SoCal coach Mark Cleary on Leland McPhie: ‘He loved to compete’
Leland wore SoCal colors on his 99th birthday.
Mark’s story continues:
I quickly got him into his room and was able to get the bleeding to stop and get the blood on Leland cleaned up. I had to go to Sacramento Community College and coach so I had to leave him for a couple of hours. I left without thinking of cleaning up the blood that led from the parking lot to his hotel room door.
When I returned, I found out that someone had reported a possible homicide to the police and they had a Haz-Mat team out to clean up the blood. The next morning, I told him how bad I felt that now that he had hurt himself, he would have to miss the high jump. I didn’t see how he would be able to do it with the scabbing and surface skin off (he would have to land in the pit and it would probably be extremely painful given his fall.)
I asked him if he felt he could possibly jump. His response was “Of course I will jump; this is the world championships.” This really stuck in my mind. He loved to compete; he never lost that thrill of being in competition and he was a tough guy.Leland was a champion on the Senior Olympic circuit as well.
The last couple of years, when I would call to see how he was doing, the first words after “Hello, Mark” were “When’s the next track meet?”
I loved that so much about the man he was a track & field guy through and through — and he always had a great story to tell. Lastly, I wanted to also say that Leland was one of the most gracious people. He made sure to thank everyone who assisted him in the smallest of ways. He appreciated the support that he got, which in his last five years of competition made it possible for him to continue in the sport he loved.
He would also make me laugh when we would be on a trip to a national meet, and I would try to help him with his luggage. “I’ve got it,” he would say.
He had quite a sense of humor, too. We were at our team dinner in Boston [in March 2014] and had his picture put on a cake. We had quite the 100th birthday celebration with him. He said a few words of appreciation and when he was cutting the cake played to the camera by smiling and pretending to lick the cake off the knife. I wish I had that picture. It was priceless.
One Response
I’ll pick one Leland story: At the 2010 Nationals at Sacramento, Mark put Leland in the 100. When he got to the finish line, he didn’t stop. Finally, I think Ken Stone (doing photographer duty) stood in front of him and made him stop. When told he had set an American M95 record, he calmly observed that he could have gone much faster, but he didn’t go all out because he didn’t know how he would feel since “I haven’t run a 100 since 1938.” I think being around people and soaking up all that attention really energized him. I wish I had known him longer.
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