Pope living on run By Rick Cleveland
rcleveland@clarionledger.com
OXFORD — Chances are better than good that no Mississippi athlete has accomplished more in his or her sport recently than Oxford's long and lean Brian Pope, a 42-year-old distance runner.
Nevertheless, chances are just as good that Pope could jog around the busy Oxford Square for hours and not more than a few folks in his own hometown would recognize him.
Pope has set two national masters (over 40) records and won national championships at several different distances.
Rick Cleveland |
Indeed, he's the best athlete around who practically nobody knows.
"That's fine with me," Pope says, when asked about his anonymity. "People in Mississippi don't understand or appreciate distance running, and that's OK. I've never been in it for glory or notoriety. And I'm certainly not in it for the money, because there's not much. "But I think anybody, certainly any athlete, wants to be recognized by their peers. That's the really important thing to me, and serious runners know who I am."
You better believe they do. They've spent many a race day watching Pope disappear into the distance.
Listen to Mississippi State professor Rodney Pearson, four-time Mississippi Marathon champion and state record holder for that event: "Brian Pope is the greatest distance runner Mississippi has ever produced. He is also the most dedicated athlete I have ever known. He eats, drinks and sleeps distance running."
Pearson does not exaggerate. Pope, a bachelor, lives for running. It's not only what he does; it is who he is. He lives alone, trains alone. His occupation: Runner. His is truly a Spartan existence.
Pope earned "about 10,000 dollars" in prize money last year, and that's essentially what he lived on.
"Occasionally, I'll sell a painting (he is a talented artist) and I do some gardening, but mostly I live on what I win in prize money," he said. "There's not a lot of prize money in masters events, but I don't need much to live on."
'A different breed'
Pope grew up in Jackson where he attended Jackson Academy for middle school and Jackson Prep for grades 10 through 12. Land Renfroe, an Oxford urologist, has been a friend since the two were children.
"I've known him since we were 12, and I love him like a brother," Renfroe says of Pope. "But one thing you need to understand about Brian is that he's a different breed. He does his own thing."
That thing: running.
"Nobody works harder at what he does than Brian," says Renfroe.
Pope, says Renfroe, "is brilliant, bordering on intellectual. He knows a lot about most everything."
"Something else that sets him apart," Renfroe continues, "is that Brian Pope is one of the most unselfish people I've ever met." Renfroe tells the story about when the two were members of the Jackson Prep track team and Pope was easily the most accomplished high school distance runner in Mississippi.
"Brian had won all the medals, all the trophies and all the ribbons and then we get to the state finals in the mile run, which he could have won easily," Renfroe says. "Instead, he let a teammate win. The other guy had worked so hard and Brian admired him for that, and he just let him win.
"It's the single most unselfish thing I've ever seen in sports."
At least it was until last summer, when Pope labored for four or five days to build a swing set for Renfroe's 4-year-old daughter's birthday.
"He was measuring, sawing, hammering," Renfroe says, "I mean it was tough work. And he did a fabulous job. Then, he flew out to California for a race that weekend, a big race. When he got back, I asked him how he did and he said he finished second, which surprised me because he usually wins.
"Turns out, he ran with a sore back because of all the time he spent on that swing set."
Master of records
Pope doesn't finish second often, at least not in masters competition.
He set the American records at both the 3,000 and 5,000 meters distances last year at a masters meet just outside Boston. He ran the 3,000 in just under 8 minutes, 17 seconds. He ran the 5,000 (3.1 miles) in a blazing 14 minutes, 36 seconds. You do the minutes-per-mile math.
Remember, Pope travels on a tight budget. Those two races were a week apart. So Pope spent nine days and nights in Boston, living at a downtown YMCA and taking his meals at a nearby homeless shelter. Yes, and he took first a subway train, then a bus to a suburban track for the actual events. And, since the nearest bus stop was a mile from the track, he ran the last mile to the track as a warm-up. Think about it.
Even cutting corners, Pope had to win the events to make a nice profit on the trip.
"I don't have a sponsor, and that makes it tough sometimes," Pope says. "I understand that distance running is not really a spectator sport, but sometimes I think about the fact that Kobe Bryant has a 100 million dollar deal from Nike. Meanwhile, I set two national records in my sport and nobody will even pay for my running shoes."
The obvious question: Then why do it? Why train by running 90 to 100 miles a week? Why sacrifice so much to a sport that pays so little in return?
"I just feel compelled to do it," he says. "I love running. I have always loved to train and race. Most runners put up with the training in order to race. I love the training maybe as much as the racing."
Says Joe Walker, who coached Pope at Ole Miss, "Most runners I know run for the glory, but Brian truly runs for the love of running. He has never lost his passion for a sport that is so grueling and so tough that most people, even the great ones, quit doing it. He just keeps on going."
Even so, Pope won't defend his three national championships he won in Decatur, Ill., last year.
Why?
This year's U.S. masters championships will be held later this summer in Honolulu. For Pope, that's cost prohibitive.
"Even if I win, I can't afford the plane fare," he says, matter-of-factly.
There's something terribly wrong about that, don't you think?
