Something Just Wasn't Right Last Weekend

When Waverly and I were leaving the Expo on Saturday, one of the things that I noticed in the finish line area, while it was being setup, was the VIP seating.

Cynically speaking, you have to wonder how much sponsorship monies - or if there were some that went for sale - went up with that?

But with the changes in the start line, the corrals, the construction in the park area in front of the George R. Brown Convention Center, I realized that an annual pre-race tradition that I had was probably going to go by the wayside.

And that was always meeting up with a friend - public address announcer J. Fred Duckett.

I thought it was strange that he wasn't at the press conference on Friday morning like I had seen him there the year before. (I figured the Awty International School, where he's a teacher, would have let him off a day.)

I really didn't think too much about it when we were standing in the corrals and I heard a very clear, strong female voice. (I mentioned earlier that my head wasn't completely in the day. Maybe there's something to turning 40.) At times, I thought her delivery was a little bit strong or "over the top" - as if she didn't really know anything about the sport.

J. Fred, of course, is one of the Southwest's foremost track and field authorities and is the long-time public address announcer of the Texas Relays in Austin.

But I really became curious as Waverly and I made our way down Rusk Avenue.

I noticed that the timing mat, 100 yards or so in front of the finish line, was new. (It can be a nice touch, at a smaller event, to have your name called out - when it is only you. This instead of trying to rapid fire call multiple names.)

Then I recognized that the voice definitely wasn't that of J. Fred's. (And I couldn't pick up on who it belonged to.)

I was beat though plus I didn't have a good run at all. So I asked Waverly later on in the evening at home if she heard J. Fred earlier - thinking that he might have gone home (and let somebody take over) - and she said that the male voice definitely wasn't him.

Well, it appears that the Marathon did what the Astros and Rice Owls basketball did too many years ago and told J. Fred that his services were no longer needed.

It's a shame. It is a position that I aspired to - as I've had the chance to do public address announcing in a couple of D-1 facilities - when J. Fred decided that he no longer wanted to do it.

I certainly feel different about it now.

While J. Fred is often best known for his "Jose Cruuuuuuz!" call as the Astros public address announcer, he is also in a class of P.A. guys - like Mark Seegers at the University of Houston - who didn't see themselves as part of the "show".