In 1981, road racing entered the professional age with the Cascade Run Off in Portland, Ore., the first major event to offer prize money versus the "appearance money" that was the norm of the day. Michigan's Greg Meyer and Herb Lindsay finished 1-2 respectively in that race.

Because the Run Off challenged rules of track's governing body, The Athletics Congress, all runners who entered the event, and especially those who accepted prize money, were banned from further TAC competition.

TAC's "contamination rule" stated further that anyone who competed against banned runners would themselves become "professional," banned as well.

The first major event of the summer that had to face these circumstances was Flint's Bobby Crim 10-miler, where Meyer and Lindsay would be competing. The night before the race, several foreign athletes asked director Lois Craig not to let the two men run as they would "contaminate" the field.

Craig, who discussed the situation with Meyer and Lindsay, saw their efforts as a union movement by runners, who had just formed the Association of Road Racing Athletes so that they would have a unified voice in the sport. She recommended to race-founder Crim that Lindsay and Meyer be allowed to run; athletes who took issue with this had the option to not compete.

The 1981 Crim, as the first battle of "contamination," went to the runners. TAC, seeing its ban on ARRA members would not hold, created a system which allowed "amateur" athletes to earn prize money and place it in a trust, to be used for training and living expenses. Gradually, TAC saw the silliness of this trust system and abandoned it, whereupon open sport occurred.

The reason we now have pro athletes in the Olympics can be traced to that day and decision made in Flint. MR