Through the years, I’ve written often about the great inspiration of my youth: John J. Kelley, the 1957 Boston Marathon winner and my high school coach. Kel steered me onto the path that I have followed these last 50 years.
I’ve written less about my second great inspiration: George Hirsch. George has been boss, colleague, and fellow track/running fan the last 30 years. As a runner, he’s slightly slower than Kelley was, but only a bit. He ran a sub-2:40 marathon at his best, a 3:31 at age 71, and a 2:02 half marathon a month ago at age 79.9.
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As a friend and role model, George, who turned 80 on Saturday, is second to none.
These days he serves as chairman of the board of the New York Road Runners, organizers of the New York City Marathon and much more. Before that, he had a long and impressive career in magazine publishing.
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I began working with George in 1985 when he became publisher of Runner’s World magazine, where I was editor. At our initial get-together, he laid out his philosophy. “First, we’re going to focus on putting out a quality product,” he told me. “Second, we’re going to have fun doing it. If we get those two things right, we’ll also hit our third goal, and make some money.”
Oh, sure, I thought. Sounds nice. But I wasn’t born yesterday. Fun? I’ll admit to a certain skepticism. New bosses don’t usually talk like that.
Yet over the next 20 years I’d wager that no two publishing types had more fun than George and I. In 1988, we were the only English speakers at Gelindo Bordin’s press conference after he won the Seoul Olympic Marathon. In Emmaus, Pennsylvania, Runner’s World’s home, we debated cover models. “Oprah? Really? Let’s give it a whirl.”
In the high, sparkling hills of South Africa’s Zululand, we followed New York City Marathon winner Willie Mtolo into the thatch-roof home of his childhood, and drank warm, thick, putrid beer. We couldn’t stop smiling, and thinking, How great is this! We knew we had it good.
George graduated magna cum laude from Princeton and received an MBA from Harvard, but never mentions either. He puts on no airs, and suffers none. More than once, I’ve seen him get up from the table and leave a restaurant where the staff proved haughty and the prices uppercrust. He’d rather eat paisano food in a casual setting.
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George conducts business in much the same way. Forget your Excel spreadsheets and your Powerpoint presentations. George doesn’t really care. He’s mainly interested in your character; he wants to glance into your soul, not at your slides.
I’m not saying George never made a decision that turned sour. At one time or another, we all do. But he never made a choice that was wrong in his heart, so he always slept well at night. How do you place a value on that?
George made his smartest decision in 1989 when he married Shay Scrivner. He famously described her as the perfect woman because she was “a nonsmoker, a Democrat, and someone who could fix the plumbing.” Shay passed away in February, after a long battle with cancer. George was at her side every step of the way, just as when he met her and ran with her in the 1988 New Jersey Waterfront Marathon.
Yesterday morning, on the second day of his 81st year, George ran 55:20 to win his age-group in the Queens 10K. It’s going to be a long summer for other age-80-to-84 runners in any race that George enters.
Of course, that’s no big deal. It’s far more significant that he has lived a simple-but-productive and joy-filled life-one centered on people, passion, and principle. That’s the lesson I’ve learned from George, and it has been fun every step of the way.
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