Three years ago, I reviewed the first documentary film devoted to Masters track: "Racing Against the Clock," which followed five women in their championship season, ending at the 2003 World Masters Athletic Championships in Carolina, Puerto Rico.
Last month, I reviewed something even more unlikely -- the first novel to revolve around Masters track. And coincidentally, the book also concluded at Puerto Rico worlds. As a work of literature, it has problems. But I still celebrate it as a Masters milestone.
The author is Cornell Stephenson, who five years ago won four M40 sprint medals at Puerto Rico. He named the book "That Masterful Season," and its 212 pages include photos of him and his friends at worlds and other meets. Despite its fictional flaws, the novel does justice to the Masters track experience. But as I wrote Cornell on my other blog: "You're a hell of a better author than I am a quarter-miler."
With the action taking place over a series of months, "That Masterful Season" is mainly intriguing for its characters -- all of whom were inspired by real life. I easily picked out a half-dozen characters based on real people. Some are barely disguised. The fictional doubles of USA Team Manager Sandy Pashkin and M40 hurdler Darnell Gatling have the same initials.
"That Masterful Season" mashes up real experiences and events (as well as people), but it creates situations as well. One that daunted me: several references to drug-testing of Masters record-setters at the Penn Relays.
USA Track & Field doesn't drug-test masters. Period. But I wasn't sure if that applied to
Penn. So I wrote several people, and nobody could tell me for sure whether Masters were drug-tested in 2003. I seriously doubt it. I think the doping test scenes in the book were inserted to make it look more lifelike to readers unfamiliar with our circuit. No biggie.
Cornell didn't take a conventional route to publication, however. He didn't hire an agent and try to land a book deal. Instead, he went the self-publishing route.
Some folks would say he went to a "vanity press" -- a publisher that charges an author a set sum for a given number of books. But Xlibris, the publisher of "That Masterful Season," rejects the "vanity" label, saying on its Web site: "Xlibris is not a publisher. We are a publishing services provider." Whatever.
Stephenson, who claims an M40 Masters best of 48.94 in the 400, and world records in the 4x100 and distance medley relays, is a Los Angeles middle school coach and teacher. His book tells the stories of eight M40 or M45 elite sprint buddies -- four on the West Coast and four on the East -- as they prepare for the Penn Relays, juggle work and personal lives and finish up (most of them) at the 15th World Masters Athletics Championships in Puerto Rico, in July 2003. It's a quick read. I finished its 45 bite-sized chapters in two sittings.
Early on, I applauded Cornell on how he nailed the complicated lives of Masters athletes - who fight daily battles to balance jobs, family duties and training sessions. Many sports novels focus on the young and care-free, certainly not athletes fretting about expanding their sales lines or navigating office politics. The book lacks focus, however, and I got lost in competing narratives, losing track of who was who.
But one thing kept me riveted: Who did he base his characters on?
How much of M45 character Dr. Beree Riggins -- an East Coast heart surgeon in the book -- is drawn from true-life cardiothoracic surgeon Ray Blackwell of Delaware?
How much of M40 character Alan Simpson -- whose cherished wife, Linda, is undergoing chemotherapy -- is true-life star Sal Allah, whose beloved wife, Lynn, died of breast cancer in 2005?
How much of M40 character Greg Jackson of Los Angeles - with an ex-wife and a teen-age daughter - was San Diego's Kettrell Berry, who has an ex-wife and track-star teen daughter?
How much of Canadian character Lee Pulley is represented by Canada's David Lee Provo, who in real life beat Stephenson in two races at Puerto Rico?
And take one guess who this is:
"It was finally time to start the 400 finals for the 50-54 division. The race was highly anticipated due to the presence of Houston native Colin Williams who at one time or another owned a dozen different Masters records from the 100 to the 400 as well as both sprint relays."
Yup, Bill Collins of Houston, the inaugural GeezerJock of the Year.
Even foreign athletes get their moment in Cornell's sun. The novel mentions "current world record holder (at 400) Pietro Franconi" of Italy. Of course, this is an homage to real-life M40 WR man: Enrico Saraceni of Italy (who didn't run at Puerto Rico, by the way.)
And I doubt the book's Tri-state Allstars are anything but Sprint Force America.
Cornell doesn't deny the obvious, telling me: "All of the main characters are based on combinations of masters competitors whom I've admired, but with fictional lives."
Therein lies the rub. How do you build a gripping novel - which normally includes bad guys, good guys and dicey situations -- when the key characters are based on real people (and respected friends)?
"That Masterful Season" doesn't have a wide natural constituency in the fiction-reading public, but because so many characters draw on real people, I think sales to his circle of friends alone will keep it in print.
Tags: Masters Track Novel
