By his own estimation, former Brown University track and cross-country head coach Bob Rothenberg has organized about 200 invitational meets and road races the last few decades. His reputation for putting on a quality event is second to none.
Charlie Breagy, a onetime Providence College runner, has created some of the biggest road races in the Rhode Island, including the CVS Caremark Downtown 5K and the popular Tour de Patrick road-racing series. His races not only draw the masses to the starting line, but often have a certain entertainment value that leaves a lasting impression on their participants.
The legendary duo, along with Rothenberg’s wife, Anne, also an ex-Brown coach and a dedicated track and field and cross-country guru, are the founding members of the annual New Balance Ocean State Cross-Country Invitational in Warwick, R.I. The two-day meet, which was held on Sept. 27-28 at scenic Goddard State Park, celebrated its seventh year in 2013 with close to 4,500 middle school and high school runners from several states along the east coast as well as an international squad from Ireland.
Listening to Bob Rothenberg talk as the meet came to its conclusion on a picture-perfect Saturday afternoon, it’s hard not to imagine that the shelf life of this popular regional competition, the largest in the northeast, could exist for many years to come.
“Our philosophy is we want the kids to have a good experience. We want the sport to grow,” Rothenberg said. “That’s one of the reasons we put the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders on Friday and we charge next to nothing. If you are a Rhode Island school, it’s thirty bucks – thirty for the girls’ team and thirty for the boys. I mean, one team brought 110 kids and spent thirty bucks. It’s not about the money. It’s about the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders seeing a big meet, getting excited about the sport. That is really my favorite part of the weekend, seeing the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders having such a good time.”
“If your first priority is to make a lot of money, you are going to short change the participants,” he went on to add. “I don’t think that is the right way to run a meet. We hope we are doing things well. We are always looking for ways to make it better. We’d love to see it grow. More than anything, we want the kids to have a great experience. Cross country can be a lot of fun.”
The idea behind the Ocean State meet came about eight years ago. For 25 years, the Rothenbergs were the primary organizers of the Brown University Northeast Invitational, a similar meet that takes place on the Goddard Park grounds and one that still exists today (this year’s meet takes place on Oct. 19).
When the Rothenbergs retired from Brown in 2005, the new coaches took over the reins, but the husband-wife team still felt there was room for another regional competition during the fall months and Breagy was eager to help in the process.
“I think I said when you guys are ready we’ll put something together,” Breagy recalled. ”They called me and asked if I was still on and I said I was ready and that’s how we got going.”
Bob Rothenberg picked late September for the meet so that it wouldn’t conflict with the Brown Invite, which generally takes place in mid-October.
“We waited like one year because we didn’t want to interfere with Brown and we started this,” he said. “We are not in competition with Brown. The meets are three weeks apart.”
“We have been ever loyal to Brown,” Anne Rothenberg added. “We gave them time to make sure that their meet stayed established before we started this one.”
Even though the Brown and Ocean State meets are run at the same venue, the courses are different. The Ocean State meet is more spectator-friendly, utilizing a little more than a mile of the wooded section of the course with the rest taking place on two adjacent open fields.
“The Brown meet, which we set up, has maybe two and a half miles in the woods,” Bob Rothenberg said. “This is very scenic. The kids love it. The see the (Narragansett Bay) and that’s wonderful. We wanted to make the meet more spectator-friendly so we put the first 1,200 meters with the big loop on the second field before you ever go into the woods. That means we had to take out part of the woods. We felt it was worth it. They are in the woods for about a mile and a quarter, pure woods without anyone bothering them. The rest of it, the beginning and the end, coaches can see. We think it’s successful because coaches really like seeing the first 1,200 meters because they can count their athletes places before it narrows down into the woods and then they see the whole finish, too.”
The Ocean State meet has six middle school races that are held on Friday. On Saturday, 14 freshmen, junior varsity and varsity races take place. The organization of the meet is top notch with everything occurring in an orderly fashion. The races are always run on schedule, the course is well marked, there is an abundance of quality officials and the athletes are compensated greatly for their hard work with awards going 30 deep.
“If you do a good job then people will come. It’s that simple. The priorities have to be in the right order,” Bob Rothenberg said. “You have to be able to get a lot of people to work with you. We have 47 paid officials. In addition to getting a nice stipend, you get a free lunch, a free breakfast and you get a shirt. We have, in addition, another 45 volunteer officials that helps us out. We have over 90 people here working. You cannot do this by yourself. It takes a lot of people working together. If they know you are trying to do a lot to support the kids they are going to want to help. If they think you are doing it because you want to make as much money as you can, then they are going to look at you and say you are getting money how about me. It’s easy to get people, I think, when you have a volunteer ethic involved. It doesn’t mean there is not going to be some cash on the table at the end, but that’s not going to be the driving force and the reason we put it on.”
This year’s meet attracted high-quality schools from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. As he always does, Breagy also extended an invitation out to his native Ireland, where his hometown running club, the Dunleer Athletic Club, made the overseas trip to R.I.
In the Varsity Division I race, Dunleer’s Aoife Fay placed a strong seventh overall with a time of 19 minutes, 55.94 seconds. It was only her second time in the states. Running at Goddard Park’s moderately-challenging terrain was a relief to what she’s accustomed to in Ireland.
“It’s very mucky in Ireland and sometimes there are steep hills,” she said. “I have never worn track spikes but this time I did. It’s always soft and long grass there.”
Just like the U.S., running is taken seriously in Ireland with races catering to all age levels. Fay was impressed with what was offered at the Ocean State meet, which not only had a large number of runners in some very-competitive races, but injected a little entertainment into the two-day event with an emcee at the finish and a constant flow of music being pumped out of a sound system located near the starting line.
Besides the races, athletes even participated in things such as a dance contest to the song, “Cotton-Eye Joe” on the award ceremony’s stage.
“We want to make it the best and most entertaining meet in New England,” said Breagy, who has a number of races in R.I. that are engaging as well as competitive, such as the holiday trio of races he has in the next few months, the Monster Dash 5K, the Family Turkey Trot 5K and the Downtown Jingle 5K, which are all held in Providence. “We want to make it fun. It’s early in the year. The hardest races are later in the season. We want to create a race that coaches feel like they are treated right, runners feel like they are treated right and it’s a fun meet, too.”
Fay ranks her experience at Ocean State near the top of her list.
“It’s right up there, if anything. I really enjoyed myself,” she said. “It was probably the most fun and best experience that I have had in a race. It’s amazing to be here. I am really happy to be here.”
The races were competitive throughout the weekend. In fact in the girls’ Championship Division, senior Abby McNulty of Bishop Feehan in Attleboro, Mass., ran a time ranked among the top 50 nationwide with her winning clocking of 17:48.54.
In order to run a successful meet that attracts large numbers and good competition, the organizers have to be on the same page as each other. Breagy believes the combo is right at Ocean State.
“(Anne) is like the bookkeeper. She takes care of the books and all the numbers,” he said. “I do all the internet service, like the social media. I try to jazz it up and give it the appearance of a show. Bob is just the complete organizer. He’s great in getting all the officials, getting the course set up perfectly and stuff. The three of us work very well together. We all fit together. There is no stress.”
Breagy is no stranger to hosting large races. His CVS Downtown 5K, the site of the USATF 5K road championships for many years, attracts 6,000-plus to the capital city. He wouldn’t mind one day turning the Ocean State Invite into a national event.
“The way I look at it, I would love to see this grow into a national event, like a Great American,” he said, making reference to this past weekend’s meet in North Carolina, which always draws some of the best runners from the east coast and beyond. “There is no reason why we can’t. We could handle 10,000 kids here. That is very, very possible. It’s good for the state of Rhode Island; a lot of people come in, stay in the hotels. It boosts the economy. It’s a good thing.”
The Rothenbergs, who have been the main organizers of the very-successful East Coast Invitational in Maryland the last 25 years among other long-running meets and road races, lists the Ocean State meet as one of their favorites.
One of the highlights for the couple is the middle school races, which is a rarity at most big-time invitationals.
“It’s just fun seeing the kids have a good time,” Anne said. “We love the middle school race because the kids are just so refreshing and honest about their reactions to things. There is no pretense. They are having a ball. The whole “Cotton-Eye Joe” thing here says that they can compete and have fun. And the officials are just marvelous people. It’s a good time the whole weekend. We talk about this all the time. This is the favorite one we are doing right now, absolutely the favorite!”
Standing on the stage and passing out awards during the middle-school races, Bob Rothenberg couldn’t help but marvel at the experience.
“We are up on the stage putting ribbons on kids, putting medals on kids, handing out plaques and you look out and there were 1,500 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders in the meet, probably eight or nine hundred of them were sitting on the grass looking up on the stage, yelling and going crazy for their teammate when they won an award,” he recalled. “I really got emotional and said what a beautiful setting, a beautiful day with the grass, the trees and sky and said this is what it’s all about. These kids will see that cross country can be a big-time experience and we are going to win the battle for athletes that go on with (football), soccer and lacrosse.”