Running on Empty: An American Sports Tradition Fades

THE announcement this week that Bill Rodgers would shutter his last running store, in Boston's Faneuil Hall, was a sad farewell to a bygone era of great American runners. Rodgers was the four-time Boston Marathon and New York City Marathon winner and, along with Frank Shorter and Alberto Salazar, ruled the roads in the 1970s and early '80s. (In large part because of their achievements, it is estimated that the New York City Marathon brings $340 million to the city, making its cancellation an economic - as well as an athletic - bust.) Yet the men, like the store, are creaky with age, and no fountain of youth renews them.

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Keith Conning: I bought a pair of Boston running shoes by Onitsuka Tiger from Jeff Johnson at a store front in Santa Monica in 1966. He asked me if I would be interested in opening a store in Berkeley. However, I said I already had a sales job with Pan American Airlines in San Francisco. He went on to become a Vice President of Nike and I ended up as a high school teacher and coach in Berkeley.