This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need. My name in print. That really makes somebody. Things are going to start happening to me now! – Navin R. Johnson
The July/August 2025 edition of New England Runner arrives and I see Tom Derderian has written a column – “My Friends’ Books.” Rip open the magazine expectantly to page 22. Must have scanned the two-page spread three times before I could come to grips with the absence of my own award-winning, critically acclaimed collection.
I asked to see the manager.
Fitz, my friend –
I am verklempt. Didn’t make the People magazine list. Didn’t make any of Time‘s lists. And now this. New England Runner. I didn’t make “MY FRIENDS’ BOOKS” by Tom Derderian??? Please, tell me I was cut for space.
I first met my close personal friend, Mr. Thomas Derderian, Coach Extraordinaire, maybe half a century ago. About the time he caught that flyer (2:19:04) at the 1975 BAA Marathon. We worked together – different times, different places – at Nike. Which wouldn’t be where it is today if Tommy D. and I hadn’t pulled in sync. Unknowingly, of course.
It was 2023, when I last spent time with mi amigo Dear Tommy. Boston Marathon Press Room – free cookies! – and TD, ever so generous, gives me his only copy of his essential Boston Marathon, basically the Bible of this event. As I reported at the time:
Tom said, when he signs a volume, he likes to ask about a reader’s interests, to get a sense of what to write. But he didn’t ask me. My book is inscribed, ‘For Jack D. – I know too much about you.’
I cannot imagine anything much friendlier, can you?
Once I shook off the initial shock of – it’s not in alphabetical order – not being included in MY FRIENDS’ BOOKS, I noticed many of his friends are also ‘folks I know.’ Tom Derderian has some great writer friends. And a writer acquaintance with whom he has been friendly for fifty years. Congratulations to all Tom’s actual comrades, worthy tomes all.
I remain a fan. And a longtime friend of NER. Regards to Michelle.
Fitz: You are among a rising chorus of glaring omissions, enough so that Tom may have to write a part II.
Jack D.: Suspected as much. But it is all good. Happy to whine about being overlooked. I am used to it. Tiny violins. Heartened to think about all the excellent running books.
Okay, Tommy D.’s – no relation – July/August column was stellar. The twenty-two books he did include were written by Bob Hodge, Charlie Spedding, Bill Rodgers, Joan Samuelson, David J. McGillivray – he got his middle initial – Frank Shorter, Amby Burfoot, Bobbi Gibb, Hal Higdon and Shalane Flanagan, just to give you some idea.
What was I thinking, right?
The September/October New England Runner arrives. Page 24 – Will My Friends Ever Forgive Me? by Tom Derderian. I’m in Part Two! I’m in Part Two!!
Sure, squeezed in the middle like an afterthought, stuffed between the estimable Peter Stipe and Tom Osler, briefer than the rest, minus the D. but still my name in print.
An accompanying illustration has Tom apologetically posed next to three (3) piles of running books. Mine not among them.
My name in print. Also, mentioned in the same magazine as Frank and Joanie, just not the same issue.
Jack Welch: When Running Was Young And So Were We
“How can a writer be both reverent and irreverent at the same time? Jack is. We worked at Nike in the old days at different times and places. When I gave him a copy of my Boston Marathon book, I inscribed it. ‘To Jack – I know too much about you.’ I stand by that here.”
I will blame Fitz, not Tom, for the absent D. (In fairness, D. added in 1987, post-Nike.)
When I first saw Tom’s inscription in the press room at the Copley, I admit, I was somewhat taken aback. He doesn’t know the half of it and half of what he knows is wrong. And yet nobody has ever before called me “both reverent and irreverent at the same time.”
Damn, that is so true. Which, of course, you might have guessed, having read all the way down to here.
Tommy D. wrote a book, too.
