Roger Pierce

Roger Pierce was an eloquent representative of masters track last night when he was inducted into his alma mater’s Hall of Fame. His local paper quoted Roger: “As long as I am capable of doing it, I’ll run for the rest of my life. But I’m at the age where I see a lot of people breaking down. I’ve had a lot of injuries this past year — not running related, but (ones that) have affected my running. I’ll keep going, though, because it’s something I absolutely love doing.” I also learned something new: his Aussie roots. So it was something special for him to sprint at Brisbane worlds back in 2001. “I hadn’t been back to Australia in 54 years, but when I won the gold there it was an indescribable moment,” Roger said.

Here’s the story, in case the link goes down under:

Track master Pierce earns Hall of Fame honor at Northeastern
Jean DePlacido
Roger Pierce was inducted into the Northeastern University Sports Hall of Fame last night, along with six other former Huskies, at Lombardo’s Restaurant in Randolph.
This is the second Hall of Fame honor for the renowned sprinter from Essex, who went into the Beverly High Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004. There is also a push to put him in the Masters Track and Field Hall of Fame, where he certainly has the credentials to be honored.
Pierce, who ran for the Huskies 40 years ago after a stellar career at Beverly High, was a walk-on at Northeastern. Running for former NU coach Irwin Cohen, he captained both the indoor and outdoor teams his senior year and won the Greater Boston dash (indoors) and 100-yard dash (outdoors). NU had an impressive 43-4 regular season mark with Pierce playing a major role.
Highlights of his college career include being named NU Track Man of the Year and winning the Parsons Award for the outstanding indoor competitor. He set the NU 50-yard dash record (5.4 seconds) and was a member of the school record-setting 4×400 indoor and outdoor relay teams.
It was a stroke of luck that Pierce, who was born in Australia, wound up at Northeastern. After competing all three seasons of track at Beverly High and being named team MVP of the outdoor team in 1962, he was unsure what he wanted to do.
“I went out to Hollywood and kicked around for a while,” said the 63-year old. “I was trying to get into film and learned to play the guitar out there. I came back home from LA on a Honda 50 — I could have ridden a bike and got there faster.”
After being home for a year, he happened to meet Cohen at a summer track event, and the coach urged him to apply to Northeastern. The rest is history.
“I always loved to run and still do. Coach Cohen was incredibly good at getting the most out of his athletes,” said Pierce. “He pushed us far beyond what we thought we were capable of doing. I’m sure we wound up beating more talented teams because of his philosophy. I still carry that through in my training and my life because it feels good when you are prepared.
“I feel really honored to go into the Northeastern Hall of Fame. We were very good in track when I was there, and it’s an experience I thoroughly enjoyed.”
Pierce took 10 years off from running before resuming his career at age 39. Since then he has been active in international competition, holds 30 national championships, 11 American age group records, won 10 gold medals and set nine world records.
Just last month, he was a member of the world record-setting 4×400 relay team along with other members of his Mass. Velocity sprint club at the National Championships in Boston. “We set a new record, beating the one that had just been set by a team from Canada,” said Pierce.
“As long as I am capable of doing it, I’ll run for the rest of my life. But I’m at the age where I see a lot of people breaking down. I’ve had a lot of injuries this past year — not running related, but (ones that) have affected my running. I’ll keep going, though, because it’s something I absolutely love doing.”
One of the highlights of his illustrious career came in 2001 when Pierce returned to his birthplace to win the World Championship in the 400. He was also a member of the US 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams that took gold there.
“I hadn’t been back to Australia in 54 years, but when I won the gold there it was an indescribable moment,” said Pierce, who also took gold in 2003, ’05, and ’07.
“I was an underdog and not expected to win. I didn’t do it by much, but did manage to cross the finish line first. I had a lot of friends watching, and it will always be a special moment.”
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Pat Yeo, the Peabody High hockey and baseball captain, will attend UMass Amherst next year. Yeo was recruited for hockey at St. Michael’s College.
“I won’t go out for hockey at UMass,” said Yeo. “I’m not a 6-foot-4 defenseman like they have there, and I haven’t talked to the baseball coach. I’m going to major in engineering so I’ll be pretty busy, but I will play club hockey.
“It came down to UMass being the better choice for me. They were talking about five years for engineering at St. Michael’s instead of the four at UMass, which works out better financially. I really liked the school, and the engineering program is very good.”