Penn Relays serve as touchstone for former high school stars

The former Northeast High School track and field teammates who crowded around tables at the Penrose Diner on Thursday ran faster and jumped higher in the old days.

In the 1950s, the group of African American athletes raced on cinders, not turf, and represented a then-all-boys school at Eighth and Lehigh that was actually miles from "the Northeast."

And though none of these men ever won the coveted watches or medals that go to the top runners at the Penn Relays, the three-day extravaganza at Penn's Franklin Field still serves as a unifying setting for their annual pilgrimage.

"These guys were part of one of the most meaningful times in my life," said John Robinson of Lansdale, Montgomery County. "So when I see them, it reminds me."

At 79, Robinson was the baby of 10 former track and field teammates who met over eggs and orange juice. It was the 10th anniversary of their annual Penn Relays brunch, when they reminisce about track meets they won - and lost - and the bond they created through competition.

The guys, teammates between 1950 and 1953, traveled from as far away as Colorado and North Carolina. Some were to sit together later on Saturday when they visited Franklin Field to watch some of the relays, billed as the largest such event in the United States.

"I think we're holding together pretty good," said Willie L. Moffit, 82, of Philadelphia.

The guys embraced and said hello, and then, as though it were 1952 again, began throwing good-natured barbs about who beat whom back in the day.

Eventually, Charles Downs of Philadelphia tapped his knife on a glass of water to quiet the chitchat.

"Let's say grace," Downs, 81, said.

The reunions started in 2005, when George E. Logan, 80, and Leroy Murphy, 81, both of Durham, N.C., organized a meeting after some of their teammates didn't attend an alumni luncheon. Logan and Murphy decided their friends on the track team needed their own get-together. And because a few out-of-towners returned to Franklin Field every year, Penn Relays weekend was selected.

The men had met decades earlier in North Philadelphia's blue-collar and middle-class neighborhoods, where they grew up among many families who had moved from the South.

Downs, of Fern Rock, was one of 10 children and shined shoes on the weekends to help his family. Henry Smyrl's father was a lawyer who had worked his way through college.

"We were small in number," Smyrl, 83, said of the black students at Northeast. "We held together as a unit, and that helped us get through."

They sat together in the lunchroom and hopped the No. 54 trolley to their practice field at 29th and Clearfield Streets. After school, they hung out at Joe's, a hoagie shop on Eighth Street.

"Even in Philadelphia, you stayed in your section," Moffit said. "Prejudice was pretty prominent."

In 1951, the team had a season to remember, some of it for the wrong reasons. That year was the subject of a spirited conversation on Thursday, even as onetime rival Harold Burnett listened in.

Burnett, who joined the group for brunch, competed for Central High School, a bitter Northeast rival since 1892.

"We had problems in events we should have won," said Ernest Watson, 81, of Philadelphia.

Teammates in relay races collided. Batons were dropped.

"Coach [Lester] Owens looked like he was going to cry," said Ronald White, 80, of Black Forest, Colo.

The men recalled the thrill of running in the Penn Relays back then, but they always lost to faster teams from New York or Washington or somewhere.

"We didn't do nothing. You can forget it," Downs said.

In 1956, the relays boasted 4,000 participants. By the end of Saturday's final event, more than 18,000 will have competed.

Since those old days, a few of the Northeast men have stayed in contact, keeping track of their friends who went on to be teachers, a social worker, a technical illustrator, and a global head of security.

A 21-year-old Downs became a widower with two children when his wife died of tuberculosis. Gilbert Thomas, a onetime official with the local NAACP, worked with activist Cecil B. Moore to soothe tempers after the 1964 riots on Columbia Avenue.

White, an Air Force major who flew missions in Vietnam, moved his family to Germany for five years after veterans were greeted with protests and name-calling upon their return.

Logan's personal crisis was health-related. He had a bad heart. Initially, doctors refused to consider him for a heart transplant because he was "too old."

Logan fought for his life. He changed their minds. In 2011, he got a new heart. He was 76.

"If I didn't have it, I wouldn't be sitting here," Logan said.

Some of the group's old friends succumbed to illnesses. Harold Whitney died of cancer about two years ago.

Moffit used to drive Whitney to the reunion.

"It's kind of strange," said Moffit, pulling Whitney's obituary out from between the pages of his yearbook. "I miss him. He was the philosopher of the group."

After about 90 minutes, a waitress brought the restaurant bill to the table.

"Give it to him."

"No him."

"No him," the men told the harried woman.

Some of the guys later attended the relays, where White, head of military athletics at the U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School, is an official.

For others, it was time to say goodbye until next year.

"It's good that we're still alive to see each other," Thomas said. "I hope we'll be friends for a long time."