By Budd Bailey
It wouldn't be Labor Day Weekend unless the induction ceremony for the Western New York Running Hall of Fame took place. This time four top members of the running community were saluted. Here's how the introductions went on Friday night in the Elmwood Village area:
Heather Cappello
In a sense, we’ve been waiting 31 years for Heather Cappello to be honored as one of the best runners in Western New York history.
We knew she might be something special back in 1993. That’s when she won the Section VI, Class C title in cross-country for Starpoint … as an eighth-grader. Another winner on that was Nolan Swanson, who also is in our Hall of Fame. That event marked the first time I ever wrote anything about running, as I wrote the story for The Buffalo News. None of those winners knew that they would go on to much bigger accomplishments in the sport. In Heather’s case, we might have known she’d have more success in high school … and she certainly did. Cappello went on to capture state championships and earning national honors. Cappello left a few records behind as well.
Western New York waved goodbye to her at that point, as she went to college at Providence College. Heather ran in four straight NCAA cross-country championships, and was an All-American in 1999. She was only slowed by injuries during a spectacular career. Providence recognized her at its Female Athletic of the Year in 2000.
From there, Cappello was off to Boston to run with the Boston Athletic Association. She qualified for a pair of national marathon trials, and she ran the 2011 Houston Marathon in a blistering 2 hours, 40 minutes and 58 seconds. Heather also has a 4:46 mile to her credit, and has done about as well in a variety of other distances.
Cappello works with Harvard Art Museums in the Boston area. That’s appropriate for someone who has created some masterpieces on the track, road and turf over the years. And we were smart enough to know that hanging around someone from Harvard is a good idea. Let’s end the wait of three decades by saying welcome to the Hall, Heather Cappello.
Bob Kaminski
My guess is that when you rounded that last turn for the finish line tonight, you were particularly glad to see the finish line crew waiting for you. After all, for you, your chore of working in the heat was over. Their job of making sure the race was run properly with the results recorded for posterity was far from over.
It’s easy not to notice those people who work on races from week to week. It’s good to give them a thank-you at the finish line, of course, but that’s not always easy. It’s good to remember, then, how much they contribute to the sport of running. We’ve saluted a few of the most dedicated workers here over the years, and now we salute another one in Bob Kaminski.
The early 1980s may seem like an unimaginable time to you younger folks, but that’s when Bob got his start in the running business. He became involved in the sport when he worked for the National Guard. Kaminski’s jobs have shifted since then. He’s been a volunteer, coordinator, and committee member for starters. It’s not easy to show up on time, sometimes very early in the morning, and punch in for work. Bob did it week after week for 40 years.
No one has counted how often Kaminski has worked on a race in Western New York. A guess might put it in the low four figures. Bob has done the Turkey Trot, the Ronald McDonald Race, and the St. Gregory the Great Race. He’s also worked on large numbers of races that have gone by the wayside, only remembered by their shirts on sale at Goodwill for $3. Bob also has been the Traffic Coordinator of the Buffalo Marathon. When you look up the phrase “thankless job” in the dictionary, Traffic Coordinator is in the first definition.
Kaminski hasn’t done all of his work in Western New York. He’s been a part of the Boston Marathon, Utica Boilermaker and Empire State Games. But he’s done his best work right here, and he’s done with a smile on his face. This is our way of saying thank you to another new inductee, Bob Kaminski.
Diane Sardes
In running, there is usually only one path to victory. Sometimes it is straight, sometimes it bends a bit. Sometimes the road is clear, sometimes there are obstacles along the way. But in the end, there’s only one winner.
But as we’ve seen already tonight, there are multiple paths to entry into the Western New York Running Hall of Fame. Diane Sardes knows that all too well.
Admittedly, being good at running gives a candidate a head start. Diane has done that over the years. She has some hardware in Runner of the Year competitions, and once ran 5-kilometers in 19 minutes, 8 seconds in a Masters event. Some of our runners have achieved a little glory through marathons. Sardes has done some marathons … but she ran them after swimming and bicycling long distances. In other words, she’s competed in many triathlons, including 12 of the famous Ironman events. That includes the world championship in Hawaii. Diane even was married just before a triathlon; now that’s dedication.
But there are other ways to fit in to the running community. Sarden spent time as the president of the Checkers Athletic Club, and is remembered who helped steer that organization to a long period of substantial growth. President of a running club also belongs on a list of thankless jobs, by the way.
And then there’s the story of Diane and her camera. If you’ve run a race almost anywhere in Western New York in the past several years, you’ve seen a woman along side of a road or path, snapping away. And when that race was over, you eventually went to a website to see how you looked in one of Diane’s photos. Everyone else did the same thing. It became a bond in running circles that tied strangers together in a new way.
It's all an unusual way to become a Hall of Famer, but it’s no less legitimate than anyone else’s qualifications. Consider this a three-way salute to the contributions to the running community of Diane Sardes.
Todd Witzleben
We have one more person to salute tonight, and he represents a group that knows something about running, and shares it with others: the coach. Naturally, Todd Witzleben had to learn from others before he could pass that knowledge on to others. But he’s been very good at both jobs, showing that the phrase “those who can’t do, teach” doesn’t apply to him.
Todd first became known around Western New York way back before the Turn of the Century. He was a student-athlete at Orchard Park High School. There he won a variety of track and cross-country championships for the Quakers. In fact he won the New York State championship in 1999, the year he graduated.
For college, Witzleben decided he’d rather be in Philadelphia, and packed up to go to LaSalle. That worked out pretty well for both sides. Todd won four individual championships in Atlantic 10 Conference competition, and qualified for the NCAA cross-country championships twice. Just to show that he wasn’t ignoring his studies, Todd was a four-time Academic All-American, and was LaSalle’s student-athlete of the year in 2003.
At that point, Witzleben was at an age when most runners do something else with their lives, as in find a trade or profession. Not Todd. He just kept running. Witzleben became a professional runner in the 2000s. He ran the Austin Marathon in 2005 in an impressive 2 hours, 21 minutes and 23 seconds. When he came back to Buffalo, he found time to see his old friends and win back-to-back Turkey Trots.
But Todd couldn’t run competitively forever, so he turned to coaching. Witzleben landed jobs at Temple and LaSalle, but he couldn’t stay away from Western New York. He landed a position as an assistant coach with the men’s cross-country team in 2011. Since then, 13 Bulls have been named to the All-Mid-American Conference team, and Todd must have had something to do with it.
He's completed a circle and is back home where he belongs. For what he did when he first lived here, and what he did when he returned, we salute tonight our final inductee in the Class of 2024, Todd Witzleben.
(Follow Budd on X.com via @WDX2BB.)
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