Benefield: A race where alumni get special treatment by fans

Todd Grames runs regularly.

He runs with friends. He runs in races. Occasionally, out on a race course, folks will cheer. You know, the “You are almost there!” or “Lookin’ strong!” variety.

But once a year, at the Viking Opener Cross Country Invitational meet, the cheers sound a little different. A little louder, certainly a little sweeter.

“They don’t know our names, but they’ll yell ‘Come on, Piner!’?” he said.

It’s been a few years since Grames, now 53, ran track or cross country for Piner High, but once a year, he gets to pull on a Prospectors singlet and run his heart out for his school.

The alumni race has for 28 years been a key component of the Viking Opener, a big early-season meet on the prep cross country scene.

Sure, about 1,000 prep athletes will suit up and take on the 2-mile cross country course at Spring Lake. But so, too, will maybe 100 or so veteran runners. Men and women who just graduated last spring turn up to turn on the speed. But folks who graduated decades ago do, too. Except, in some cases, for the speed part.

“The only prerequisite is that you graduate from some high school on the planet,” said Val Sell, Montgomery’s cross country coach.

And it’s not all locals. People turn up with jerseys from far afield, some a little worse for the wear.

Race coordinator Larry Meredith graduated from high school in Indiana and often has to put together a “Midwest” or “East Coast” team come race morning when a bunch of guys from Wapsie Valley High School in Fairbank, Iowa, happen to show up. It’s all part of the fun.

“There are a lot of teams that just come together and they don’t know each other but they get all riled up because now they are on the same team,” Sell said.

It’s a unique atmosphere. Not too many prep races host an alumni contest right smack dab in the middle of the competition.

“They are running in the middle of the high school race,” said Meredith, who for nearly three decades has been the architect of the event. “If you can come up with your school colors, they will cheer them.”

It’s quite a sight, they say. A gauntlet of kids, some who have already raced and others waiting for their start, turning over the course to their elders. School pride is on high - but so, too, is just the fun of watching a slew of generations tackling the course.

“They stop all the other races and it’s just the alumni running and they all seem to cheer,” Grames, 53, said.

Grames, who travels from his home in Vacaville for the event, admits that he’s lost a step or two since graduation and barely gets a glimpse of some of those just-graduated rabbits at the front of the pack.

“We bring up the back and it looks just fine from back there,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter about speed anymore,” he said. “It’s just about participating.”

“It really takes you back in time,” he said. “It’s great to have somebody cheer” you on.

Grames has for the past six years reached out to Piner friends and strangers alike, inviting them to run with the colors on the course.

A couple of years ago, Piner’s legendary coach Jim Underhill turned up to urge his athletes on.

“We went up the hill and came around and he yelled out ‘Go Todd! You look great, Todd!’?” Grames said. “I heard that and it was immediate - it was the coolest feeling. Here I am, running a 2-mile race and it took my mind straight back to 1979.”

Grames, and most of his fellow alumni runners, don’t get around the course as fast as they once did, but you won’t hear them complaining. You couldn’t hear it even if they did - the cheers are too loud.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com and on Twitter @benefield.