'Once-in-a-lifetime runner': Clary's career stands test of time

Decades after his dominance, the most difficult measure of Don Clary's greatness is — well, geez, where do you even begin with this guy?

Here he is, an Olympian at long last on the threshold of induction into the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame on that body's 10th anniversary, and it's hard to pinpoint the East High and University of Oregon runner's greatest achievement on the track or on cross-country courses.

Clary's career, particularly considering how his multiple marks have not just withstood the test of time but delivered a hard elbow to it, is eye-opening, jaw-dropping stuff.

Longtime UAA running coach Michael Friess of Anchorage, who held the Mayor's Marathon record for 22 years, has the big picture covered: "To me, there's no question he's still No. 1 when it comes to Alaska running.''

And yet, assigning an order to the merits of Clary's career feels a little like rating The Beatles' greatest hits.

Sure, he was the first Alaska track and field athlete to compete in the Olympics, reaching the 5,000-meter semifinals in the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. And he remains one of four Alaska track athletes sporting Olympic credentials — Clary was the forerunner for 2000 women's marathoner Chris Clark of Anchorage, former Lathrop High star Passion Richardson, a 2000 bronze medalist in the 400 relay and former Eielson High star Janay DeLoach, the 2012 bronze-medalist long jumper. DeLoach goes into the Hall with Clary this week, and after that heads to her second Olympics.

Yet, consider what Clary accomplished simply to get to the Olympics.

[Alaska sports stars to gather for Hall of Fame anniversary]

In the 1984 Olympic Trials in Los Angeles, he raced two rounds of the 10,000 and three rounds of the 5,000, all within a nine-day stretch, to seize a coveted USA singlet. Earlier this month at the 2016 Trials, any man doubling in those distances had only to race one round of the 10,000 and two rounds of the 5,000 in the same nine-day span. So, three-plus decades ago, Clary raced 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) at the Trials compared to 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) by guys who doubled this go-round.

Or, get a load of the two-mile state high school record Clary threw down as an East High senior in 1975, when he clocked a hand-timed 9 minutes, 4.4 seconds.

They run the 3,200 meters these days — that's nearly 19 meters shorter than the two-mile — and Kodiak's Levi Thomet posted a terrific state-record 9:09.41 in 2015. Yet, Clary's two-mile time converts to a 9:01 in the 3,200. So, 41 years after his 1975 breakthrough, no Alaska high school runner has sniffed Clary's mark.

As a young man, Kodiak coach and former 1980s Bartlett star Marcus Dunbar, the 10-time Heart Run champion who nearly became the first Alaska runner to break the four-minute barrier in the mile — his son, Trevor, went sub-four in 2013 — found himself incredulous about Clary's two-mile mark.

"At the time I was running, it was kind of a big deal to run under 10 minutes,'' Dunbar said. "And someone says Clary ran 9:04. 'What?' That's way out there.

"The initial shock was, '9:04?' What he did in the time, considering the season was very short, the tracks weren't as good, and maybe the weather was worse — hard to say — it's just amazing.''

Remember too, Clary's teenage time predated treadmills or domed tracks — come winter, he trained outside or in East High hallways.

Oh, and also note Clary, coached by Robert Hart and Jack Peterson at East, generated that two-mile time the same day he won the state mile championship and helped the T-birds win the mile relay on their way to the team title. These days, the 1,600 and 3,200 at the state meet are run on consecutive days.

Or, glimpse the greatness of the 28:35 Clary ran to beat his old college teammate, Alberto Salazar, and win the 1987 Alaska 10-K Classic road race in Anchorage. Twenty-nine years have passed and that remains the fastest 10-K run in Alaska.

Vernon Campbell, Clary's contemporary at Dimond High, roommate at Oregon and longtime friend, a guy who broke the Mayor's record at 18 and held it for a dozen years, still marvels.

"You take the fastest 5-K anyone has ever run in Alaska and Don clobbered it twice — in the same race,'' Campbell said.

Clary, who turns 59 Friday, the day of his induction into the Hall of Fame, still owns the fastest track 10K (28:07, 1984) and the fastest 3,000-meter steeplechase (8:26, 1979) by an Alaska athlete. And his 5K track personal best of 13:27 in 1986 stood as the fastest by an Alaskan for a quarter century until Trevor Dunbar, another University of Oregon runner, clocked 13:26 in 2014.

Less known in Alaska, but legend among longtime, track-savvy fans at Oregon's storied Hayward Field in Eugene, is the 5,000-meter race Clary won as a Ducks freshman in 1976 on what Campbell recalls as a "wet, cold, miserable day.''

In a dual meet against fellow distance power Washington State, Clary raced against Cougars senior John Ngeno, the reigning NCAA champ in the 3- and 6-mile races. Clary came from last place with about 500 meters to go, clocked a then personal-best 13:45 and beat Ngeno by four seconds.

Campbell, a retired Anchorage educator who now lives about 800 meters from Hayward Field, remembers an electric atmosphere that day.

"All of a sudden, he just rears up and starts reeling in John Ngeno,'' Campbell recalled. "He reels him in and crushes him. It was the most amazing thing. This town just came apart at the seams.''

That day, that "breakthrough race," as Clary recalls it, proved magical. Granted, he had announced his legitimacy the year before, when as a high school senior he finished fifth in the world junior cross-country championships in Morocco, and that 5,000 confirmed it.

So did his 12th-place finish, second to Salazar among Oregon runners, in 1977 to help the Ducks win the NCAA cross-country team title.

"I think that's one of my highlights, being a part of a program like that and knowing I belonged, running shoulder to shoulder with Olympians and American record-holders,'' Clary said.

Clary also won the silver medal in the 3,000 meters at the 1985 World Indoor Championships.

Clary earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's in industrial relations at Oregon. These days, he's a banker, working in business loans for Denali Federal Credit Union. He and his wife, Judy, spend summer weekends in Seward, where they operate Adams Street Bed & Breakfast.

Hip surgery in 2004, and additional surgery last year, keeps Clary from running. He still looks fit, thanks to circuit training and workouts on a stationary bike five or six days a week.

Clary has always been low-key, never one to seek attention. Even at the peak of his running career, he wasn't a "flag-waver.'' His bank bio notes his entire running career in one short, modest sentence.

"He never, ever brags, does not talk about his accomplishments,'' said Campbell, who remains tight with Clary. "I have never, ever heard him talk about himself. You have to pry it out of him.''

Still, Clary is accommodating. He sat in his office one recent morning and discussed his career. He detailed those 1984 Trials, when he finished second in his 10,000 heat and eighth in the final, then unleashed three 5,000s, each faster than the previous one, to make the Olympic team. He remembered his times in all three 5,000s to the second.

The idea, Clary said, was to make the first two rounds hard for anyone in his heats who advanced. He hoped the labor he forced others to expend would rob them of some of their kick in the final, and his strength would overcome.

Clary, who at 5-foot-10 and 155 pounds looked like a wrestler compared to some of his reed-thin competitors, won his first-round heat in 13:37, seven seconds faster than either of the other two heat winners. He clocked 13:35 in his semifinal, seven seconds faster than the other winning semi time. And he ran 13:28 in the final to finish third and earn an Olympic berth.

"I felt great,'' he recalled. "My mind and body were in sync. I was just on a roll.''

With 200 meters to go in that final, Clary was well ahead of fourth place. He knew his Olympic dream was realized.

"I was more subdued, but elated,'' Clary said. "But not jumping up and down. That's not my nature.''

That fits a methodical man Campbell describes as a "ferocious competitor'' who taught him discipline and steadiness in training.

"The consistency with which Don trained was mind-boggling,'' Campbell said. "He'd get up at 6 a.m. and strap on his shoes. It was never negotiable with him.

"Don set the example for how you run and how you train — I could not have done what I did without him. He created this alternative universe, this different context.''

Campbell said Clary's will and character were evident even when they met in the ninth grade. Sure, Clary owned physical gifts, Campbell said, but also the discipline and mental strength to exploit them.

"It's one thing to be born with it, and another to roll out of bed and do something with it — for decades,'' Campbell said. "The other thing was his toughness. You know, his nickname at the University of Oregon was "Tank.''

"He was like a tank — he just grinded things out.''

Post-college, Clary often returned to Anchorage in the summer to visit family and compete in road races.

"And not just participate,'' Friess recalled. "He'd want to throw down, and he would.''

Marcus Dunbar, who came to view Clary as an idol, said one of the proudest moments of his career came when he hung with Clary for a couple miles in an Anchorage road race and the Olympian complimented him afterward.

Campbell found himself "frustrated and flummoxed'' it has taken 10 years for Clary to be inducted into the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame.

"No disrespect to other athletes in there — they deserve it,'' he said. "But when you run, you compete against an entire planet. No one — with the exception of Antarctica — can name a continent that does not produce great runners.''

As for Clary, he's proud to be inducted, especially on the Hall's 10th anniversary, and join a hallowed group.

"For kids to see those legacies is great, because whatever the sport — football, basketball, skiing, dog mushing — there's something for them to emulate,'' he said.

Any budding runner — any athlete, really — would do well to mimic Clary's discipline and drive, and come even remotely close to his world-class career.

"He really was, and is, amazing,'' Campbell said. "I always say people who work at Baskin-Robbins probably get tired of ice cream. But I've been scooping Don Clary a long time and I'm still in utter and complete awe of what he accomplished.

"He's a once-in-a-lifetime runner.''