brought to a head the clash between the sport's National Governing Body, The Athletics Congress (TAC, now known as USATF), and the athletes. TAC wished to retain strict amateurism, while the athletes, who had organized themselves into the Association of Road Racing Athletes (ARRA) wanted to have prize money and appearance payments, which were often paid under the table at the time, brought out into the open and legiitimized. The following article, which appeared in the December, 1980 of Running Times, describes in detail the creation of the first direct payment prize money race. 
"Up until now I made about $400 a month. Now I make $7,000 an hour," said Ron Nabers of San Francisco after winning $15,000 in the first modern-day professional road race. The event, which started in front of the mirrored facade of Caesar's Boardwalk Regency in Atlantic City, NJ, produced a swirl of controversy which far outweighed the small field (fewer than 30 professionals and 200 amateurs), and the sluggish winning times (2:31:06 for Nabers and 3:04:57 for women's winner Katie McDonald of New York City).
Though most athletes, sponsors and promoters are still plying the rules of amateurism which have governed running for decades, nearly everyone agrees that the advent of professional running is not far off. For months, various groups with interests in the future course of pro running have been positioning themselves for the inevitable struggle for control. In the Atlantic City Marathon, the struggle became a battle.
America's top runners, who have organized themselves into an association--The Association of Road Racing Athletes (ARRA)--took a hands off attitude toward the race. Before jumping the existing system which rewards many of them handsomely with under-the-table payments, they want assurance that a professional circuit will provide them with as steady an income as they have now as amateurs.
The "run for the money" was an anathema to The Athletics Congress (TAC), which is charged with the task of upholding amateur rules laid down by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF). The race went off at a time when TAC had been working on a scheme which--paradoxically--enables it to pay runners while still preserving the amateur laws which form the basis of its control over long distance running. Atlantic City abruptly upstaged its planned "club system," which features direct payments to the runners' clubs (with the obvious implication that the money would go on to the runners after being "laundered" by the clubs).
During the post-Olympic summer, while ARRA and TAC inched along like marathoners who had hit the wall, the Jordache Company decided it wanted to sponsor a direct-payment-to-athletes race. "We want to bust it open," a Jordache representative said. At the same time that the Atlantic City idea was spawned, Jordache approached Fred Lebow, director of the New York City Marathon, with an offer of $250,000 in prize money if it would go directly to the runners. When Lebow, who had been working with TAC officials on the club scheme, said he would adhere to IAAF and TAC rules, Jordache yanked its support from New York City and went full steam ahead on its boardwalk race--scheduled just two weeks in advance of the TAC's first "club system" race and a month before Lebow's marathon.
Robert Zagoria, an attorney for Kennedy-Levy Enterprises, Inc. (the sports promotion firm which conducted the race for Jordache and Ceasar's Palace), said, "My client's position is to let athletes come out of the closet and be first-class citizens. They should be able to do whatever endorsements or consulting with sponsors they wish without fear of reprisals from TAC or without being under the thumb of TAC. Also, they should not have to pay a large percentage of their income to TAC or any other organization.