Oct 21, 2007 Ed Kozloff and the Motor City Striders By Doug Kurtis

Prior to his involvement with the Free Press Flagstar Marathon, Dr. Ed Kozloff was part of the event’s precursor, the Motor City Marathon. Kozloff ran the 1963 and ’64 marathon after finishing cross country season at Wayne State University.

His coach Frank McBride one of the founders of the Michigan Road Running Club encouraged the team to try Detroit’s first marathon. Kozloff looked at it as something to do on Thanksgiving Day despite never having run more than ten miles. Twenty four people started the inaugural race and he finished sixth in 3:12.

In 1972 Kozloff became an officer of the Motor City Striders and by ’75 took over as the race director of the marathon and president of the club.

He said directing his first marathon (5 and a half laps of Belle Isle) was just like other races he directed just a lot longer. Before the Free Press Marathon they had water stations had two spots at each end of the island.

Ed was the Free Press Marathon race director through 1995. We he first started there were two events, the 5 km on Saturday the marathon on Sunday. This year he is back working on the course and has found much more diversity in number of duties associated with putting on the event.

In the early years, he had to worry about scoring all the runners as well as managing the course. Chip timing helped relieve some of the stress. In 1981, when almost 5,000 runners completed the marathon the Striders were still using tongue depressors to record their place and times were written on a sheet of paper. Those times were entered into a Burroughs computer and results were printed, something unusual back then.

Kozloff said he spent most of his Septembers trying to get volunteers. Today, he finds that key volunteers have a more major responsibility that is focused on a particular area. For a good ten years, over one hundred Strider volunteers helped the marathon. He said, “Many would come back ever year, which meant I had experienced support that I could count on.”

“It was Neil Shine and Ladd Neuman that called me to come down to the Free Press and discuss the 1978 marathon. They knew we had been successful putting on the Motor City Marathon and didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. Plus they wanted a tie in to a local running club and the Striders were the biggest club in the area.”

“The Free Press became much more than just the title sponsor. The newspaper got involved in helping to put on the marathon. They wanted to turn it into a major event for the city. They were an ideal sponsor and also gave the event great media coverage.”

Kozloff noted that for the Free Press Marathon and other races as well, “The first year is always the toughest. If you keep good notes the second year is much, much easier. Especially after you’ve established contacts for things like porta-johns, fencing, etc. What took you a week of phone calls the first year is usually just one the next time around.”

He said the early years required a lot more meetings, often weekly. He worked with Free Press coordinator Molly Anderson to set up things like the U of Michigan band for the finish line. And there were several issues designing a course that crossed the border. Prior to the official Jones counter used today, Chrysler offered a special measuring device attached to one of their cars to help him measure the course.

Through the Striders, Kozloff helped organize as many as thirty races a year. Built on his own early desire to stay in good shape while he was in the army, race directing has enabled him to express his passion for the sport while promoting fitness to thousands of people.

This month Kozloff has written a more detailed history of the Free Press Marathon in Marathon and Beyond magazine. Pick up a copy at your local running store.