Bill Rodgers is here

 

Where are they now? Sports Illustrated asked in its latest issue.

One of the people asked about was Bill Rodgers, the four-time Boston Marathon and New York City Marathon champion who was a key element in the running boom of the 1970s and remains one of the great guiding lights of the sport.

But where is he? As I write this, at 2:45 p.m. Thursday, Rodgers is on I-84, about halfway to Utica, where he will participate in the Utica Boilermaker Road Race for the umpteenth time since he won it in record time in 1983.

Rodgers appearance back then gave the Boilermaker a huge seal of approval. It already was a popular race, but Rodgers brought national attention and plenty of credibility and cachet. And everyone loved him, with his outgoing personality and everyman attitude. Most years he brings along his brother Charlie, who manages their Boston running store and is an equally engaging personality.

The story on Rodgers – Willie Mays, Don Maynard, Bucky Dent, Alex Karras and Dwight Stephenseon are among the others profiled – is a good one, and provides some details on his recent fight with prostate cancer, but it has a lot of competition from a story on Anna Kournakova, now 27 years old and, judging by the accompanying photos, more beautiful than ever.

“Bill,” I told him in our brief phone conversation just a few minutes ago, “I confess I skipped over your story and read Anna’s first, but only because the photos were better.”

“You have good taste,” he said.

Still, prostate cancer, a bad calf and all, Bill probably can still finish ahead of Anna in the Boilermaker.