Latest / Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning / Tim McLoone, Larry’s TCS NYC Marathon coverage co host Interview

Transcript

Tim McLoone, Larry’s TCS NYC Marathon coverage co host Interview · Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, Curtis, have you ever met Tim McClune or ever
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: been to one of his restaurants?
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, he's a great guy. You're going to have a
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: blast with this. Tim McClune is here with us right now.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Tim McClune is my partner for the 710 WOR broadcast
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of the TCS New York City Marathon. Listen to this.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: He is a New Jersey legend. He's a New Jersey
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Hall of Famer. Let me just finish this. He's a restaurateur.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: He's a former Harvard All-American and participant in the very
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: first first, the very first five-barrel marathon in 1976. So
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: why aren't you running this year?
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Which is pretty amazing since I'm only 24 years old.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: It's pretty amazing you still say you're 24 years old.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Curtis, what do you mean? I don't want to run
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: my restaurants. What the hell? Come on.
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: We're going to have to get him.
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: To New Jersey.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think I have been. But, you know,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: once I'm there, I'll be more than happy to bring
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: my sponges and wash the dishes in the kitchen afterwards.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: So, Tim, talk about the very first marathon and how
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: it's grown to what it is now.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. In a sense, looking back on it, it's not
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: that big a deal. You know, Fred Lebo, who was
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: the meat director at the time, this really iconoclastic figure
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: he decided because he'd been in, I don't know which
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: one he went to. He was in Europe and he
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: saw one that ran through the streets instead of being,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: you know, locked into a course like central park where
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: you would do five laps or whatever it was. And
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: he thought this would be a great thing to do
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: in New York. And I don't know how he convinced
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: the town mothers and fathers to let him do it. Um,
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: but he called me, he called any number of people.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: He was actually recruiting for the race and, you know,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: I was a pretty good runner and stuff. So, um,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: He asked if I'd be willing to do it. And
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: I'd run one marathon, and it did not go well.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: I'd run Boston totally arrogant and unprepared. I was a
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: pretty good collegiate runner. I wasn't a great runner, but
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: I was all right. And I went in there never
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: having run more than 10 miles before. And then this
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: thing is so slow. They're going so slowly. I should
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: pick it up here. At any rate, so Fred says,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: do you want to come and do this new one?
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: And it was remarkable in that I don't remember how
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: many people I should know. It was like 1,700 or
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: something like that. And we thought, wow, look at this
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: humongous field of people where it's now, you know, 50,000.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: And there were so many interesting things about it. One
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: is that he wanted to get all five boroughs, and
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: they couldn't figure out a way to get the broncs.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: And so we actually, at some point in the race,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: I don't remember where it was. We had to get
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: off the course and run for like a very, very
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: short period of time, like almost like yards, touch the
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Bronx and then come right back on. I don't remember, but,
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: and the other thing was there were very few people
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: out watching it. We went, ran along the river and, um, they,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: on the East side, And there was nobody there. It
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: just was like another road race. Back in those days,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: I would go into races that had 38 competitors in them.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: And it was just a different world. So now it's
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: getting kind of lonely over there on the east side.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: There's nobody around. And my family was following me in
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: a car. They could do that, too, because there just
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: wasn't that crowd. And I'd see them a whole bunch
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: of times.
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: That's amazing. None of that's happening now with 60,000 runners
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: on the course.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And if you get a, if you bought a car,
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: you'd get arrested.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: The worst part of the whole thing is that I
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: got kind of excited and I was, I was running
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: really well. I'd been in Philadelphia the night before with
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: my band. Cause that's, I was a full-time musician then.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: So it was kind of not great prep. To be
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: out playing with the band and then get in my
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: car in the morning and then go to the Veritano.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: Tim, what was the name of your band?
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: At that time, it was the Atlantic Coast Band.
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: Atlantic Coast Band.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: I'm sure you remember it. Oh, sure.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: I bought your album.
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: And now you're going to be sitting in the broadcast
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: booth with Larry from 8 to noon on Sunday. A
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: little different perspective, huh?
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: I forget what place I was in, but I was
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: moving up. And I was in really good shape at
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: the time. And so I'm running with this guy and
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: he says to me, you know, I can tell I'm
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: holding you back. You should go ahead. And that's all
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: I needed to hear. So now I kind of take off.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: I could have sworn I was shot by someone at
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: around the 21 mile mark. We just, we just, we
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: just never found the exit wound. And I began the, um,
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: the walking and running program. I'd walk a little and
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: then I'd run a little and then, Oh, it was
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: just the worst. And, um, I will tell you the truth.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: A friend of mine, Mike Rodano, lived down in the village.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: And he picked me up at the finish. And by
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: this point, I am totally debilitated. And I find myself
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: in a tub in his apartment on Charles Street in
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: the village, listening to the Giants quarterback getting sacked. And
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking, well, at least he got paid for it. Oh,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: my God. And I had to walk down the steps
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: backwards for a few days after that. I couldn't go
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: straight down. Oh, man. Wow.
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: Well, Tim, you were asking about.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: And it was just, and it was athletic arrogance. I thought...
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: When I was in college, when I was in college,
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: my rival was a guy named Frank Shorter. He ran
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: for Yale, and he ended up winning the Olympic Games
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: in 1972. And when we were in college together, he
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: would freely admit this. He was pretty beatable because he
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: wasn't training hard. And we were, you know, doing whatever
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: we could. And Frank Shorter was pretty beatable. And then
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: when he wins the Olympic gold, then we're all kind
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: of like, well, how hard can it be if Frank
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Shorter won the gold? You know. A lot of arrogance
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: in there.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Tim, my only involvement in the marathon, New York City Marathon,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: was helping the Achilles track club with the Guardian Angels.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: It was a woman named Zoe Kaplowitz who was actually
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: from the Lower East Side. She had MS. So she
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: would start at the start with everyone else, but she
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: wouldn't finish until the next day, 12 noon. And she
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: went on to participate in London and Tokyo where I
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: have guardian angels. And man, she was a total gamer
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: cause it was tough on her, but she, always pushed,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: and they allowed her and others who had some disabilities
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: to participate in the race.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: And they still do, and it's a big part of
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the race now, including the wheelchair race. But there's other
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: people with other disabilities that beat them and then are
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: able to run. They're some of the most inspirational stories
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: in all of it. So now you look at the
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: marathon now, and we've now been together.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: Since the last marathon. What do you think of how
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: this has grown? It's the biggest marathon in the world now.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Well, my son, who's 29, one of my boys, Jack,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: lives in the city. And he says it's his favorite
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: day of the year. And he means it. He means it.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: And there are just literally millions of people who feel
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: that way about the marathon. When I was in college
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: up in Boston... We used to, on Marathon Monday, we
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: would go out to watch the marathons. And you would
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: be sitting there and say, hey, here comes one. And
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: you'd see somebody tootling over. The first time I ran Boston,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: there were 500 people on the race. And it was
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: just nothing like this. And Curtis, you're so right about
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: the Achilles group. I spent, I think, about 10 years
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: covering the marathon. I did the TV broadcasting. And I
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: would run in the race and interview people. And some
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: of the things I saw were just hard to believe.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: There was one man who, believe it or not, his
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: wheelchair was turned around. He went backwards, and his only
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: power was pushing forward with a foot.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: That was the only thing he had. He couldn't use
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: his arms on the wheels. He would turn around and
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: just push with his foot. I don't know how long
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: it took him, but I... I ran along with his guide.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: And then one year I ran with a blind runner.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: And I thought that was amazing. How do you do that?
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: And they had a guide. It was a woman. She
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: had a guide. And she would occasionally say, hi, Stephan. Hi, Stephan.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: Tell her, lift your legs up. There's some bumpy whatever
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: coming up here. It's amazing to me, the number of amputees,
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: the number of people that take this on. They're embarrassing
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: almost in a way because you realize how much harder
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: it is for them All that stuff I said to
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: you about my experience was true, but I don't know
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: how they do it. I don't. It's so moving. When
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: the Achilles race starts in the morning on the bridge,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: it starts with tears from everybody. You know, they have
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: a separate start and a little bit before everybody else.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: And when that gun goes off and they go, and
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: then you see, in some cases, there's very little movement.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: They're not running across that bridge. They're doing whatever they
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: can to get across the bridge. And we talk about
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: this all the time, but the Verrazano Bridge is uphill.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: The first mile is uphill. And then it just brings
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: tears to your eyes to watch what humans are capable
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: of when thrown the biggest obstacles we could all ever
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: possibly imagine. And I couldn't imagine it. I couldn't imagine
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: being that tough and that resilient that I could do
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: what these people do. It's unbelievable. That is amazing.
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's inspirational too, isn't it?
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: It is. I do tell people sometimes, though, that When
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: people say they watch the marathon as they go and
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: they get inspired to do it themselves, I advise them,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: don't be right at the finish line. Because it's not pretty.
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, the finish line can get a little hairy sometimes
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: because people push themselves to the point where they almost
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: collapse and do sometimes and other things.
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: Well, there's some– I know.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: And there's some people who have injured themselves somewhere on
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the race and they still finish.
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: Oh, I know. It's incredible.
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: And I really encourage everybody to take a listen on
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: Sunday with Tim and Larry and the rest of our
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: crew from 8 to 12 because– It's a story.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: It's a four-hour story that.
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: Just keeps evolving and changing, and it gets more exciting,
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: and it's really something to listen to.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Tim, have you ever considered talk radio?
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: I think we asked you two questions.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: I know that Curtis isn't going to be listening to
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: the race because he's going to be in one of
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: my restaurants having brunch.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: He passed me a note. Will it be for free?
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: No, but if he pays cash, 5% off. There you go. Oh, wow.
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: That's an enticement there. Thanks a lot, Tim. I'm looking
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: forward to it. Thank you so much. I can't wait.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Larry, you're great. I love working with you.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: Well, feelings mutual.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: And so the two of us will be doing that
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: starting at 8 in the morning.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Excellent. Natalie will be telling us what to do. I know.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: I know. Thank God for Natalie. We'd be lost, huh?
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: That's the truth.