In loving memory of Tommy Leonard.
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Tag: Eliot Lounge
R.I.P. TOMMY LEONARD (1933 – 2019)
The great Tommy Leonard passed quietly from our midst yesterday at JML Care Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts at age 85. The beloved founder of the Falmouth Road Race and long-time bartender at Boston’s legendary Eliot Lounge, Tommy was the patron saint of running to thousands of people around the globe.
Tommy’s dear friend Russ Pelletier sent the following note last night.
“Just want to let you know that he never lost his sense of humor. I was with him yesterday afternoon. It was obvious that he was at the end of the line.
Around the bed were three women on the JML staff and myself. He was having difficulty breathing and couldn’t speak. But we knew he could hear us.
So I told him, “Tommy, no matter what the situation, you always have young ladies taking care of you”.
I couldn’t hear his reply, but the nurse closest to him did. I asked, “What did he say?”. She looked at me and said, “I have the best seat in the house”.
He went out on his own terms.”
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Thanks to Russ for bringing one last Tommy-made smile to our faces.
Those who knew him well loved him dearly, not just for a shared love of running, but for his selflessness and generosity of spirit. Even those who had never met him felt like they knew him from the stories they’d heard. Such was the effect Tommy had on people, a best friend you might not have ever met.
TL’s contributions were incalculable, and not just to the running community. He and fellow Back Bay barkeep at the Bull & Finch Pub (the Cheers bar on TV) Eddie Doyle raised funds for causes far and wide through the years from their posts behind the hardwood. And though he had grown up in an orphanage and foster homes in western Massachusetts, Tommy created a worldwide family with his Irish glint, zest for life, and an embracing you-centered concern. Like a human endearment machine, Tommy worked perfectly all the way to the end.
True, he was more of a dreamer than a hands-on producer. But TL was a wizard at bringing the right people together – like John Carroll and Rich Sherman in Falmouth, and Eddie Doyle in Boston – while creating an atmosphere where good times were to be had by all. Today, we mourn his passing from a world where such character and traits seem increasingly anachronistic.
It’s with full hearts we send TL off on his next great adventure. Off beyond “the powder-puff clouds and shimmering Vineyard Sound” to make God laugh, angels weep, and more souls that can fit on the head of a pin happy.
Bless you, Tommy Leonard, your light and spirit will continue to shine through to show us the way.
“With Tommy Leonard tending taps,
Every runner’s true best friend,
With a heart big enough to share.”
END
CELEBRATING TOMMY LEONARD’S 85TH BIRTHDAY
As we come up upon the 46th New Balance Falmouth Road Race weekend, we also celebrate the 85th birthday of race founder Tommy Leonard. In honor of TL a light verse recalling that other great running institution associated with TL, Boston’s Eliot Lounge. Happy birthday, TL. See you soon.
THE ELIOT
For this is where we runners met,
The bar we called our own,
Hard along the marathon course,
Just a half a mile from home,
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On the corner of Mass. and Commonwealth Aves.,
In Boston’s old Back Bay,
Where we came to recover from training,
And put PRs on display.
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With Tommy Leonard tending taps,
The guru in his lair,
Every runner’s true best friend,
With a heart big enough to share.
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And Coach Squires in his corner,
The Wack in classic form,
Holding court, as usual,
Untranslatable being the norm.
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With walls festooned with photos,
Of racers in their glory,
Posters, banners, flags, as well,
Each one with a telling story.
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It’s where Rodgers came to drown a loss,
Or celebrate a record run,
And Joanie nipped with barracudas,
A champion, not a nun.
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With footprints of the running stars,
Pressed out front in wet cement,
Course Tommy mixed the formula wrong,
So the prints didn’t quite indent.
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And remember the night the horse clopped in,
Or the Stanford marching band,
And Heidi singing in those tight blue jeans,
They and the joint absolutely crammed.
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‘Twas a clubhouse for every iconoclast,
Be they runner, writer, or pol,
And while few considered themselves joiners,
To the Eliot they came one and all,
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When running meant more than fitness alone,
Or a bucket–list item for the masses,
But instead formed a band of close brothers,
Before our youth and speed finally passed us.
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Yes, those days are fondly remembered,
When the lines did snake around the block,
But we knew the secret back entrance,
Sometimes I wish we could turn back the clock.
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When time was the measure of excellence,
And Greater Boston the club above all,
When speed was the currency in issue,
But a good time was at night at Fall Call.
And Greater Boston the club above all,
When speed was the currency in issue,
But a good time was at night at Fall Call.
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Still, if running has taught us any lesson,
It’s that time stands still for no man,
No matter how hard we might wish it,
‘Tis the future we must look to and plan.
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Knowing our memories still carry,
Those times that were ours once alone,
When speed and endurance were in abundance,
And we called the Eliot our home.
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Sadly, its doors had to shutter,
After the hundredth Marathon was through,
But the friendships we made there still linger,
How fortunate, how lucky, we few,
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Who experienced the sport when it was booming,
When its flower was still in first bloom,
When Tommy was our lovable guru,
And the Eliot our nurturing womb.
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So thanks to all who have joined us,
To salute Tommy on his 85 years,
But just consider the man’s constitution,
Good God, it should bring us all to tears.
END
FALMOUTH ROAD RACE FOUNDER TOMMY LEONARD TURNS 84
This Sunday the New Balance Falmouth Road Race turns 45. But today race founder and guiding spirit Tommy Leonard celebrates his 84th birthday.
Back in the Summer of `72 Tommy was tending bar at the Brothers 4 on Falmouth Heights when Frank Shorter ran to the gold medal at the Munich Olympic Marathon. Inspired by Frank’s win, Tommy dreamed up a local road race to help raise funds for the Falmouth Girl’s Track Club. 45 years later, both the founder and his founding spirit live on.
Though he summered on Cape Cod, T.L. called Boston’s Eliot Lounge home for nearly a quarter century, and it was there that his legend took root. In honor of his birthday, here is a little verse that recalls the days when a visit to Tommy was on every runner’s wish list. (more…)
SUCH ARE THE MEMORIES OF SPORT
The day after Thanksgiving has traditionally been one of the special football days of the year in America. While high school rivalries and the NFL play on Thanksgiving itself, the day after, Black Friday, has always belonged to the NCAA.
Today, there are two decent games — Washington takes on in-state rival Washington State, while Navy sailed into Houston for a match up of one-loss teams.
But before the rise of cable, there was usually just a single college game featured, usually a marquee match-up on one of the networks for a nation still digesting it’s Thanksgiving dinner.
In 1984 The Game pitted the 8-2, 10th ranked Boston College Eagles versus the defending national champion Miami Hurricane. “The U” was full of NFL draftees, though they weren’t having the same quality season as usual in ’84, coming in ranked 12th in the national polls.
Still, playing at home against the upstart BC Eagles, Miami was still a strong favorite as BC was viewed as the small Catholic school from the northeast where college football wasn’t nearly the religion as it was in the South and Midwest.
But this was the peak of the Doug Flutie era, when the Natick, Mass. native was single-handedly bringing the BC program to new heights under Coach Jack Bicknell. (more…)
THE ELIOT LOUNGE PRE-BOSTON MARATHON 1978
In recent months my friend Matt Taylor has launched a new clothing line called TrackSmith whose influences harken back to a simpler, more rudimentary time in the sport. Among the projects associated with TrackSmith, Matt has come out with a new running publication called Meter.
I am proud to be among the contributors tor the inaugural issue of Meter, providing a look back at the legendary Eliot Lounge, that long lost and fabled runner’s bar in Boston’s Back Bay which shuttered its doors in 1996.
Yesterday, Matt put up on Twitter an audio clip I sent him from my old Runner’s Digest radio show in Boston that aired from 1977 to 1988. In this clip we find ourselves inside the Eliot on the Thursday night before the 1978 Boston Marathon. The place was teeming with runners from around the world as our favorite band, Heidi and The Secret Admirers, was closing the night in style.
As Heidi kicked off her final encore at about 1 a.m., Ian Gamble, a motor racing promoter from Auckland, New Zealand — who also organized New Zealand’s Choysa Marathon — made an offer to Greater Boston Track Club star Randy Thomas who is now the long time track and cross country coach at Boston College.
If you want to know what it felt like to be in the Hub of the running universe at the height of the running boom, perhaps the four minute clip below will give you a taste.
FALMOUTH CELEBRATES TOMMY LEONARD AT 80
Falmouth, Mass. — 150 to 200 of Tommy Leonard’s best friends surprised him with an early 80th birthday party last night at the Sea Crest Beach Hotel as the 41st New Balance Falmouth Road Race weekend got under way on old Cape Cod. For those too young to know, it was Tommy who founded the Falmouth Road Race in 1973 after watching Frank Shorter win the Olympic Marathon in Munich 1972.
During Frank’s gold medal run Tommy watched in rapt attention while bartending at the now defunct Brothers Four on Falmouth Heights. A long-time runner himself, Tommy was so inspired by Frank that just one year later he welcomed 92 starters to the first Falmouth Road Race to raise funds for the Falmouth Girls Track Club. By year three Tommy had lured his hero to Falmouth to take on growing local legend Bill Rodgers.
The Shorter vs. Rodgers rivalry on the Cape — Frank won in 1975 &`76, Bill took revenge in `77 & `78 — helped Falmouth become the Great American Road Race which assisted mightily in spreading the running Boom throughout the country.
“My heart is going a million miles an hour,” Tommy said when he saw the host of people stand and cheer at his arrival last night. And from there it was one story after another recalling the life of a man whose passion for running and heart of gold has enriched the life of thousands upon thousands while elevating the sport of road running to heights few would have thought possible when he first began dreaming. (more…)
