This Marathoner Gets a Head Start in Race Up Corporate Ladder

Rod Dixon sits for a cup of tea in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where Los Angeles Marathon, Inc. has its offices. He is wearing a blue pin-striped suit with a red patterned tie and a red handkerchief, the uniform of an executive.

Since October, he also has had an executive’s title for L.A. Marathon, Inc. As associate vice president, his responsibilities include course design, athlete recruitment, marketing and promotion, as well as serving as a technical adviser for the March 9 marathon.

L.A. Marathon, Inc. has announced a press conference for Tuesday to announce some of the better-known athletes who will be running the race and the prize-money structure. Immediately afterward, Dixon will board a plane for his home in New Zealand, where he will put aside the pinstripes and begin training seriously to compete in the Los Angeles Marathon.

Lapin & Rose, the public relations company hired to promote the race, is promoting the 1983 New York Marathon winner as the first world-class athlete to help run a marathon in which he also will run.

Dixon, 35, sees it as a head-start on his future.

“You probably remember Peter Snell,” Dixon says of the New Zealand middle-distance runner who won the Olympic 800 meters in 1960 and ’64 and the 1,500 meters in ’64. “At 32, he got out of the sport without knowing what he wanted to do. He went to work for Rothman’s Sports Federation in New Zealand, but he was so against cigarette sponsorship in sports that he soon resigned.

“He sold his home and came to the United States to enter school at age 34. Five years later, he graduated from the University of Texas with a Ph.D in the physiology of sport. He went to work in Dallas at the Aerobics Institute, which is one of the leading research centers in his field, but he’s just now starting to earn a living at 47.

“I’m 35. I’m not going back to school. I’m not going to New Zealand to shear sheep. I’ve put 20 years into the sport. I want to create something for myself within the sport, which is why, when this opportunity came for me to be involved in an executive capacity, I took the challenge.”

For most people, it is challenge enough simply to run a 26.2-mile race. That was the extent of Dixon’s commitment to this race until three months ago, when he came to Los Angeles as one of the participants in Mayor Bradley’s press conference to announce the Los Angeles Marathon. Dixon met the president of L.A. Marathon, Inc., local businessman Bill Burke, who asked the runner to join the management team.

“I asked him if he wanted me to shake hands with people and pose for pictures,” Dixon says. “He said, ‘No, I want you to have duties.”’

Those were the words Dixon wanted to hear. He realized he could use his involvement with the L.A. Marathon as a learning experience in the organization of marathons. But he would not be the only one to benefit from the association.

When Burke won the bid from the City Council as the marathon’s organizer, one of the complaints by the other bidders was that neither he nor anyone else in his group had experience in either running or organizing marathons. Dixon’s involvement gives L.A. Marathon, Inc. more credibility than it had originally.

One of Dixon’s first duties was to assist in designing the course, which begins at the Coliseum and winds through downtown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Olvera Street, Hollywood, Hancock Park and Central L.A. before ending in the Coliseum. It meets the City Council’s objective of involving the entire city, featuring its cultural diversity. For instance, firecrackers will be set off in Chinatown on the morning of the race to ward off evil spirits. A stronger antidote might be required for shin splints.

“I like this course,” Dixon says. “I was running through downtown L.A. one Sunday morning. Do you know how many people have lived all of their lives in L.A. and have never been downtown? The people who had been sleeping on the sidewalks were starting to get up. They weren’t lying about like a lot of other people on a Sunday morning.”

As for who will run this marathon, that will be announced Tuesday.

Dixon says the field will include at least one man and one woman who are ranked among the world’s top 10.

It will not include either Italian Orlando Pizzolato or Norwegian Grete Waitz, who, as winners of last October’s New York Marathon, were offered $50,000 bonuses if they could also win the Los Angeles Marathon. Pizzolato is committed to the Rome Marathon in April, while Waitz is injured.

Dixon has been attempting to enlist Great Britain’s Geoff Smith, who appeared to have the 1983 New York Marathon won before almost collapsing near the end, enabling Dixon to pass him in the most dramatic finish in the history of the race.

“I’d like to see a rematch, but I can’t find him,” Dixon says.

Los Angeles also has lost some world-class runners to April’s Boston Marathon, which for the first time is offering prize money. Despite its tradition, the Boston Marathon has lost prestige among runners in recent years because of the organizers’ refusal to pay them. But now that the organizers are offering $30,000 and a Mercedes to the men’s winner, runners suddenly are very respectful toward the 90-year old race. Of the other major races in the country, only America’s Marathon in Chicago pays as well. The New York Marathon awards $25,000 and a Mercedes to its men’s winner.

Organizers in Los Angeles have yet to announce their purse. But Dixon has been telling potential competitors that the top 15 finishers in the men’s and women’s divisions each will receive prize money, the winners earning approximately $15,000 each and a Mercedes. While most races pay more to men than women, the City Council specified that they receive the same amount of prize money in Los Angeles. He also is offering appearance fees to some elite runners, although, unlike some other marathon organizers, he is asking that in return they devote time to promoting the race.

“We may not be able to afford as many elite runners as some marathons can,” Dixon says. “Elite runners aren’t cheap. But it’s like a building. We’re building a foundation now.

“Our goal this year is to have a credible marathon, one that all runners can enjoy. We want them to experience the tremendous ethnic diversity of the city. We want them to have enough water stations. We want them to have adequate medical attention. After they’ve finished, we want them to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to come back next year.’

“We can’t all be New York and Boston. But we tend to forget that the New York Marathon began 15 years ago. It’s only been on television for the last four. If we can have a successful marathon, one that more and more runners each year want to be a part of, more corporate sponsors will be interested. Then we’ll have the budget to go after more elite runners. L.A.’s time will come.”

Dixon said he was convinced of that while running the 1984 Olympic marathon, in which he finished 10th.

“I originally had doubts about Los Angeles as the site for the Olympic marathon because I thought the city might not be enthusiastic toward it,” he says. “But I changed my mind during the race. By the 19th or 20th mile, I was far behind the leaders and had no chance to win. But the people along the course kept cheering me on. The support was unbelievable. It was nothing like I had expected. I think the people here want another reason to come out.

Dixon says his one regret is that he did not have an earlier start.

“You need 18 months to put on a marathon,” he says. “It was inside 12 months before this group got started. But it’s going to happen.”