Remembering a track guru

What I'm about to relate happened years ago and I don't remember exactly where, though it probably was Drake Stadium because it had to do with track. Anyway, the guy who said this wasn't a big track fan and I still remember the joke he made about his indifference.

``You know,'' he said, ``the only thing more boring than track is field.''

I don't remember who said it, but I do know this: It wasn't Mike Henderson.

Henderson was the information director for the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union who died in 2004, taking with him to a better place a vast storehouse of names, numbers, places and events. His razor-sharp recall worked for all sports, but track was his first love. With the state high school meet getting under way Thursday, this seems a good time to talk about Mike for a minute.

Mike's involvement with track went far beyond his job with the Girls Union. He worked at meets around the country. He was a key figure in getting the Drake Relays up and running each year, so important that Drake always found him a place to work on campus in the weeks leading up to the meet. Former Relays director Bob Ehrhart looked to Mike as his guiding hand  in selecting athletes for the invitational events. When Mike spoke, the Drake folks listened.

When I needed to talk to him the week of  the state meet to figure out what might happen, I always could find him on the second floor of the Drake Stadium press box, surrounded by paper, empty cups and food containers. Mike was not the neatest guy around (I can just see those of you who knew him smiling at that memory).  If you looked up ``unkempt'' in the dictionary, you'd probably find Mike's picture. But his mind was as neatly organized as the most sophisticated Excel file. If I had just a fraction of Mike's knowledge of track (and field, too), I'd consider myself an expert.

The next week, Mike would be working away in the press box to get ready for the boys meet and I'd climb those steps again to get his take on that event. The Girls Union was good about sharing Mike because they understood that when you have a treasure, you need to let others benefit from him, too. When a meet was going on and Mike was there, you just knew things would be fine. Now, if problems came up or things got a little tense, it's known that Mike would utter an occasional swear word, maybe even string a few together. But he'd always get everything sorted out and keep working as if nothing had happened. ``Oh, Chuck, I didn't see you there. What do you need?''

The state meet didn't go coed until after Mike died. I'm not quite sure what he would have thought of that. On one hand, he would have enjoyed three straight days of track, including a couple that stretch to nearly 12 hours. But when the meets were separate, he got two weekends of track instead of just one, so there was always something to be said for that.

Since Mike's been gone, everyone at the meet has had to work a little harder. Before, all we had to do was ask Mike. Now, we have to look all that darn stuff up.