To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1971 Men's New England Track & Field Championship, BU team captain Thomas Beatty (CAS '72) looks back on the remarkable and unlikely performance by an undermanned Terriers' squad. Entering the final event of the championship meet, the 1-mile relay, the Terriers were seemingly out of runners and the result of the meet would be a foregone conclusion. But legendary BU head coach Billy Smith had other ideas .... or as Northeastern head coach Irwin Cohen put it -  "I was ready for my acceptance speech, but I couldn't believe what coach Smith did next."
 
By Thomas Beatty (CAS '72)

In the winter of 1971, first-class indoor track and field facilities in New England were at a premium. During the winter season at BU the maintenance crew would construct a wooden 11-lap- to-the-mile track (160-yard oval) on the football field for the team's use. The team often had to shovel the track before practice could begin. BU Head Coach Billy Smith told the Boston Globe in an interview after the meet, "Every morning I listen to Don Kent's weather report at 6:55. I think I'm the only indoor track coach in the country who has to check the weather before he plans a practice." With one of the better indoor facilities, the University of Connecticut in Storrs would host the New England Championship Indoor Track and Field Meet on Saturday, February 27, 1971.

The qualifying trial heats began as scheduled on that Saturday morning. The finals were determined either by place or time. The first two finishers in each heat were automatic qualifiers for the final that afternoon and the rest of the field was resolved based on time. The entire trial qualifying process concluded that morning without much suspense - virtually all the runners who were expected to qualify for the finals did so. 

As was the case in those days of championship competitions, BU appeared ready to record some impressive individual performances while schools like the University of Connecticut and Northeastern University looked to be in a good position to capture the team title. In those days it took half the time to complete these qualifying trials because in 1971 there were no women competing in these meets. Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on sex, was implemented a year later. 

The absence of women competing in this meet could often have a major impact during the running of an event's finals, because of the reduced recovery time for athletes between events.

With all the final qualifiers set, The New England Indoor Track and Field Championship finals were underway as the field events began. As expected, Northeastern and UConn scored well in the Shot Put and the 35-pound Weight Throw, Northeastern taking first in each event.  But the early surprise was a BU sophomore, Ford Dennis, who unexpectedly won the long jump with a personal best to put BU on the board with 6 points. It would not be the only BU surprise of the day. 

By the time these points were posted, the 60-yard dash had concluded with an increasingly familiar face on the winner's podium – Ford Dennis, again. Now this was getting interesting.

The high jump competition was a crowd favorite with one miss at a certain height able to separate the winner from the rest of the field. The UConn jumper won the event with a meet record, but the BU sophomore, Dan Byron, tied for 2nd adding 3 ½ points to BU's score. 


Dan Byron and coach John Thomas, 1971

But even as uplifting as this remarkable performance was, it was not BU's biggest surprise in this event. Freshman Ken Boyd was a highly recruited basketball player for BU out of the state of Maryland. BU had a basketball game the night before the meet at the University of New Hampshire in which this future NBA draftee played his usual minutes. So, after the game as the BU basketball team headed to the bus for their return to campus, Ken had something on his mind that his teammates probably could not imagine. It turned out that Ken was also an exceptional high jumper – he had set the state high jump record in his senior year of high school - and he had agreed to participate in the New England Championship Meet the next day with his BU track mates. Ken boarded the bus the next morning with the BU team as they headed off to Storrs to participate in his first meet of the season. 

Ken Boyd managed to finish 4th in the New England Championship high jump event, earning 2 indispensable points for the team. Now the buzz in the Storrs fieldhouse had become unmistakable.

The events on the oval began with the 600-yard run. Once again, Northeastern and UConn fared well but BU sophomore, John Cherry, valiantly managed to edge out a NU runner for a 4th place finish and 2 crucial points. And just as importantly, he deprived Northeastern that extra point.

At 3:30 pm, the 1000-yard final was next. The race turned out to be a tactical one with junior Tom Beatty winning the race and sophomore Alan Carr-Locke placing 5th. The 7 points that the BU pair scored was the highest number of points scored in any one event for BU that day. 


Tom Beatty, 1971

The mile run featured a gritty performance by the Boston College runner as he ran away from the field recording one of the better times in the country but none of the finishing placers had any effect on the team totals that were in contention for the title.

As the 2-mile run unfolded it began to look like BU was about to deliver the coup de grace and provide the ultimate BU surprise of the day. But as quickly as the euphoria came, of BU sophomore Allieu Massaquoi taking the lead late in the race, it faded as UConn's runner battled to the front and captured the race. The sudden turn of events looked potentially disastrous for the BU team.

With only the two relay events remaining the teams with the most depth held a significant advantage. BU brought less than a dozen athletes to the meet, Northeastern brought 35 and UConn most likely had more than that. BU Head Coach Billy Smith was always at a decided numbers disadvantage because of the significantly fewer number of scholarships that BU could offer potential gifted track and field student-athlete recruits compared to the teams BU was competing against. 

As Jack McDonald, the Boston College 1000-yard runner up that day, astutely noted later, "It was a very impressive meet for the BU team that could fit in a Volkswagen."

A snapshot of part of the NE Championship Meet Time Schedule
11:00 am         1000-yard Qualifying Trials
3:30 pm           1000-yard Final Run
4:00 pm           2-mile Relay Final
4:15 pm           1-Mile Relay Final
                        
The 2-mile relay was set to start at 4:00 pm, only 30 minutes after the start of the 1000-yard run final. The BU team of John Cherry, Jim Ferris, Alan Carr-Locke and anchored by Captain Tom Beatty were still recovering from their races but they were more than willing to grab the baton. The show must go on. BU placed first and Northeastern followed in second place. BU – 5 points and NU – 4 points (Relay event winners only received 5 points, while individual winners received 6 points). 

Could this really happen? I think the BU coaches and teammates were the only ones who believed it could. Certainly not NU Head Coach Irwin Cohen: "When (BU Head Coach Billy Smith) ran the 2-mile relay, I figured it was over as he had no one left for the 1-mile relay and I was ready for my acceptance speech. But I couldn't believe what he did next."

Point total after the 2-mile relay:     
BU – 31 ½           
UConn – 28           
NU – 27 

The 1-mile relay was the final event of the day and was to be held only 15 minutes after the start of the 2-mile relay. Northeastern and UConn had exceptional 1-mile relay teams. 

But then it happened. As Northeastern's Cohen says: "I couldn't believe what he did next. He brought the same people back for the mile relay and placed high enough to win the meet by 1/2 a point. Incredible."

Incredible it was. 

Only Billy Smith could have imagined members of the BU 2-mile relay team stepping back on the track again literally 7 minutes after the completion of their first-place finish in the 2-mile relay. 

As it turned out Northeastern won the 1-mile relay with UConn finishing second, but BU finished 5th, registering the final point to be awarded that day, and solidifying the championship victory.

Final results:   
BU – 32 ½        
NU – 32                       
UConn – 32                 

The line between this BU victory and just any other meet for the BU team was so paper thin that all it would have taken to change the outcome would have been for one athlete from either Northeastern or UConn to move up one place in any of the 12 events that day or any one athlete from Boston University to drop one place. What if the 1-mile relay was scheduled before the 2-mile relay? It would have been much more difficult for the BU athletes to run a 2-mile relay leg after running a 1-mile relay leg. What if high jumper Ken Boyd had decided to sleep in that morning after his basketball game?

But sometimes things seem more inconceivable to observers in retrospect than to the participants in the heat of battle. 

Says Cohen: "It may be 50 years, but I am still upset. In those days, the New England's were tantamount to the Olympics."  

Congratulations to the 1971 New England A.A.A. Intercollegiate Varsity Men's Indoor Track and Field Championship Team. 

Long May You Run…


1971 New England T&F Championship Plaque

Every story told needs to be presented in the proper context to be fully appreciated. The context for this story is realized through insight into its participants. All these coaches and athletes may have arrived on the BU campus packaged in different sizes, representing different nationalities, displaying different skin colors, showing different ages, and exhibiting different personas. But they were all identical when it came to their attitude of achieving at the highest level. 

I saw something different about that day in 1971 and remember it to this day – a group of extremely talented individuals who ran together every day, sometimes a couple times a day, who showed up at practice to better their individual times on the track and to reach their individual goals through grueling displays of self-inflicted agony – had turned into a team. 

A 5th place finish in the 1-mile relay at the end of an exhausting day of competition was not going to enhance anyone's individual resume. But for these individuals it was a task that was welcomed and embraced on behalf of their teammates and their coaches. It was a completely selfless act for the betterment of a body larger than themselves – the Boston University Track and Field Team.
 
The Coaches

BU Head Coach Billy Smith was a 1955 graduate of Boston University and the BU record holder of the 1000-yard run at the time of this meet. His title as coach was listed as part-time but his energy and devotion to his athletes and his sport was anything but that. He was a full-time teacher in the Scituate Public Schools. He would leave Scituate every day after school and travel the hour plus ride to BU and when he walked into the locker room no one would ever suspect he had just completed a full day of work. He was convinced that he had his best thoughts on these drives to and from practice by himself. 

Billy Smith was as innovative, dedicated, learned and passionate a coach as the track coaching profession has ever produced. Long time Northeastern head coach Irwin Cohen said of Billy, "Unequivocally, I have always considered Bill as the greatest coach I have ever known. What he did with so little was just impressive. Some coaches write books, Bill revolutionized track and never received the credit he so richly deserved.  His achievement with David Hemery will always be the gold standard of track coaching."         
                
David Hemery (SMG '68) severely injured his left hamstring in a high hurdle race on a cinder track on February 11, 1967. It was a potentially devastating injury only 18 months out from the Mexico City Olympics. Billy took this challenge to another level. His guidance, both psychologically and athletically, nurtured David back to a level of fitness that seemed unattainable to most observers. He began by convincing David that he could not run at all until the middle of August. Reluctant but trusting Billy, David went to the training room for therapy every day for 6 months. Finally, on August 15, 1967 the road back began with runs along Duxbury Beach in 18 inches of water. Then there were the hills and the sand dunes and then more hills and more sand dunes. His daily routine consisted of walking around with 17 pounds of weight on each foot. When the track work finally began David was ready to believe that the Olympics were a possibility.

In Mexico City on October 15, 1968, fourteen months to the day from when his first day back to running rehabilitation began in earnest, David Hemery stepped on the track in lane 6 wearing vest #402 for the final of the 400 Meter Intermediate Hurdles race at the Olympic Games and 48.1 seconds after the sound of the starting gun he had set a world record and won the gold medal by an incredible 8-yard advantage. As Track and Field News succinctly headlined the race, "Hemery's 48.1 cremates the field."   


David Hemery won gold and set a world record in the 400m intermediate hurdles at the
1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics

In 2005, Billy wrote to me once when I asked him a question about one of the runners I was coaching in high school. "When I use to run alone up in the quarries, along the Charles, and on the Franklin Park Golf Course, I always imagined races in my accelerations. I used to pick out a tree, pole or something and race to that point.... then when I got there, I added another 100 or so just to try to prove to myself that I could always go on. I always thought that I did my best running on those accelerations and tried to duplicate that type of effort into my races." Sound advice to follow from high school to the Olympic Games. 

To amplify Billy's passion and understanding for the history of the sport of track, all one must do is read the 60-year-old 3 x 5 index card pinned to his 60-year-old AAU singlet that was on display at the wake of his funeral: Directions by Bill, "Shirt is never to be washed."   

Running in Scotland in a race with Roger Bannister shortly after he became the first man to break the 4:00 minute mile barrier, Bannister kicked dirt up onto Billy's shirt as he went in front. In that race, Billy got 6th, Bannister got 2nd. As Billy was leaning over grabbing for air, Bannister came up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Nice effort Yank.' Billy was thrilled.


Billy Smith's jersey and note on display at his wake

Bill Smith was named to the BU Hall of Fame in 1978 and the Massachusetts Schoolboy Athletes Hall of Fame in 1993. He passed away in 2017 at the age of 84.
 

Bill Smith (front row 2nd from left) at his 1976 retirement
party thrown by his former track and field athletes

The two BU assistant part-time coaches could not have been more different from each other in terms of upbringing, style, and personality than any two people on this planet. 

John Thomas (SED'63) was 6-foot 5-inch, grew up in Cambridge, Mass. and attended Rindge Technical High School. As a 17-year- old freshman at Boston University he became the first man to clear 7-feet in the indoor high jump at the Millrose Games in New York. Howard Schmertz, the long-time director of the event said at the time, "It brought the house down. It was the loudest roar I ever heard at Madison Square Garden. Any sport." The high jump at the Millrose Games now bears his name. When he would take us to run in the Millrose Games, we could see him truly in his element. As an honorary official at the meet, he would walk around the infield of the Garden dressed in his tuxedo looking like he was made for that moment. Everyone would approach him with kind words, and he would handle every encounter with absolute grace and class.           

He broke the outdoor world high jump record three times before he was 20 years old and won a silver medal in the Tokyo Olympics (1964) and a bronze medal in the Rome Olympics (1960).

John Thomas passed away in 2013 at the age of 71.


As a 17-year- old BU freshman, John Thomas set a world
record in the high jump (7 feet) at NY's Madison Square Garden 

Charlie Leverone was 5-foot 6 inch and born in Arlington, MA. At the University of Massachusetts in Amherst he earned a total of 14 letters in 5 different sports where he mastered the techniques of the field events in an uncanny way. He was a lifelong track and field learner who could blend tried and true approaches to improving one's abilities with the latest methods in the field for his athletes. He was always up for the next adventure. Charlie was a down to earth personality with a demeanor that was just as comfortable with relaying instruction to his athletes as he was surveying an antique yard sale for that prize glass bottle with just the right amount of wear on its base.   

After Charlie left BU, he became the field events coach for the girls Scituate High School team where he teamed up with Billy Smith who had become their Head Coach. The girls team won the state championship one year and the Coach of the Year award would normally go to the head coach. But since the field events team scored more points than the runners on the team Billy did some heavy lobbying to see that Charlie received the award instead of him. In an unprecedented selection, Charlie became the first assistant track coach to win Coach of the Year.

Charlie's idiosyncrasies were legendary but there were two that linger for me. Charlie was insistent that he needed to read something before going to sleep and one night at an away meet there was nothing around at the hotel except the telephone book. So, he opened it up and read until he fell asleep. Billy Smith loved telling that story. And finally, as a high school coach myself, I would cross paths with Charlie quite often at track meets. No matter what else was going on, the first thing he would do is hand you a Werther's butterscotch piece of candy. A very welcome reprieve in the middle of the multitude of 300-meter heats.

In his 53 years of coaching, Charlie was elected to the Rockland High School Hall of Fame, the Massachusetts Track Coaches Association Hall of Fame, and the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) Hall of Fame.

Charlie Leverone passed away in 2015 at the age of 82.
 

The Student-Athletes

Tom Beatty – Captain
Entering BU from Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury, Mass., I had the opportunity to observe Head Coach Billy Smith from the stands while in high school. It did not take me very long to realize he was something special. One of my proudest moments was when I broke the BU 1000-yard record that he held for 15 years at a dual meet at Dartmouth. When I reduced it even lower at the ICAAAA meet in Jadwin Gym at Princeton University he wrote to me decades later, "That record was due to get broken sometime. Records are funny things. Your 2:09 will probably never really be appreciated for the great performance that it actually was. A lot of the truly great performances from those days will eventually become as extinct as dinosaurs…"   

Of course, I remember the conventional workouts like the blistering 4 x 440 intervals on the track and the 10-mile road workouts that turned out more like dead sprints at some points in the run but my fondest memories of track workouts at BU were when the creative side of Billy Smith was on full display. I think the statute of limitations has expired, so here goes. Harvard University had a more than antiquated field house on campus built in 1926 with a cinder track and a dirt floor at ground level and a 160ish-yard, steeply banked, wooden, oval track suspended from the rafters upstairs. In the middle of January, a heated building took precedence over its aesthetics. Coach Smith would have us go to Harvard Square and purchase a Harvard sweatshirt. We would don these sweatshirts and walk into Briggs Cage like we owned the place. We would complete a very expeditious workout and before anyone was the wiser, we would be on our way back to the BU campus. 

I remember the repeat Scituate sand dune runs on Saturday mornings to strengthen our base. 

I remember the par-3 third hole at the Franklin Park Golf Course that seemed like a 45-degree incline as we ran up. We would sprint to the top from the tee below then walk around the circumference of the green and then sprint down the hill as fast as we could hopefully without letting our momentum leave us prone on the fairway. This was the component in our training that would transition us from the roads to the track. 

And probably my favorite, one Saturday morning in early April of my freshman year in 1969 after a couple of 100-mile weeks of base training, Billy had an idea to cap off all the distance training. He drove 3 of us, 2 freshman and 1 senior, out to the start of the Boston Marathon course in Hopkinton. He had us warm up a bit and basically said, "I'll see you in Boston."  None of us even balked. He drove the course ahead of us, far enough that we would not be tempted to jump into his car, and we followed. The other 2 finished in a time that would qualify for the 2020 Boston Marathon by 45 minutes and my finish would have qualified by 30 minutes. One significant point to stress for all of us is that none of us had one drop of any liquid for the entire run. Hydrating was years away from becoming part of the vernacular. 

One glitch: When I approached the finish, I could not find Coach Smith or the other 2 runners. So, I continued to run further looking for them. As Coach Smith wrote to me once, maybe to ease the guilt, "Have you ever forgiven me for making the mistake that you finished your marathon trial around the front of the Pru? Boy, did I blow that one! We could write a book about our shenanigans." 

How true!

Tom Beatty retired last year after 45 years as a Principal, Mathematics Department Chair, Mathematics teacher and Cross Country and Track and Field coach at his alma mater, Catholic Memorial High School. He was selected as the school's first alumni Principal and was elected to the school's Athletic Hall of Fame in 2014. He was awarded the school's distinguished Vince in Bono Malum award in 2018.


Tom Beatty at his Catholic Memorial retirement party, 2019 

Dan Byron
Byron, a native of upstate New York, caught the eye of Coach John Thomas after winning the high jump in the Eastern States Championships in New York City in his senior year. After graduation, Dan returned to BU to receive his master's degree in corrective therapy and eventually graduated from the Albany Medical Center's Physician Assistant Program. He is now retired from his 30-year career in corrective therapy and as a PA in primary care at the Stratton VA Hospital in Albany, NY.

You would be very hard pressed to find a kinder and more compassionate BU graduate than Dan. However, his nonchalant, easy going outward demeanor took a back seat to the intensely impassioned competitiveness as he entered the high jump arena. His mixture of calm and drive was the perfect blend for success.         
               
He is a true ambassador for Boston University and the BU Track Team as he says, "I tell anyone who will listen what a great experience it was to be part of this collegiate team. The competition, the travel and the friendships are priceless memories."

He remembers a friendly high-jump competition between, Coach John Thomas, Coach Charlie Leverone, and himself at the Northeastern indoor facility. He said that John Thomas spotted them each 12 inches. Charlie (who had cerebral palsy) cleared 5'2 and won! "True story" says Dan.

His one regret is that cell phones were not available the morning prior to his competition at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia in 1973 when Jesse Owens – the 4-time Gold Medalist at the 1936 Berlin Olympics – joined Dan and John Thomas for breakfast.
 
Alan Carr-Locke
Alan's arrival on the Boston University campus from London, England in 1969 was the culmination of an ancestral lineage with roots winding through India and Burma. He attended the Whitgift School, founded by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1596, and Westminster College in London before his enrollment at BU.
 
Before establishing his own firm involving organization and management of teaching hospital-based group practices, he began his career with brief stints at Children's Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital. His company's offices spanned the US from Boston to San Jose.
 
Alan was recruited to attend BU by Olympic Gold Medalist David Hemery '68 after observing Alan at his training sessions at Crystal Palace in London.
 
Alan has been retired since 2003.


Alan Carr-Locke, 2019

John Cherry
John's life began in a single room cold water apartment in a tenement in the east end of Glasgow, Scotland. Just over two decades later he would graduate from Boston University with a degree in economics and as one of the most exceptionally versatile runners in the history of BU Track. During his running career at BU, he would place in virtually every track event ranging from the 100-yard dash to a third-place finish in the New England Cross Country Championships. His contributions to the two-mile relay team were critical to the many successes that team achieved during those years.

His introduction to David Hemery '68 after he won the under 19-year-old 800-meter UK Indoor Championship proved to be instrumental in his decision to come to Boston. As John said, "Although I was being pursued by a number of US colleges at the time the idea of studying at David's alma mater loomed too large for me to pass up."

"Just five months later I arrived in Boston, scared to death, a fish out of water…" and about to step onto the BU campus for the first time. Before his arrival he left an indelible impression on the track world at home by winning the Scottish Schools 800-meter Championship, the prestigious London Athletic Club Trophy, and the UK National 800-meter title.

Upon graduation John was hired by the Xerox Corporation and spent his working life in a series of sales and marketing positions. His career brought him to almost every industrial city north of the equator. His skill at marketing and selling leading edge high-tech hardware and software combined with a proficiency for hiring and directing technical sales and marketing teams allowed him to experience the world on a grand scale. 

Grateful for his BU experience John says, "I have my education at BU to thank for all of that."
 
Jim Ferris
Ferris entered BU from Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury, MA where he was a teammate of mine. Shortly after graduation from BU he moved to the Bay area of California and became enamored with West Coast living and had a very successful commercial real estate career. Jim and I did extensive traveling together in the summer of 1972. In addition to traveling to the Munich Olympics together to witness David Hemery's accomplishments of winning a silver and bronze medal we also hitchhiked across country to see the NCAA Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon. That summer our journey began with us being dropped off at a tollbooth on the Mass Pike at Rt. 128. Without the luxury of credit cards, ATMs, home equity lines of credit or parents who were willing (or able) to finance our individual whims, the only way to get to Eugene to see Steve Prefontaine compete was to hitchhike.

So, we stuck out our thumbs and 27 rides and 120 hours later, we were sitting in the stands at Hayward Field on the campus of the University of Oregon awaiting Steve Prefontaine's appearance for the start of the 5000-meter race.

Sleeping under the stars in Big Sky country one night and waking up next to the Continental Divide another– those were moments that are indelible (less so is the moment we awoke in a rest area next to us that read "Pet Area") but our experience in that stadium topped it all.

To experience the feeling that a city and a community has for its favorite son who at one time held seven US records from the 2000 meter to the 10,000 meter is beyond expression. It was a grey, cloudy day and even threatening rain, and I know it sounds apocryphal but there is no embellishment here when I say that I can still feel the momentum build and see the crowd rise together as miraculously the clouds parted and the sun started to shine gloriously in the heavens as "Pre" entered the stadium before his race was to begin.

And amazingly, I do not think anyone from Oregon thought this was at all unusual.

Jim Ferris had an infectiously engaging personality and always helped to keep any locker room stress to a minimum with his humor and outgoing manner. He was the perfect traveling companion.
 
Ken Boyd         
Ken Boyd was a 6-foot-5 highly regarded basketball recruit out of Frederick High School in Maryland where he averaged 29 points and 20 rebounds a game in his senior year. He was an outstanding basketball, track and field and football student-athlete as a high school student. In one state track meet he finished first in four events, setting state records in the high jump, long jump, and triple jump. 

In his senior year at BU, he averaged a team-high 21.3 points and 10.9 rebounds a game and was named to the All-New England and all-Yankee Conference teams. Upon graduation the New Orleans Jazz picked him in the ninth round of the NBA draft. 

Ken Boyd was inducted into the Boston University Hall of Fame in 1984.


Ken Boyd (L)
 
Allieu Massaquoi
The day that Allieu arrived in Boston from Sierra Leone, Africa was a cool fall day in 1969. His first workout was an easy distance run at the Franklin Park Golf Course. To say that he was unprepared for the Northeast weather would be a cruel understatement. Although the day was on par with a typical autumn day in Boston, if there had been an Uber app available at the time to deliver him back to Logan Airport, I think that might have been the last time we would have seen him. Luckily, there was not, and he learned to acclimate to the change of seasons with only occasional grumbling.

Allieu arrived at BU with very impressive credentials to his credit. He was a member of the 1968 Sierra Leone Olympic team where he had finished in 45th place in the Mexico City Olympic Marathon.

He was an amiable, pleasant, kind individual who was a joy to be around and who could run forever.  

He received his Doctorate in Education and wrote his EdD thesis entitled, The Development and Evaluation of a Food and Nutrition Program for Community Health Workers in Eastern Sierra Leone."
 
Kevin Dwyer
Kevin was a product of Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, MA. His exceptional high school track career and his admiration of the coaching abilities of both Bill Smith and John Thomas made BU an easy college choice for him.
 
Kevin was only a freshman in 1971 but his tenacity in everyday workouts and his unwavering enthusiasm to do anything he was asked helped to push the entire team to a higher level.
 
What Kevin remembers most about his BU days was, "… the comradery and sprit among people on the team.  Specifically, I remember, Tom Beatty, John Cherry, Alan Carr-Locke, Jim Ferris, Dan Byron, Allieu Massaquoi, Lee Eddy and Bill Bradford.  Not only for their dedication and fierce competitiveness, but also as real people who accepted me on the team." He also recollects the long runs through Boston & Brookline traffic but specifically sneezing dirt out of his nose for hours after a training workout in the Northeastern "Cage."

Kevin spent 45 years working in financial management at Boston Children's Hospital, Lahey Clinic, Brockton Hospital and most recently, Southcoast Health. The BU networking avenues were alive and well back in the 1970's when Alan Carr-Locke was instrumental in assisting Kevin to begin his career in this field.
Kevin recently retired in 2020.


Kevin Dwyer