June 2021

Ralph Romain dies at 88; lanky Trinidad sprinter was WR legend at 200 and 400

Ralph Irving Romain was an education expert who worked for the World Bank and UNESCO. He taught history at New York’s Medgar Evers College of CUNY. In the 1960s, not long after his native Trinidad and Tobago gained independence from the UK, Ralph was the Caribbean nation’s education minister, writing a 15-year plan through 1983. “Equipped with training at the graduate level at Cambridge University, Romain took on the challenge of creating an educational system designed to allow equal opportunity to quality education for all the children of the country,” wrote Ralph Henry in the nation’s oldest newspaper. “He was…


GeezerJock magazine reincarnated as free newsletter, with veteran sportswriter at helm

In 2004, a Chicagoan’s idea for a masters sports magazine caught my attention and fluttered my heart. It had me at its title — GeezerJock. Despite the cheeky name, editor Sean Callahan and partners were serious, and I joined as a contributing track writer. In 2005, it even named an obscure 54-year-old sprinter named Bill Collins as its inaugural Michelob ULTRA GeezerJock of the Year. But in 2008, after months of editorial excellence but poor circulation (and changing its name to Masters Athlete), the book I called Sports Illustrated for age-groupers folded amid the Big Recession. (The same publication pandemic…