Thursday night at Bright Side Bookshop, NAZ Elite runner Matt Baxter and former NAU Coach Ron Mann, co-authors of Running Up the Mountain about the building of NAU’s distance dynasty, entertained an ardent crowd in a Q-and-A format.
We reviewed the book last month, and it’s a great read.
What the crowd learned Thursday night was that — shock! horrors! — Baxter, a New Zealander, had no idea who George Young was until well into the book-writing process.
Matt? Really?
As I’m sure you’ll all know, Young was legendary in Arizona running circles: a University of Arizona alumn; an Olympian in 1960, ’64, ’68, and ’72; American recordholder in the steeplechase and briefly holder of two world indoor distance records. Young died in November of 2022 at age 85, but not before giving an interview for the book.
Baxter was his usual affable self in retelling how he finally made the connection concerning George Young.
“When you (Mann) did the George Young interview, I had no idea who George Young was,” Baxter told the audience. “I learned he was a four-time Olympian and medalist as well — someone who’s very special to running in the U.S. I really didn’t make the connection of who he was until somewhat into his (book-writing) process, where I went back and watched Without Limits about Steve Prefontaine.
“Although George might not appreciate me linking him to a Steve Prefontaine movie, there’s a race in there where George and Steve are going back and forth. They are saying George Young’s name a lot. And then I thought, wait, this is the guy we interviewed for the book. That was a cool connection to make. I’d seen Without Limits countless times as a kid and I never realized as a kid that we’d have one of the last interviews.”
OK, Matt. You are forgiven.
Hey, I know what: Let’s ask Tyler Day, Baxter’s former college teammate at NAU, if he knows who Peter Snell was.
George Young in college. Photo courtesy of the University of Arizona.
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