MAY 26, 2015 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2015, 1:21 AM
THE RECORD
Bank on Brown
For the 40th consecutive year — the entire life of the event — Jacob Brown lent a supporting hand at the Ridgewood Run.
This time it was giving out water and juice to runners not far from the finish line Monday.
He was overseeing quite a few members of his Ridgewood High School girls track team that also were volunteering their services on the refreshment line for the thirsty competitors.
In past years, Brown has done any number of jobs at the race, including patrolling the grounds, picking up trash, using his ever-present camera for photography work — basically whatever assignment that needed to be handled, he did it enthusiastically.
The 69-year-old Brown, who is retiring after 44 seasons as the legendary coach of the Maroons’ track and field squad (and as a health education teacher) was there at the beginning in 1976 when race founder Fred d’Elia turned to him for advice.
“Basically it was all about the logistics of how to put something like this together starting from scratch; I was sort of like an aide-de-camp for Fred,” said Brown.
“He was able to get all the politicians and police and other departments to close the streets off, but he also needed a plan to actually formulate on how and where everything would take place.
“We were very surprised that first year because we thought that less than a hundred people would show up and we got eight or nine times that many entrants.”
https://www.northjersey.com/towns/running-ridgewood-run-notes-1.1342249
