FALMOUTH ROAD RACE FOUNDER TOMMY LEONARD REMEMBERED FOR HIS COMPASSION

CAPE COD TIMES

Falmouth Road Race founder Tommy Leonard had passion. He had a vision. And what separated him from the rest was turning dreams into reality, getting people to say yes to his ideas and leaving everybody he met with at least one lifelong memory.

Falmouth Road Race founder Tommy Leonard had passion. He had a vision. And what separated him from the rest was turning dreams into reality, getting people to say yes to his ideas and leaving everybody he met with at least one lifelong memory.

“What I will remember most about Tommy is his kind soul and compassion,” said Dave McGillivray, director of the Boston Marathon and Falmouth Road Race.

Leonard, a former Marine and a gregarious running icon who became the Boston Marathon’s official greeter, died of health complications late Wednesday night at JML Care Center in Falmouth.

He was 85.

“He was weak, but he recognized me right away,” former Falmouth Road Race director Rich Sherman said. “He was tired, but he was ready.”

Leonard, a bartender inspired by U.S. runner Frank Shorter winning the 1972 Olympic Marathon, plus an epiphany while overlooking the Vineyard Sound near Brothers Four in Falmouth Heights, launched the 7-mile Falmouth Road Race in 1973. With over 12,000 participants annually, it has changed the local landscape for running and raises $2 million annually for 100 charities.

“He obviously gave us this incredible gift that’s bigger than any of us could ever have imagined,” Falmouth Road Race president Geoff Nickerson said in a media release Thursday.

Leonard’s life will be celebrated next week. Visiting hours are set for 4-8 p.m. Wednesday at St. Patrick’s Church on Main Street in Falmouth. The funeral mass is 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Patrick’s, followed by burial at Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne.

He is survived by his sisters, Grace Leonard and Susan Tierney Oslin and his brother Michael Tierney, along with several nieces and nephews.

In spring 1973, Leonard approached Falmouth’s recreation director, Rich Sherman, and Falmouth High School track coach John Carroll with the idea for a road race that could support Falmouth High’s girls track team. The hope was to raise money so its athletes could compete at national meets.

“It’s astounding to think, the simple answer of yes, ‘Can you guys do a road race and help me organize it,’ has blossomed into what it is,” said Carroll, a former co-race director of the Falmouth Road Race. “You could say it was the right place at the right time.”

In Leonard’s style, the race is bar-to-bar. It begins at the Captain Kidd on Water Street in Woods Hole, where a plaque with Leonard’s face was unveiled at the start line in 2012. The course then weaves along the seashore and finishes near another bar at Brothers Four in Falmouth Heights.

The inaugural event went forward with 92 people, including Leonard, finishing the first race in monsoon-like conditions. It escalated quickly when he convinced Boston Marathon champion Bill Rodgers, who once called Leonard “the most inspirational force in New England Road Racing,” to run in 1974 along with about 400 others. Rodgers, in turn, wrote to Shorter, who made Leonard’s dream come true as both men ran in 1975 among a field of 800.

Other elite athletes, such as Joan Benoit Samuelson and Alberto Salazar, soon followed, giving Leonard the opportunity to grow the race and get it sponsored. Perrier became the first sponsor in the late 1970s, handing Leonard a $5,000 check.

“He knew that the sport was going to have to change so that the athletes continuing beyond the Olympics would need to support themselves,” said Shorter, who added that Leonard was the most straightforward, honest person he had met.

“His goals were his goals,” Shorter said. “There was nothing hidden.”

Thomas Francis Leonard was born on Aug. 15, 1933, in Springfield to Edward Arthur Leonard and Elizabeth McCarthy Leonard. He was a foster child for most of his childhood, but he overcame a rebellious streak as a youth to become a standout 1-mile runner at Westfield High School, where he graduated in 1952.

He ran his first Boston Marathon at age 19 and ran it over 20 times total. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps for three years and was discharged in 1955.

Leonard found a home at Eliot Lounge in Boston, which was located right near the finish of the Boston Marathon. He became a beloved bartender, as former Red Sox pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee reportedly would sneak out during rain delays just to have a drink with Leonard and wait for the game to resume.

Falmouth Road Race board member Scott Ghelfi said having a beer with Leonard could fix anything.

“Whatever type of day you are having, you sit with Tommy and have a beer with him and he will make it better,” Ghelfi said.

Leonard was even friendly with former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, calling their friendship something “lucky to find.”

“Whenever I was fortunate enough to spend any time with Tommy, I always walked away shaking my head with a smile on my face,” Kerry wrote in the introduction to Leonard’s biography, “If This Is Heaven, I Am Going to Be a Good Boy,” by Kathleen Cleary.

Leonard ran and was an advisor to the road race, but according to several former organizers, he maintained a hands-off approach. He was always an ambassador, once running a race to Mt. Washington’s summit, asking everybody he met if they’d run Falmouth.

“He became the cheerleader, the spiritual leader,” Sherman said of Leonard.

Leonard never missed a road race and was the annual grand marshal riding inside the pace car, a black convertible. The pace car and the 2019 race in general will have a huge hole this year, but Sherman said Leonard would want it to continue forward.

“We’re going to look back at Tommy and what he brought to us,” Sherman said. “You have to keep it going. We’ll run it in from here.”