Bill Roe wrote: > A professional tour stop (anyone else remember the old ITA besides me and Garry Hill and Bob Hersh?) reported crowds using a dart board, which obviously weren't connected to reality.
Some of the big stars of ITA were Jim Ryun and Ben Jipcho. (Keino & Lindgren too, I believe.) As I recall, one of their gimmicks was a series of lights set up around the track which indicated "record pace". (Did they even have any outdoor meets?) Some of these meets even got national televised coverage but after the ITA was dissolved, the athletes who were involved had to struggle to get reinstated as amateurs. As far as I'm concerned, all that the ITA ever did was to essentially shorten the careers of some good athletes. I guess the reverse was true of a few of the "legends", some of whom seemed really ancient (i.e. well into their 30s!) at the time and must have come out of retirement to compete due to their marquee value. I also recall hearing that many athletes couldn't afford to "go professional" as they would lose out on their lucrative "amateur" earnings. bob
