Andrew Suozzo.__________
Andrew Suozzo was 49 when he first became interested in running; his goal was to run the annual Chicago Marathon before turning 50. This was, mind you, back when only 8,000 competed in the 26.2-mile race on the streets of Chicago.
'I immediately was interested in how the race was put together, why people ran the race, who sponsored it, etc.—just about everything race-related,' said Suozzo, now 61.
He has since completed 12 marathons, racing in Boston, Paris, Berlin and Italy as well as his hometown of Chicago. Suozzo's all-time best time was 2:57.33, accomplished at the age of 53. And at the 2003 Chicago race, Suozzo finished third in his 650-person age group ( men, 55-59 ) .
Suozzo hasn't run a marathon in a few years due to numerous nagging injuries, but that hasn't slowed his passion for this city's marathon, which has boomed to 40,000 annual entrants, the race's maximum.
'The growth of the marathon led me to realize that there was something extraordinary going on for marathon running, and not just in Chicago but all over the world,' said Suozzo, who lives in Lakeview. 'I remember when I could have registered [ for the race ] the night before [ it was held ] . Now you need to register months in advance.'
Suozzo's passion comes to life in a unique new book, The Chicago Marathon ( University of Illinois Press, $19.95 ) . He examines various aspects of the race, including the runners, sponsorship, media and more. On Jan. 20, the Chicago Area Runners Association ( CARA ) gave Suozzo the Hal Higdon Journalism Award for his book at its annual awards banquet.
'I knew that this was a major change in sports, a shift in values because people don't just all of a sudden do these things unless they see a special value. And that's the case with the marathon,' said Suozzo, who actually taught a similar marathon-driven course at DePaul before releasing the book.
'Out of my initial curiosity, my enthusiasm and then my teaching ( the marathon course ) , that led me to believe that I should start writing about it,' said Suozzo, who wrote a column for the Journal of Popular Culture in 2002, titled, 'Chicago Marathon: An Urban Renaissance.' 'What I tried to show was how the marathon reflects the growth and vitality of the city,' he said.
Suozzo interviewed an abundance of marathon-related individuals—not just runners but also organizers, media and volunteers.
One of Suozzo's chapters details the aide stations, including the award-winning FrontRunners & Walkers water station, located on Broadway in Boystown.
'I wasn't trying to write a marathon book about the gay community, or a sports book. Rather, I was writing about a sport in which the gay community plays a big role,' said the openly gay Suozzo, who writes about Dorothy Tanner, also an out runner, among others.
Suozzo did not ask people about their sexuality for the book, and he did not care. 'I could have packed the book with gay runners' stories, but that would have distorted the whole nature of the study, of what I was doing,' he said. 'What I wanted to do was make it clear that, yes, there are gay people running the race—but that was not the focus.
When not writing, Suozzo teaches French and two courses on gay and lesbian history at DePaul. They are among the first such courses at the North Side school.
'I felt that a lot of my students, including gay and lesbian students, did not have much of a background as to what had happened in their own community. Hopefully they're learning that,' he said.
www.press.uillinois.edu/f06/suozzo.html
