Remembering Bill Roe (part 2)...

At the 2017 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in
Kampala, Uganda with fellow Washington Huskies. 
From left--Mike Scott, Bill Roe, Eleanor
Fulton, Brianna McLeod, Aretha Thurmond, Gavin Parpart & I

Since last Saturday, there there have been a number of social media posts and news releases from USA Track & Field, the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, the University of Washington, and Western Washington University regarding the passing of Northwest track and field, cross country, and road running icon Bill Roe.

Bill was found dead in his hotel room Saturday February 29th in Victoria, BC, where he was attending the Pan American Cross Country Cup as a technical delegate, and assisting the local organizing committee in its efforts to help Victoria bring the 2023 or 2025 World Athletics Cross Country Championships to southwest Canada.

All the social media posts, and all the written thoughts and words from those who knew him would not do it justice. I'd be lying if I told all of you that what I'm about to write will do justice...Bill's legacy in the sport and the thousands (yes, you read that right) of people he touched is way too big to do it justice.

Throughout my life in the sport, Bill was one of the constants, from my days competing as a high schooler at Franklin HS, to my time as a walk-on cross country runner and track team manager at the University of Washington, then to my time managing Club Ballard, then getting involved with The Athletics Congress/USA Track & Field at the local and national levels, to going to various world cross country championship meets as the USATF on-site press officer, and as the track and field announcer at the University of Washington.

UPDATE: I've been informed that Bill's wake will take place on Sunday, April 5 from 1:00-4:00pm at Bellingham Depot Market Square (1100 Railroad Ave, Bellingham, WA 98225).

UPDATE 2 (14 March): Due to concerns surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic, the date of Bill's wake has been changed to Sunday, June 7th from 1:00-4:00pm at Bellingham Depot Market Square (1100 Railroad Ave, Bellingham, WA 98225).

This is part 2 of a piece that I posted on Monday, after I had at least 24 hours to process the loss of Bill.  If you missed part 1, here's the link.

BILL AS PRESIDENT OF USA TRACK & FIELD & MY INVOLVEMENT WITH THE NATIONAL CROSS COUNTRY TEAM...

My involvement with the national team actually began when I was asked by my friend and fellow Bill Roe disciple Mike Scott to be the media relations director of the 1999 USA Cross Country Championships in Tacoma, shortly after Mike took a job at the University of Rhode Island.

I guess I did a pretty good job there, and I was asked to do the media relations for the same meet two years later in Vancouver, Washington for the Oregon USATF Association, which I obliged.

It was sometime between the Tacoma and Vancouver championships that both Mike and Bill talked to me about attending the world cross country championships in Dublin, Ireland in 2001. Bill was one of the team leaders for that meet, a position he was voted onto before he was elected as president of USA Track & Field.

Unfortunately, that never happened...because of a virus involving horses, the championships moved from Dublin to Oostende, Belgium. Nonetheless, that was my first time working as a volunteer press officer for USATF, working alongside Tom Surber from the national office staff.

Working with Tom and Mike in Belgium gave me an appreciation of thinking on our feet, as we transmitted the story from an internet cafe/bar after convincing the owner to stay open late, bribing the guy with USA Track & Field swag. The fact that we were thinking on our feet was so reminiscent of how Bill saved the 1978 AAU cross country championships from disaster, though what we did was 1/100th of the magnitude that Bill did.

Two years later, I'm with Bill in Lausanne, Switzerland riding solo as the USATF team press officer at that year's world cross country championships.

Before leaving the USA, he talked me into staying a few days afterwards as he was going on an advance trip to Paris to scout the athletes housing arrangements for that summer's world track & field championships.

After the last athletes were put on the train or bus to the airport, Bill, USATF international teams director Michael Cain and I boarded a train to Paris where we had a meeting with the Paris organizers the next day.

When we got to our hotel, we walked around to find a restaurant. As we're having pizza and beer outdoors as the sun was setting in Paris, the only thought I had was, "I'm having dinner in Paris with the same SOB that tried to kick me out of the state high school indoor meet!"

Another memory of national team travels with Bill was at the 2006 World Cup of Athletics in Athens, Greece.

Bill, now in his second term as USA Track & Field president, was staying in a different hotel than the US national team, as he was at the meet with the IAAF, while I was covering the meet for Northwest Runner and staying with friends not too far from his hotel.

We took a cab from the Divani Caravel to the President Hotel, where he spoke to the team wishing them good luck. After his appearance, where he also secured some tickets to the meet for my host family, I anticipated grabbing a cab back to his hotel.

Nope.

Instead, we walked roughly 2 miles in the warm Athens evening from the US team hotel along Vasilissis Sofias Avenue back to the Divani Caravel. We ended up having a pleasant conversation during the walk back on the 2004 Olympic marathon (the street we walked on was part of the course), the number of trips I'd made to Greece since I first visited in 1997 (I'd made six trips to Greece since 1997), and some other stuff related to USA Track & Field.

As we got closer to the Divani Caravel, I pointed out some Athens landmarks, including the US Embassy, to which he quipped, "Greece is to you what New Zealand is to me." His observation was dead on.

Some other memories of walks with Bill included the 2008 day trip from Edinburgh, Scotland with Mercer Island native Dena Evans to St. Andrews Golf Course, where golf originated, and to the adjacent West Sands Beach, where the opening scene from "Chariots of Fire" was filmed.

Seven years later, he and I had another walk from the farewell athletes party to the US team hotel after the world cross country championships in Guiyang, China.

A common denominator of those walks, whether it was in Athens, St.Andrews, or Guiyang, was that I came away more knowledgeable than I did before the walks. I also reflected in each of those walks how two people from the same city have ended up in all of these foreign cities attending a track or cross country meet.

THE LAST TIME...

Two of the men who put Club Northwest on the map in the 1970s,
steeplechaser Jim Johnson & marathoner Herman Atkins
(Paul Merca photo)

The last time I saw Bill in person was at the UW Invitational at Dempsey Indoor on February 1st.

As I rushed back to the announcer's stage next to the finish line, I saw Bill near the stage talking to some of the meet officials, as he was there as an assistant coach at Western Washington.

About the same time, I saw Husky coach Maurica Powell in the same area, so I made it a point to introduce Bill to Maurica, since he told me that he hadn't formally met Maurica since she and husband Andy took over the reigns of the Washington program after the 2018 season.

In the two minutes or so I was with both of them, he managed to rattle off a story about current USATF president Vin Lannana (who the Powells ran for at Stanford and worked with at Oregon) after he was reinstated and the celebration in a Reno hotel room, fueled by some beverages that Bill and Kenny Emerick procured.

As I got back to announcing the meet, I looked in the general direction of Bill and Maurica, and thought to myself, "That's Bill for you".

UW hurdler Terry Lavery, who was an early resident of
the Track House in the Montlake district with Bill Roe
(photo courtesy Terry Lavery)

Two weeks later, Bill was part of the conversation at a Husky track & field alumni gathering after the Husky Classic meet on February 15th. I tried to get him to come to the gathering, but since none of his Western Washington distance runners were accepted into the meet, he didn't want to wait around, as he left Bellingham at 3:30am to drive into Seattle and stage the final race of the Winter Grand Prix series at Nathan Hale HS.

I mentioned in a text to him that some of the older guys who lived at the Track House in Montlake in the 70s were going to be there.

In his final text to me, he replied, "Sounds like I need to put together a 50-year Track House reunion in a year or two."

There are many, many more stories that I could easily share about my association with Bill. For those who knew Bill, those stories could easily fill thousands of pages.

--

According to Bill's sister, Jan Kline, his life will be celebrated at a wake with lots of beer in approximately a month in Bellingham, WA (approximately 100 miles north of SeaTac airport; 90 miles north of downtown Seattle).

The wake will take place on Sunday, April 5 from 1:00-4:00pm at Bellingham Depot Market Square (1100 Railroad Ave, Bellingham, WA 98225).

In the meantime, if you would like to share condolences - or just some of your favorite memories of Bill - with his family, you can mail them to his family:

Jan Kline
11109 NE 147 Street
Kirkland, WA 98034

I will post an email address shortly if you'd rather share your favorite memories electronically.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you make a donation to Club Northwest in memory of Bill.  You can donate via this link.