Whatever happened to BRUCE KIDD, Canadian Phenom in the early '60s? A pre-PRE!?

Longboat was an Onondaga from the Brantford area.

Bruce was born in Ottawa Ontario.

He grew up in the Beaches are of Toronto and went to Malvern High School.

Orville, thanks for the great info, but isn't spelled Fred Foote?

There is a passing reference to Bill Crothers on this thread. Although Bill deserves many threads of his own, here is a brief comment for our US brothers. Crothers was Snell's great rival and many posters on this board would be interested to know that he was a low mileage/high interval guy. In 1965 Bill beat Snell in a race in Toronto. Logic tells us it may have been Snell's first defeat in a long time.I think his best time was 1:45.6

Both Bill and Bruce Kidd are the most gracious and classy guys you'd ever meet.But for a brief while, they ruled the track world

Our coaches name was Fred Foot!

Bill Crothers ran 1:45.6 in the Tokyo Olympics to win the silver madal. lLThat was a thrilling race for me to see. Bill ranked first in the world in the 800 in 1963 and 1965. He ranked second in 64, 8th in 67 and 9th in 66.

Bruce Kidd ranked second in the world in the 5K in 1962.

Both Bill and Bruce went on to extremely successful careers after they retired from running. I found both to be great teammates and friends and very nice people.

Looking back now, I find my five years with the East York Track Club to be a highlight of my life. We trained hard together, had great fun and were very successful.

Yer still my hero, Orville. You should write a book!

Orville, thanks to you (and others) about who coached Kidd and Crothers in the Toronto area. Yes, I would agree that for awhile these two dominated 800 and 2M/3M. Did either run a great mile or 1500? Both had the speed(especially Crothers), and strength to run a fast mile. Or did they just race their specialties? I saw at one meet, Kidd had a respectable 5/10k double on a Friday night and Saturday afternoon. I'm sure that fresh, he could have run a great 10k, also.

I honestly do not know anything about Fred Foot as a coach, but I should as he appears to know what he was doing!! Crothers didn't do much mileage; was Kidd the same? Since both were prolific racers, did Foot allow a rest phase and base period like Lydiard?

Thanks to you, Orville, for the information. As always you seem to have it down pretty well!! Yes, it sounds like the ideal training environment to produce fast times as well as good times.

Foot it is! I had seen a misspelling when I googled him. Herre's more backround and a couple of photos:

http://www.torontotrack.com/pages/history/history.php

Bill Crothers ran the mile in 4:02.5 and 4:02.5.

We did not stress keeping track of mileage. I was there when we were all improving and mileage was increasing. Bruce and I went our separate during the week day mornings. I do know that we both gradually worked into running twice a day. Don't forget that is was al a very long time ago.

Bruce Kidd was born on July 26, 1943. His best times as he developed were:

Age 14 (1958)--440-62.0, 880-2:10.6, mile-4:51

Age 15 (1959)--440-53.7, 880-1:58.0, mile 4:23.6, 2 miles-9:25.0,3 miles 14:26.0

Age 16 (1960)--440-52.3, 880-1:56.1, mile-4:10.6, 2 miles--9:27.9, 14:07.6 (he was 9:22.4 at the 2 mile mark)

Age 17 (1961) mile 4:10.6, 2 miles 8:49.2, 3 miles 13:53.6, 5K 14:29.9, 6 miles 30:48, 10 K 31:53.0

Age 18 (1962)4:01.4, 3 miles 13:17.0, 5K 13:43.8

In 1964 he ran 2 miles in 8:38.1 and 6 miles in 27:56.4.

In 1974 he ran 2:20.18 for a marathon.

More info to come later.

Hey Orville,

Did you train with and know Cedric Wedemire? He was a coach of mine in high school, and trained with that group (Dave Bailey, Jerome Drayton, ect.).

Thanks

Bill Crothers ran the 220 and 440 in high school. When he joined us at East York, Coach Foot was persistant in persuading Bill that the 880 was his event. Bill had excellent speed and our training would build the strength he needed. He developed into the best indoor and outdoor runner at 800 meters in the world. Outdoors he ran a Canadian Record 440 of 46.2 at Walnut California on April 29, 1961. Indoors there were years when Bill did not lose.

One winter, 1952 Oympic 400 meter Champion George Rhoden of Jamaica was attending the University of Toronto. (George had also won a second gold in '52 by anchoring the Jamaican 4x 400 gold medal relay team.) So George ran with our club for a time and it was amazing to watch Bill and George in their training and especially when they ran time trials together.

Next: Coach Fred Foot followed by a sample of Bruce's training.

David Bailey ran for the Toronto Olympic Club at the end of his running clareer. I new Cedric Wedemire but I do not believe he ever ran with East York. Please give him my regards. Cedric ran for the Toronto Olympic Club, a great distance club. They were our big rivals. In my day, their Coach and founder Paul Poce often competed with us too. The TOC had many great runners for many decades. We need to find a good researcher/writer to write a book about Coach Foot and the East York Track Club and another to do the same about Coach Poce and the TOC.

Orville, do you know what ages Kidd and Crothers were when they started serious training? This would be useful information in an off-line discussion.

And Paul Poce still coaches at Toronto Olympic Club. I suppose I could look it up, but Orville, do remember Poce's times when he was a good runner? To veer off the subject a bit, I have a good friend here in town, Ab Morton, who was the Canadian Marathon champion in 1947. He was a 2:32 marathoner and is now 91. Was a top 5 finisher at Boston more than once and was a Berwick winner. To see the shoes those guys used to race and train in nearly makes your heart stop!

Paul Poce's best times were just before I arrived on the scene. I do not remember what they were. I do remember cross country races where he passed me at least once.

We wore the same shoes. No arch, no heel and no support. I always said they were just a slab of rubber with a burlap top.

Abner Morton was a very fine marathoner. In 1947, he ran 2:33.08 in Boston for 5th place. He just happened to run that Boston race when Canadian Great Gerard Cote ran 2:32.11 for 4th place so Ab was not first Canadian. At the time Abner ran his best marathons he ranked 3rd on the Canadian All-Time list. Even as late as December 1979, Abe held 151st place on that list

Abe and I would have had great battles if we had run at the same time. What does he do for exercise now?

Orville, who coached Jerome Drayton? What a great marathoner, and his career was relatively long and succesful. I remember running at Springbank'75 when he beat Shorter, Rodgers, T. Howard ( I got 5th), Jon Anderson.....Looked like he got some revenge for DNF'ing at Boston earlier in the year!!

Steve,

Jerome Drayton ran for the Toronto Olympic Club. That great club was formed in the 1950s with one of the founders being runner Paul Poce. Paul is still the Head Coach. The TOC has had a great many Canadian Champions and Internationalists. Along with his many other successes, Drayton won Boston (1977), was 6th in the '76 Olympics and won Fukuoka in 1975. I believe that his Fukuoka time of 2:10.09 is the current Canadian Record for the marathon. Maybe somone from the Toronto Olympic Club will come on this thread and answer your question more fully.

Drayton was nominally coached by Paul Poce although he did most of his training by himself. I was a member of TOC at the time and it was a big deal whenever Jerome came and ran with a group. One classic example of how good he was is that one time he came and jumped in with the 1500 runners. We were insulted that he thought he could run with us so matter of factly, and so we tried to bury him with 400s under 60. Instead, he buried us and laughed about it afterwards.

Thanks for the added info. I remember going to high School track meets in the 1960s and Peter Buniak was winning everything. After competing in the 1968 Olympics he changed his name to Jerome Drayton. As you say, he was fast! In 1970 (I think), he set a world 10 mile track record of 46 min and 37 seconds.