Jeanne Bocci is with the late Jim Ramsay in front of Belle Isle casino, 1999.

Runners cross the MacArthur Bridge from Below: Belle Isle during the 2002 New Year's Eve Family Fun Run and Walk.
As I write this, it's been in the upper 90s during the day for a week, with humidity to match. I've been running at noon each day, figuring it might help make my house seem cooler. We don't have air conditioning and it's brick, and after a week of that kind of heat and sun beating down, you can bake a pizza on your tile floors. The run at noon hasn't helped. So, think cool. Think cool. Think New Year's Eve. Think Jeanne Bocci, director of the New Year's Eve run on Belle Isle, where I've been doing my noontime runs followed by a plunge into the river.

George Gipp is the most famous person to ever come out of Laurium, a twin city to Calumet. They sit on opposite sides of U.S. 41 midway through the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan's U.P.

Gipp, a star running back in the early days of Notre Dame football, fell ill and was on his deathbed. He was immortalized by Ronald Reagan in the film "The Knute Rockne Story," telling the famous coach to one day, when things were going bad and the boys needed a lift, to tell them to "Win one for the Gipper."

Knute did, and the boys did and Gipp/Reagan were famous ever after. Visitors still come to see the Gipper's grave in Laurium.

Jeanne Bocci is the second most famous person ever to come out of Laurium. Google her name and up pop pages of results. Let's see:

There's a link to when she was named national Masters Race Walker of the Year by USATF in 1984. And there's one for her national race- walking championship in the 1,500 meters in 1972, in a time of 6:59. And a mention of her and husband Jerry for making the 50 States Marathon Club in 2004 for finishing at least one marathon in every state. And results from the Grand Canyon International Marathon in 2003 or the Hatfield and McCoy Marathon in West Virginia in 2004 or ... and on and on it goes.

Bocci is one of those folks who seem more suited to a work of fiction than real life, so interesting has been her life's arc. She's this crazy Yooper at heart, with the kind of loud, infectious laugh that makes other people's laughs seem like mere snickers. She was a pioneer in women's sports as a young woman, and still pushes the envelope of what women can accomplish at age 63.

A pioneer? That's one of those words that lend themselves to cliche. Few described as pioneers really are. She was.

Consider: When she started running Motor City Strider races on Belle Isle in 1964, when she was 21, the club couldn't let her enter, wouldn't take her money, couldn't record her finish times. Not that it didn't want to, it was prohibited by national rules.

USATF's predecessor organization, the AAU, didn't allow women to compete at any distance longer than 800 yards, fearful their ovaries would fall out and mankind would come to a halt.

Any member club risked losing its sanctioning if it allowed women to go past the deadly half-mile barrier.

So, Jeanne would show up on Belle Isle. They wouldn't take her money, give her a number or record her time, but they happily let her run, and the club president's wife would greet her at the finish line with - I'm not making this up - tea and crumpets.

Jerry Bocci was one of the club's top racers and the sight of a woman in shorts and running shoes didn't scare him. It didn't cause him fear for his future offspring. It turned him on. They were soon married and the rest, as they say, is history.

In 1971 she and Jerry held their first New Year's Eve run, inviting a handful of friends to their Grosse Pointe home to celebrate the first birthday of Jerry Jr. Eight runners ran the first race, held at Windmill Pointe, a beautiful tree-shaded boulevard by Lake St. Clair, then returned to their house for pasta.

A couple years later there were hundreds showing up and things had to be moved to Belle Isle, where they remain to this day. At its heyday in the early 1980s, the race drew 4,200. Lately it's been fewer than 1,000.

Jeanne has had a variety of sponsors over the years, including Little Caesars, but even when she was getting financial help, the race was often a money-loser for the Bocci family. She used to give out hundreds of plaques to top men and women till friends convinced her it was an unnecessary expense. She still insists on a nice trophy for all kids. Many years she's written personal checks to cover expenses.

The shirts have always been top quality and the food and post-race beverages extra generous. The race is one of those Detroit running traditions that continues on, unlike so many others that have come and gone. Just off the top of my head I can think of all kinds of races that seemed as if they would go on forever and didn't - the West Bloomfield Half-Marathon, the Scotty Hanton Marathon, the Grand Prix 5K, the Blue Cross-Blue Shield runs, the Chauncey Longwhite 10-miler, to name a few.

And now comes the segue to the Fifth Third Bank folks. Speaking of traditions, I have only recently begun to comfortably say "Fifth Third River Bank Run" instead of "Old Kent River Bank Run."

When the Cincinnati-based bank bought Old Kent and took over the 25K, I and others were fearful it wouldn't be long before the interlopers killed the race, having no loyalty to it and not understanding its importance to the Grand Rapids community.

We were wrong. The Fifth Third folks loved it, loved supporting it, and the race has gotten bigger and better year by year.

Jack Riley is a vice president for marketing and public relations in Fifth Third's Southfield office. Riley is a runner himself, a veteran of 10 marathons who set his PR of 3:14 in Pittsburgh, and is a reader of Michigan Runner.

"Runners are a great market for us. They're in the demographics we want, they're loyal and they appreciate that you're sponsoring their event," he said when we had a get-together lunch last fall as part of my new job covering banking and finance for Crain's Detroit Business, a weekly business publication.

A while after that meeting I was talking to Jeanne about the upcoming New Year's race and as usual she was praying for enough entrants to pay her bills.

And suddenly the light went on. Hmm, Jeannie needed sponsorship. Hmm, Fifth Third discovered that sponsoring races was good business. Hmm, Jack Riley was a runner.

Jeanne, meet Jack. Jack, meet Jeanne. In June the two got together to talk about a partnership for this year's race.

"We haven't formalized anything, yet, but we will," said Riley in early August. "We will be involved in some way, stage or form. We won't let that race die."

Riley said he has cut back on his racing in recent years, but used to, like many of us aging road vets, find a 10K or 5K to race every weekend.

"To me, every race has a personality, based on who's putting it on or where it's run. I don't know if there is a bigger character than Jeannie. I was fascinated by her story. When you sit in the marketing chair, you think how much marketing value will you get out of this, a race with only a few hundred runners.

"But then you meet Jeannie and think, 'I have to be part of this.' It's people like her who make up the fabric of a community. You can't buy that. People talk about organic marketing these days. Well, road racing figured that out years ago. Road racing has always been organic. It's not just about the runners, it's about their families, it's about the volunteers. Running is a great place for us to be."

A year after Fifth Third bought Old Kent, Riley ran the 25K. "I was amazed how well that race was run. It set the standard," he said.

When Fifth Third decided to sponsor the Turkey Trot 10K in downtown Detroit in 2003, Riley ran that race, too, and found it lacking. He didn't like the start and finish at Wayne State. He wanted it downtown. He wanted more pizzazz. He brought in Doug Kurtis and the race had two of its best years ever in 2004 and 2005, finishing back in its old home of Cobo Center.

The bank also sponsors the Solstice Run in Northville in June, one of the best new races on the state calendar.

"I'm really looking forward to being part of the New Year's race. It think it's going to be great," said Riley.

Welcome aboard.

Gotta go find some coffee. Thinking of that wind blowing off the river as we run across the bridge has got me shivering. MR