Farewell to Silverstein and Groves
The cruelest word in masters track isn’t DQ. It’s retirement. Unlike retirement in open/elite track, which means easing off the professional treadmill, masters athletes who bow out are usually forced to do so by injury or life circumstances. It’s not something they look forward to. National Masters News runs letters from athletes announcing their retirement, and it’s always a kick in the teeth.
The latest masters star to publicly announce he’s hanging up his spikes is Milt Silverstein of Fredericksburg, Virginia. He writes: “I had really expected to participate in track and field until I was 100. . . . When I attained the age of 80 in 2000, I was fortunate to be able to compete in all the championship track meets. Unfortunately, thereafter I started to have all sorts of illnesses, which have made it necessary for me to retire.”
Milt, a former history teacher and coach who used to live in Tucson, has been a world-class age-group sprinter for years – and one of the handful who could challenge Payton Jordan in his age group. At the April 1978 Penn Relays, Milt took third in the M75-and-over 100m clocking 14.68 at age 78 behind Jordan’s 14.52 at age 81 and Tim Murphy’s 14.40 at age 76. All incredible times.
Quietly but just as sorrowfully, M55 hurdler Sheridon Groves also has stepped away from the track for good. He wrote me in December 2002: “I . . . have had to retire after 51 years of track due to the serious arthritis I found this week when I finally got around to X-raying it. It’s been great competing with you and the guys.”
Sheridon has been a national- and world-class hurdler for decades, but he says his left (lead) knee arthritis is too much to stand. “My only option would be to keep trying to run and then get a total knee replacement,” he says. His last competition was at USATF Masters Western Regionals in July 2002, where he won the M55 400 hurdles in 68.90. “I haven’t been able to run the highs since the previous season.”
A semiretired orthopedic surgeon who lives with his wife in Santa Monica, Groves is a retired Army major who competed for West Point (and against the likes of Olympic champion Willie Davenport) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Sheridon’s masters PRs include: 100 in 11.05, 200 in 23.49, 400 in 53.31, 400IH in 59.13, 300IH in 42.9, 110HH in 14.65, indoor 50 in 5.71, 60 in 7.4, 60HH in 8.63, and 200 in 25.16.
Sheridon tended to compete only in California meets – often solo in the long hurdles — but was a two-time bronze medalist at San Jose nationals in 1997. He was a regular member of our traveling tribe of masters hurdlers and an inspiration to me and others. I first ran against him at Long Beach State around 1995, and rarely beat him – although he is six or seven years my elder.
He graduated from West Point in 1969 and was a conference indoor high hurdles champ, third in IC4A. I salute his longevity in our sport and the friendly advice he’s offered me over the years.
