'There's a lot of running to do'

By ERIC PLUMMER

Sports editor

SANDPOINT — His voice booms with a deep pitch that carries far past its intended targets, a group of high school sprinters nervously milling about their starting blocks.

He carries a starting gun that he fires off around 50 times each track and field meet, and as he reads the race heats, names and lane assignments, the kids tend to pay attention.

“You’ll hear three commands. Runners to your marks, set, then the gun. Make sure you stay in your lane after you finish,” booms Tim Ross, running the latest in four decades’ worth of meets. “Is everybody fit and ready?”

When the gun finally booms and track spikes churn down the track, and before the smoke from his starting pistol has even left the air, Ross is already helping move the starting blocks for the next race.

So how many races has Ross, who retired after a 37-year run as a teacher and athletic director years ago, started since running his first track meet in Hagerman, Idaho, in 1976?

“I couldn’t tell you,” answers the 65-year-old who was born and raised in Sandpoint, offering up a methodology to hazard a guess. “It’s at least a box of shells a meet, and there’s 50 shells to a box. Some of the bigger meets are closer to 100 shells. Five to six track meets a year for 40 years.”

The answer is somewhere in the ballpark of 15,000 races have started on his command. Along with teaching six years in Hagerman, another 24 in Clark Fork, and finally seven more at Sandpoint Middle School, Ross has been running track meets, mostly in Sandpoint, Clark Fork and Kootenai.

When he isn’t running meets, he’s a volunteer at the state track meet in Boise, something he’s been doing for 35 years, including the last 20 at the same spot passing out team packets and registering relay teams. Suffice it to say, he’s gotten to know some close friends from around the state over the years.

“It’s like old home week,” says Ross. “I’ve known a lot of the coaches for 40 years.”

He’s known longtime former Sandpoint head track coach Dave DeMers for more than 30 years, running most of the Bulldogs’ home meets since the mid-1980s.

DeMers, who still coaches the jumpers at Sandpoint, remembers when Ross was athletic director out in Clark Fork, saying he did just about everything for the school. He says Ross is well liked by just about everybody who’s ever met him.”

“He’s bubbly, he loves kids, he loves to be involved. Everything is for the kids,” describes DeMers of his friend, describing him as a quick starter during meets. “He says kids come to run, not false start. He knows what he’s doing. He’s a people’s people, a good guy.”

Ross admits he’s been known to run a quick meet, which is usually just fine by the fans watching, many of whom have witnessed track meets drag like molasses in winter. But like any starter, he’s limited by how fast the finish line can process the runners and times.

Working the Clark Fork meet last week looked like second nature for Ross. Current Wampus Cats athletic director Brenda Haase says Ross gets paid, but it’s a nominal fee. Ross often decides whether to charge for the rather expensive blank shells based on how much the school pays him, often buying the bullets out of his own pocket.

“He’s state certified. It’s not like we’re grabbing a guy from the community,” explains Haase, noting Ross is one of many who have contributed much over the years in Clark Fork. “We’re going to lose this generation, then it’s going to be ‘how do we do this?’”

Ross, who also starts cross country meets, has seen plenty through the years, including false starts in the 3,200 and 5K cross country races, and several dogs chasing runners. He once had to DQ a pair of Kootenai runners for holding hands as they crossed the finish line, which while sweet, is clearly against track rules.

There was also a middle school cross country start where he warned the runners not to make any sudden movements until things thinned out. Of course there was a big pile up not 20 feet into the race. After a second warning, the same exact thing happened again, except this time a runner broke his arm.

“They listened in start No. 3. Those are just things that happen. I always say ‘there’s a lot of running to do, don’t get nervous,’” says Ross, who is drawn to the camaraderie of track and cross country. “It’s not like football, baseball or basketball, where they want to kill each other. The kids talk, they get along.”

Ross joked last week that he was three days into Medicare, which begs the question of how much longer he plans to keep firing off the starting gun?

“Each year I get to the end and think this year might be it,” says Ross, who has to get certified each year and has long since worn out his first pistol. “Then I end up doing it again.”