A county, a region, a portion of a state usually only get a once-in-a-lifetime female runner every generation or so.
Bucks has been blessed with two.
In chronological order, Central Bucks East High School graduate Jan Yerkes first lit up racing competition at Villanova University (by way of Lock Haven) in the mid-to-late ‘70s.
Then came Bishop Conwell (now Conwell-Egan) High School great Shelly Steely, who initially achieved NCAA glory at the University of Florida in the early ‘80s and went on to global greatness at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympic Games.
Both women accomplished some of their highest goals in cross-country, which brings us to the much respected Belmont Plateau Cross-Country Hall of Fame.
Yerkes was nominated for this prestigious honor back in 2018. Steely has joined the list of nominees this past year.
Each deserves to be voted into this shrine and we’re going to review some of the reasons why.
How’s this for starters: Yerkes won the initial Broad Street Run 10-miler in 1980. Then, 10 years later, in 1990, she won again. Last, but not least, she won the masters’ division (and finished fourth overall) in 1997 in the brilliant time of just a few seconds over 60 minutes.
Steely won numerous races and set NCAA/open competition records in races leading up to the 1992 Olympiad in Spain, where she advanced all the way to the 3,000-meter finals and finished a brilliant seventh against the world’s best.
It’s high time Steely and Yerkes received acknowledgement in Philadelphia for these tremendous feats of running.
In a recent telephone interview, Yerkes said just being nominated for the Belmont Plateau Hall is quite an honor.
“That means a whole heck of a lot,” she said. “To me, running has been my life. I love it. To be recognized for doing what I did in the past makes me feel good.
“Getting nominated for the Belmont Plateau (in West Philadelphia) is huge. It makes me feel honored.”
As for Steely, Yerkes has nothing but the utmost respect.
“We got to know each other around here and then we went down to Peachtree Classic (a national race in Atlanta),” Yerkes said. “It was the first time she ever ran a big race.
“She’s tenacious, she’s a fighter and super, super, super fast. I remember we ran a five-miler along the river and I beat her, but it wasn’t by much. I was a nervous wreck! I ran like a high 26 (minutes) and she was like five feet behind me!”
Yerkes and Steely had that trail-track-road versatility, excelling at everything from a half-mile to 26 of them.
“She was better in the 800 and the mile than I was,” Yerkes said. “Shelly had that talent, that extra gear. At 5K, 10K, I was able to give her a little more competition. She had talent coming out her ears.”
Yerkes has had to overcome a stream of injuries dating all the way back to her days at Villanova, where she held the record for 10,000 meters for a number of years.
Of a slight build, Yerkes was light enough to compete on the national stage but distances like the 26.2-mile marathon took physical tolls.
Nowhere was this more evident than in 1988 when she ran in the Fox Cities (Wisconsin) Marathon in an attempt to qualify for the U.S. Trials at Pittsburgh.
She was in the chase for a while but eventually had to drop out.
No doubt she learned a lesson or two from that experience.
Later, while coaching runners at Unami Middle School in Chalfont, she passed along some sound advice.
The message: Weight loss isn’t a key to faster times; a healthy diet and proper body mass are.
“It took me a while to get it straightened out,’’ she told me back in 2012. “I have to say, I feel better now than I did when I was in my early 20s. Health-wise I’m able to run, bike and swim and I’m in a part of my life where I’m really happy.’’
Another high point in Yerkes’ career was finishing fifth woman in the 1981 New York City Marathon in 2:35.39.
All this while trying to maintain a healthy weight on the bathroom scale.
‘One of the things I talked to my girls (at Unami) about is ‘never try to diet.’+” Yerkes said in the 2012 interview. “Make sure you eat enough, get enough calcium. It’s such an important thing. When I was in high school and college, the coaches told us we had to be a certain weight or we couldn’t run. There was no guidance how to have a good diet.’’
Back in the recent interview, Yerkes talked about staying vigilant with the status of her weight, a condition, which, by the way affects a lot of young female runners.
“That race (in Wisconsin) really scared the crap out of me,” she said. “It (proper diet) was a psychological thing. So now that’s why they have sports nutritionists. We didn’t have those back then.”
Now in her 60s, Yerkes still stays quite active. She no longer works at her family’s None Such Farms in Buckingham but remains active in coaching, including swimming (Wellness Center in Warrington) and tennis.
Again, getting the message out about maintaining a healthy bodyweight continues to be a priority.
“I would not say to any girl or boy that there’s a certain weight you should be,” she said. “I told this in talks to the girls – about sports and weight and how that can mess with your head.
“There were a couple girls where I coached who came back and told me how much it helped them later on. That made me feel really good.”
The Warmister resident recently has coached her tennis teams to four championships. Winning is still in her blood.
>Race calendar
Saturday, June 28
Dairy Air 5K/10K/13.1M, 8:30 a.m., Doylestown. Contact www.scoogievents.com
JFM Pantry 5K, 9 a.m., Warminster. Contact www.runsignup.com
