Class of 2009

Ginny Canfield

Working alongside her husband to promote and organize KTC events, it would be easy to induct Ginny and Hal together into the Hall of Fame. However, when we think of the people who have served the local running community and chosen to remain behind the scenes, Ginny Canfield was the epitome of the tireless and dedicated volunteer and deserves her own place in the KTC Hall of Fame.

Moving to Tennessee with Hal from her native state of New York, Ginny worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. With two daughters, Ginny was already actively involved with the Girl Scouts prior to the formation of the KTC, but still found the time to work registration tables, water stops and practically every other task including timer for innumerable road races and track events. She was also instrumental in founding and directing the KTC running program, which included high school cross-country meets throughout East Tennessee. With all that, she never wavered from her commitment to the Girl Scouts and was subsequently elected as President of the Tanasi Girl Scout Council’s Board of Directors.

After a long battle with cancer, Ginny passed away on May 27, 1985. In appreciation for her many years of service, the Knoxville Track Club created the Ginny W. Canfield Memorial Award which is presented annually to the “individual who best represents the club’s volunteer spirit by going above and beyond the call of duty”. Since its inception, the Ginny Canfield Award has become one of the most coveted awards given by the KTC.

While Ginny is the first female member of the KTC Hall of Fame, she certainly will not be the last. Her legacy of working with young people and giving back to the community inspires new generations of volunteers who are dedicated to healthy living and healthy communities.

Hal Canfield

Hal Canfield was one of the original founders of the Knoxville Track and Field Club in 1962. Hal, Charlie Durham, B.E.Sharp, Ben Plotnicki and a few other men interested in promoting high school track & field and running in the community began to organize the Knoxville Track Club, the original goal being to organize a team for track competition in AAU summer meets in the Southeast.

Within a year, Hal, Charlie, Bob Neff, Jerry Wrinkle and Chuck Rohe had established the Knoxville Track & Field Club as a charter organization with a set of by-laws. Hal was the first President of the club.

In the fall of 1962, Hal, helped by his late wife Ginny, founded and directed the KTC running program, which included high school cross-country meets throughout East Tennessee.

In the days before road races and marathons were popular, Hal was a pioneer in staging the first road races in the Southeast. Operating on no budget at all, Hal began a series of road races, the first of which was a 10K cross-country race on the UT Ag campus. The KTC program of road race activity was the first of its kind in the entire Southeast. The founders and organizers of such clubs as Atlanta, Chattanooga, Huntsville, Birmingham and Nashville received their initiation into the sport from participation in Knoxville Track Club competitions organized by Hal.

In addition to organizing and directing all these events Hal was an exceptional athlete, completing a total of 38 marathons, including 18 consecutive Boston Marathons (1959 through 1976). He also competed in the 1964 and 1968 Olympic Marathon Trials.

Hal’s first big KTC road race was the Cades Cove Ten Miler, which attracted nationally ranked runners from around the country. Later Hal and KTC started the Smoky Mountain Marathon. In those early days of KTC road racing, three American records were recorded in KTC events, as Hal took road racing to a new level in the Southeast.

In order to successfully conduct track competitions, Hal, Charlie, Chuck Rohe and the other KTC founders, including inductees Bob Neff and Al Rovere, formed the track officials association in the mid sixties. They officiated all of the high school and college meets in Knoxville and began to conduct Coaches Clinics and Officials Clinics. At this time they began to get officials certified by the AAU.

Hal has received the highest honor by USATF in recognition of his track officiating skills, being named an Emeritus Official, and culminating with his selection as the Outstanding Track Official of the Year by the Athletics Congress/USA. He served as an official for the 1984 Olympic Games, the 1987 Pan American Games, and other national and international events.

Hal and Charlie Durham started the KTC Youth Program, sponsored by the Fountain City Jaycees and the Knoxville City Recreation department, in the late 1960’s. Originally there were six practice centers: Evans-Collins; Fulton, West, Central, East and South high schools, with the meets held at Evans-Collins. What started as about 150 kids, including fellow inductee Terry Crawford, now numbers thousands at tracks around East Tennessee, under the current leadership of Marty Sonnenfeldt. Hundreds of outstanding high school and college athletes, as well as community leaders have come out of the KTC Youth Athletic Program.

All the while, Hal has used the artistic skills developed at the Julliard School of Music. For 23 years he was first violinist with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.

To marvel at what Hal and his associates achieved with very limited funds as the KTC was born is best exemplified in the following story submitted by Hayes Hunter:

“Back in the mid-70’s there was a KTC race advertised as a 10K Relay that started and finished in the village of Concord with Hal being the race director. Hal laid out and measured the course. The relay team was a two man team with Hal determining the team partners and not revealing who they were until the race was over. Finish places were determined by the combined time of the two team members.
Hal arrived well before race time, registered all the runners and distributed our bib numbers, gave us our pre-race instructions, and fired the starting gun. He next drove to the 5K turn-around on Turkey Creek Road, set up a water station, and handed water to all the runners. After the last runner passed the water station, and the litter was cleaned, Hal drove back to the finish line where he clocked and recorded the finish times.

In short order, Hal hand-calculated the team results, determined the order of finish of each team, and then presented the awards.

This is the only race I have ever run that was conducted by one person, and I am convinced that no one but Hal could have successfully done it. Probably there is no one other than Hal that would even attempt to do this.”

Hal was honored as an inductee in the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame.

Terry Hull Crawford

Terry Crawford, Terry Hull at the time, was a KTC pioneer. In the late 60’s before women’s sports took hold, Charlie Durham placed an ad in the News Sentinel announcing that the Knoxville Track Club was forming a women’s team to train within Neyland Stadium. About 50 girls responded, ages 10 to 20, and Terry, age 17 out of Greeneville High School, was in the first group.

Terry started as a 220/440 yard runner, progressed to the 880, and proudly represented the Knoxville Track Club in many national competitions. Terry represented KTC at the Millrose Games and Mason Dixon Games, and was a three time All-American at UT winning AIA National Championships at 220 and 440 in 1969, and at 880 in 1970. She was a member of the 1971 World University Games team and participated in the Pan-American Games that same year. She was also a finalist in the 1968 and 1972 Olympic Trials. In 1968 she was considered a favorite to make the two-person per event team, but injured a hamstring a few weeks before the Trials.

Terry graduated from UT in 1971 and was the UT Women’s track coach from 1974 to 1984, coaching the Lady Vols to the outdoor track national championship in 1981, the first national team title for any women’s sport at UT. Terry left Knoxville to become the women’s track coach at the University of Texas. She coached the Texas ladies to the 1986 NCAA Women’s Cross-Country title in addition to NCAA national championship teams in indoor track in 1986, 1988, and 1990. She coached the Texas ladies to NCAA outdoor track team titles in 1982 and 1986. Crawford’s 1986 Texas team is the only women’s team in NCAA Division I history to win the triple crown of cross-country, indoor and outdoor track in the same year.

Terry was inducted into the Lady Vols Hall of Fame in 2002 for outstanding accomplishments in the sports of track & field and cross-country. Former UT coaches Chuck Rohe and Stan Huntsman both agree that Terry did more for women’s track and field/cross-country in Tennessee than any other person.

In 1988 Terry was named head coach of the USA Women’s Olympic team. In addition to 1988 Olympic Coach, Terry has served in an international coaching position at the World University Games, the Pan-American Games, and the World Championships. She has served as the President of the Women’s College Cross-Country Association and President of the United States Track Coaches Association, serving all Division I schools. She currently sits on the board of directors for the governing board of the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Terry is currently in her 16th season at Cal Poly as Director of Track and Field/Cross-Country.

Charlie Durham

Charlie Durham was one of the original founders of the Knoxville Track Club. In 1961 Charlie organized a new AAU track team named the Knoxville Track Club and took them to their first meet in Greenville, S.C. At this first meet, the KTC defeated the Piedmont Striders, Atlanta Track Club, and six other Southeastern AAU teams to win the championship.

When Chuck Rohe was named UT track and field coach in the summer of 1962, Charlie and the KTC worked hand-in-hand with Coach Rohe, meeting every two weeks to make plans for the future. All of the UT freshman, transfer athletes, and post-graduate athletes competed for Knoxville Track Club, with Charlie Durham as coach. In 1963 his KTC cross-country team took third place in the National USTFF championship in Chicago.

In the spring of 1963 Charlie and Jerry Wrinkle directed the First Annual Volunteer Classic track and field meet at Evans-Collins Field, attracting 300 of the top high school trackmen from eight states. Charlie continued to direct the Vol Track Classic for 27 years. In his last year of directing the Vol Track Classic the meet drew 2350 athletes from 15 states and the VTC was named as the Top High School Track & Field Meet by Track & Field Magazine. This was a monumental event for KTC. In addition to directing the Vol Track Classic, Charlie was an active official at high school and UT meets for over 30 years.

In a time when there were no formal track programs in Tennessee for college or high school girls, with the lone exception of the famous Tennessee State University “Tigerbelles” in Nashville, Charlie started the first KTC women’s track program in 1966, developing stars like Terry Hull and Judy Penton. Charlie raised the funds, usually through Tom Siler, sports editor at the The News-Sentinel, and took KTC athletes to national meets like the Millrose Games, Mason-Dixon Games, and the National AAU and National USTFF meets.

Charlie and Hal Canfield started the KTC Youth Program in the late 1960’s at Tom Black Track. What started as about 150 kids, now numbers thousands at tracks around East Tennessee, under the current leadership of Marty Sonnenfeldt. Hundreds of outstanding high school and college athletes have come out of the KTC Youth Athletic Program.

Charlie Durham was honored as an inductee in the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame.

Stan Huntsman

Stan Huntsman succeeded his good friend, Chuck Rohe as the University of Tennessee head Track and Field Coach in 1971. He also succeeded Connie Smith as head Cross Country Coach upon his arrival. He continued the close relationship that Chuck had established between the KTC and UT. After coaching Ohio University for fourteen years, Stan spent fifteen of his thirty-nine year coaching career as UT’s head coach. The last ten years of his career were spent as head coach at The University of Texas, in Austin, where he and his wife Sylvia still reside.

In a thirty-nine year career as a collegiate head coach, Stan Huntsman compiled 46 conference championships. He coached 41 NCAA individual champions and four national champion relay squads. All this after being drafted by the NFL’s Chicago Cardinals in the 20th round of the 1954 draft. Stan’s UT teams won a remarkable total of 32 SEC titles in Cross-Country, Indoor and Outdoor Track.

Stan coached Tennessee to the 1972 NCAA Cross-Country Championship and the 1974 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championship. Stan earned NCAA Coach of the Year honors six times during his tenure with the Volunteers, with those honors coming in outdoor track (1974-76-83), indoor track (1981-82) and cross-country (1972).

Stan coached American record holder, NCAA Champion, three-time Olympian, and former KTC runner Doug Brown. Doug later succeeded Stan as UT’s head coach in 1986. He also coached David Patrick, NCAA and US champion, and 1992 Olympian and Tennessee State Athletic Hall of Fame member Darwin Bond.

At Texas, Huntsman won six Southwest Conference outdoor titles, three indoor titles and earned Southwest Conference Coach of the Year honors in 1993 and 1994. Also at Texas, Huntsman’s cross-country teams won SWC titles in 1991, ‘93, and ’94. Stan was named SWC Cross-Country Coach of the Year in 1992 and 1993. Huntsman coached 112 All-Americans at Texas, and just a wild guess at the number of All-Americans Stan coached in his career may approach 200.

In addition to coaching national champion UT athletes, Stan brought national caliber track athletes to Knoxville who trained at UT and many of whom competed for the KTC. Athletes like Bill Schmidt won the US National Championship in the javelin in 1978 representing the Knoxville Track Club. Coached by Stan, Olympian Doug Brown, Pat Davey, and George Watts led a KTC Cross-Country team in 1977 to a second place finish at the AAU National Cross-Country Championships.

Stan’s international coaching career is remarkable, serving as: Men’s Head Coach of the 1988 Olympic Games; Head Coach for the US team at the 1983 World Championships and 1977 World Cup; and as assistant Men’s US Olympic team coach at the 1976 and 1980 Games. Stan also coached the USA National Team at the World Indoor Championships in 2003 at Birmingham, England.

Stan is in the USATF Track and Field Hall of Fame, class of 2004. He is in the NCAA Hall of Fame, and is being inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame on February 20, 2009.

Allan Morgan

In 1986 Allan Morgan became the first paid Executive Director of the Knoxville Track Club, and over the next eighteen years stewarded the club to levels never previously conceived of.

His first main accomplishment set the stage for all that was to come when he created the concept of and implemented the idea of a full time, paid ED to manage the club and incorporate a sense of professionalism into all aspects of the KTC.

In the first ten years of Allan’s tenure, 1986-1996, KTC grew from 700 to 2000 members. This phenomenal growth was accompanied by a whole new range of benefits for club members. KTC took its place as one of the largest and most active clubs, not only in the Southeast but in the entire country at large. Also KTC realized itself as a professional business by receiving 501-3C non-profit status and by hiring a CPA to make certain we were acting responsibly.

Allan oversaw an entire new schedule of races, many developed in his first five years on the job, including many that exist today: Fireball, Autumnfest, Dogwood, Straw Plains, Calhouns, New Years Day, Summer Solstice and Carter Mill. These new KTC events demonstrated a whole new level of excellence with shirts, greatly expanded awards, a professional sound system, a wide range of KTC apparel on display and for sale, implementation of RunScore and computerized registration for timing and results, increased signage, enhanced refreshments, and indoor venues for cold weather races.

One of Allan’s most important contributions was developing a new system to locate, nurture, train, recognize and reward an enlarged body of volunteers. “Volunteer Spirit at it Finest” was born and grew incrementally from 1988-95.

He took our club newsletter from two-three sheets stapled together in 1987 to setting the stage for the award winning publication we all now take for granted. By 1992 Footnotes began to win regional and national honors and still continues today.

His involvement with the Road Runners Clubs of America culminated in National recognition with the staging of the 1996 RRCA National Convention, a wonderful three day festival impossible without Allan’s energetic leadership.

During his tenure, the club began to provide technical assistance and personnel to make it possible for scores of East Tennessee non-profit organizations to stage their own events. Such assistance not only promoted KTC in the community at large but also greatly increased the variety of offerings for road racing opportunities for all. Between 1986 and 2000, the number of assisted organizations increased from two to more than twenty-five.

His stalwart leadership helped develop the framework and funding for tremendous growth in our youth athletics program.

In 1990 KTC, at Allan’s urging, created our Adopt a Highway Program and a few years later, our Adopt a Creek Program.

His retirement in 2004 left a legacy of accomplishment and achievement, the breadth and duration of which will not likely be replicated.

Bob Neff

As a founding member of the Knoxville Track Club, Bob Neff contributed his considerable skills and experience in administration and officiating in ways that allowed the club to function effectively and grow in numbers.

After competing in track and graduating from the University of Tennessee, Bob Neff coached football, basketball, track and cross-country at South High School for thirteen years. In 1965 Bob was named Teacher of the Year in Knoxville City Schools and in 1969 he became assistant principal at South Young and served in that capacity until his retirement in 1983. Today, the National Honor Society at South Young High School is named for Robert Lee Neff.

A founding father of the Knoxville Track Club, Bob Neff, with help from Hal Canfield organized high school cross-country in the Knoxville schools and with the aid of Hal and Charlie Durham organized the first summer track program and our KTC Youth program. Also in the mid-sixties, Neff helped organize the KTC Officials organization to serve the Knoxville community.

Neff has won many awards, but none compare to his remarkable forty-one consecutive years of service as a KTC board member, from 1962 to 2003.

The recipient of the Distinguished Service Award by the East Tennessee Chapter of the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame in 1981, Neff has also received special awards from the Tennessee Track Coaches Association and from the University of Tennessee for his work associated with the Dogwood, now Sea Ray Relays.

To say Bob is an accomplished official is an understatement. In 1996 Neff was selected the number one track official in the state of Tennessee by the United States Track and Field Association. Bob holds the title of Emeritus Official with the United States Track and Field Association, a title very few officials ever attain. Also in 1996, Neff received the Founder’s Award for his work with the Volunteer Track Classic and the KTC Officials have further recognized Bob with the annual presentation of the Bob Neff Award, given to each year’s outstanding official.

All in all, Bob Neff worked as a track official for fifty-eight years covering 800 meets at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

In 1998 Bob was inducted into the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame.

Chuck Rohe

In 1962 a young Chuck Rohe approached Charlie Durham, of the newly formed KTC and announced that he was going to be named the new head coach at UT for track and cross-country. Before he even started his job, he had arranged a meeting with Charlie, Hal, Bob Neff and the KTC founders to discuss the future of the club in his office in Neyland Stadium. In fact, these meetings led to bi-weekly KTC meetings with Chuck Rohe. To quote Charlie Durham: “While the KTC was already formed, Chuck really was the motivation for expanding our program, through his leadership and fire.” Chuck Rohe was a partner with Charlie, Hal, Al Rovere and the founders in establishing all of the KTC programs at their beginnings: the KTC track and field team, the KTC cross-country team, the women’s program, the Vol Classic and the youth program.

While helping guide the KTC in its formative years, Chuck amassed 22 SEC titles in cross-country, indoor track, and outdoor track in his nine year run at UT. In addition to his coaching duties, Rohe was named head football recruiter in 1965 by Doug Dickey, and those teams posted the nation’s best seven year record and appeared in seven consecutive bowl games. He was the architect of the nexus between track and football that helped the Vols succeed in both sports.

While KTC’s founders were involved as local track officials before Rohe arrived, Chuck helped organize and motivate the growth of the KTC officials organization. During his years, in the absence of professional track, track clubs were very important to the sport, and KTC featured some of the best track and field athletes in the country. Many were post-graduate athletes drawn to Knoxville by Chuck Rohe, who found them employment, scholarships, and assisted KTC in their coaching. Chuck always helped find the funds to get these KTC athletes to the major meets around the country.

Chuck Rohe was the United States Track & Field Coach of the Year in 1967 and served as a representative on the United States Olympic Committee from 1968-76.

Chuck is in the University of Southern Mississippi Athletics Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, and the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame, and serves on the Board at the Florida Sports Hall of Fame. Chuck, who was executive director of the Florida Citrus Bowl for 20 years continues as a consultant to the Florida Citrus Sports Association and also serves as the National Director of the Nike Football Coach of the Year Clinics.

Al Rovere

Creating a track club requires administrative and organizational skills along with great passion and enthusiasm for the sport. The Knoxville Track Club was fortunate to have all of those attributes and more when Al Rovere joined with others to found the club.

Working alongside Chuck Rohe and Charlie Durham, Al was an indispensable part of the group and earned the appellation as one of Rohe’s “track nuts.” “A track nut is a man who will let a track coach talk him into working free in an all-day track meet, from 8 am until 8 pm, with only a baloney sandwich for lunch,” states Durham.

Participating in the formation and development of all of the early KTC programs and assisting Charlie Durham with coaching KTC’s track & field and cross-country teams, Al was there as the program progressed to include the staging of local meets. For this next step, there was an obvious need for officials. Again, Al was there to provide support and leadership as the KTC Official Association was created. This group officiated all high school and college meets in Knoxville and it was not unusual to see Bob Neff and Al working most of them. In later years, the KTC Officials Association conducted clinics for coaches and officials and for many Al Rovere played a key role in helping local officials attain certification by the AAU. Al was essential to organizing the News Sentinel Relays and the Oak Ridge Relays and along with Bob Neff and Charlie Durham, spent countless hours doing the seeding and lane assignments for these meets. For his efforts which spanned three decades, Al was a multiple winner of the then annual Ben Plotnicki Award given to the most deserving official in the Knoxville Track Club.

Al, whose son Robert was a nationally ranked sprinter at East Tennessee State University, assisted Charlie Durham in establishing the KTC Youth program, including the KTC girls/women’s program. Charlie Durham remembers Al “as always being there, no matter what the task.”

While never directing the meet, Al was a key founder and contributor of the Vol Classic high school track & field meet, a meet which eventually drew 2350 athletes from 15 states and was named as the Top High School Track & Field Meet by Track & Field Magazine, and continues today. Over the years, Al remained the “right hand man” to meet director Durham in fostering the growth and success of this nationally famous meet.

With tireless devotion to the sport and a willingness to share his skills, expertise, experience and renowned sense of humor , Al was beloved by all of the UT coaches and athletes.

Stanley Underwood

A member of the KTC for almost thirty years, Stanley Underwood first volunteered as an official following his 1990 retirement from management in the insurance claims industry. His role models, Hal Canfield and Bob Neff, set high standards and provided ample guidance.

His management experience provided insight into meet management; a track meet and a catastrophic storm have much in common, but a track meet may be controlled with well-trained officials. Serving as Meet Director for the 1993 AAU Junior Olympic Games, Stanley began an aggressive campaign to recruit and train local officials. The group grew from twenty or so to over 100 in the first year. At the same time, Stanley began to specialize as a pole vault official – becoming a Master Official in 1997.

In 1998, Stanley was appointed as USATF Official Certification Chair for the state of Tennessee. Continuing his aggressive recruitment, the number of USATF Certified Officials in Tennessee rose from 100 to 207 in 2008 with the KTC Officials serving as the nucleus for the entire state. Tennessee is number twelve among the fifty-six USATF Associations in certified officials.

As an active official, Stanley served as Chief Vault Judge for the USATF Indoor Championship from 1999 through 2004. He was Chief Vault Judge for both the 2000 and 2004 USOC Olympic Trials in Sacramento. From 1998 through 2008, he was Chief Vault Judge at five NCAA Division I Championships, six NCAA Division II Championships, numerous SEC, ACC, Sun Belt, Southern, and Atlantic Sun Conference Championships, as well as many VTC, Sea Ray, KIL, and other meets in the area.

At the 2004 USATF Annual Meeting, Stanley was awarded the Horace Crow, Jr. Award as The Outstanding Field Event Official for his service. He has also been twice recognized as an Outstanding USATF Official in the Tennessee Association. The Men’s Track Staff at Tennessee awarded him their Lifetime Achievement Award for his work at Tom Black Track.

Beginning in 1992, he served as Coordinator of Officials for the KTC until 2006; he was Coordinator of Officials for the University of Tennessee until 2005 and continues to serve as Technical Coordinator for Tom Black Track.

Facing the reality that no one really needs a 70 year old vault official, Stanley retired as an active official at the close of the 2008 USOC Olympic Trials. He continues as USATF Certification Chair for Tennessee.