Mark Connors - Suffern 1971
There’s no question Mark Connors had plenty of raw talent. Anybody who can step on a track and set an indoor County record without any winter track training – as Mark did in the 300-yard dash (32.6) in 1971 – has lots of innate ability. But he also was blessed with an outsized tolerance to pain. In the weeks leading up to the New York State outdoor meet in ’71, he absorbed everything Coach Joe Biddy threw at him and was primed for a run at a state title in the 440.
“Coach Biddy decided to try to kill me,” jokes Mark, who was tagged with the nickname Captain Marvel by Coach Dave Gaunt. “He had me doing all-out 600s till I puked, then he’d make me run some more. It gave me that extra strength for the last 100 yards.”
Mark capped his sterling career with a second-place finish at the State meet in Endicott, clocking 48.7 on a cinder track and falling just short of overtaking defending champion Jim Redd of Alexander Hamilton. Mark had drawn Lane 8 in the final and was closing on Redd before running out of real estate. “Joe Biddy said if the race was 450 I would have won. I was lunging when Redd hit the tape.”
The State-meet performance culminated a wondrous four-meet stretch in which Mark won the County championship in 49.7, captured the Section 9 Class A title, set a County and Section 9 record of 48.7 in the State Qualifier, and duplicated that clocking in his runner-up finish at the State meet. His time stood as the County record for 15 years.
A versatile sprinter, Mark was a County champion in the 220 (twice) and 440, a Section 9 Class A titleholder in the 100 and 440, and a State Qualifier champ in the 220 and 440. He broke fellow 2010 inductee Ervan Levine’s 34-year-old school record in the 100 yards with a 9.9 in ’71 and also blazed a 22.3 for 220.
Mark was a basketball player for Suffern during the winter season and ran the County 300-yard record off his hoops conditioning. He was even benched for one game by basketball coach Ed Kolakowski for running the race, even though the meet didn’t conflict with a practice or game.
Earlier in the winter season, during a basketball game at Nanuet, Mark was issued a direct challenge by his chief rival, two-time defending County 440 champ Alan Roy, who pointed to him from the stands and said he was “going down this spring.” The showdown would have to wait till the County meet, after Mark sustained an early-season ankle injury that prevented him from competing in the dual meet with Nanuet. Mark edged out Roy at the County meet, their only head-to-head matchup.
As a junior Mark dropped down to the 100 and 220 when coaches Gaunt and Biddy asked him to fill the position vacated by teammate Aroz DeFreese, the ’69 County 220 champ, who had quit the team for religious reasons. Mark engaged in some memorable sprint duels that season with Spring Valley’s Charlie White, the two-time County 100 champ who later starred in professional football.
Mark calls Biddy and Gaunt “two of the best mentors I’ve ever had in my life. I owe them a tremendous amount not only for what I accomplished running around in circles but for all of the life learning I received from them.” He also credits teammate Kevin Carroll – who had one withered, nonfunctional arm – for being a role model and inspiration for the entire Suffern team.
At Davidson College in North Carolina, Mark was the Southern Conference 440-yard champion in 1975 and established school records in the 440 (48.6) and as a leg on the mile and sprint medley relays, and also clocked a 9.6 100 yards as a sophomore. He graduated with a degree in psychology and although he went on to earn a master’s in education and counseling psychology from Auburn, his career aspirations changed to the field of business. He spent 12 years as a sales representative for Procter & Gamble in New Orleans and other Southern cities before moving to Atlanta to work for Reebok, and its subsidiary Avia, until 1996.
Mark’s peripatetic professional career took him to Waco, Texas, where he worked for Spenco, the medical company best known for its shoe inserts. He served as president of the company for two years and vice president of sales and marketing for three. In 2002 he moved to Roanoke, Va., to serve for two years as vice president of global business development for a rubber manufacturing company, helping to develop finished footwear products from manufactured raw materials and coordinating outsourcing of the products in Asia and Europe. He then spent three years as a business-analysis consultant before relocating to the Seattle area to become vice president of sales and marketing for BodyGlide, a company that makes an anti-chafing product. He currently serves as Western regional sales manager for Ecco, a casual footwear company headquartered in Denmark. He works in the performance division for outdoor specialty and running shoes.
Mark, who’s 56, resides in the Seattle suburb of Bothell with his wife of almost 29 years, Karen. They have two daughters, Malissa, 27, and Lane, 24, and a son, Chase, 20, and a 22-month-old grandson.
Always an avid runner, Mark became an endurance athlete who completed several marathons, with a very respectable personal-best of 3 hours 22 minutes. He also excelled in swim-bike-run triathlons, capturing third place in his age group in the 1990 Gator-Man championship at Lake Pontchartain in New Orleans, at age 37. He continued running until about five years ago, when he underwent his fourth arthroscopic knee surgery.
“I still work out at the gym, but I can’t pound the pavement anymore,” Mark says. “When I was running, I followed the Joe Biddy philosophy: If you’re throwing up, then your training must be progressing at a good rate. In cycling I could never get to that point. Running was a passion of mine for a long time and still is, really. I still talk running all day long.”
“Coach Biddy decided to try to kill me,” jokes Mark, who was tagged with the nickname Captain Marvel by Coach Dave Gaunt. “He had me doing all-out 600s till I puked, then he’d make me run some more. It gave me that extra strength for the last 100 yards.”
Mark capped his sterling career with a second-place finish at the State meet in Endicott, clocking 48.7 on a cinder track and falling just short of overtaking defending champion Jim Redd of Alexander Hamilton. Mark had drawn Lane 8 in the final and was closing on Redd before running out of real estate. “Joe Biddy said if the race was 450 I would have won. I was lunging when Redd hit the tape.”
The State-meet performance culminated a wondrous four-meet stretch in which Mark won the County championship in 49.7, captured the Section 9 Class A title, set a County and Section 9 record of 48.7 in the State Qualifier, and duplicated that clocking in his runner-up finish at the State meet. His time stood as the County record for 15 years.
A versatile sprinter, Mark was a County champion in the 220 (twice) and 440, a Section 9 Class A titleholder in the 100 and 440, and a State Qualifier champ in the 220 and 440. He broke fellow 2010 inductee Ervan Levine’s 34-year-old school record in the 100 yards with a 9.9 in ’71 and also blazed a 22.3 for 220.
Mark was a basketball player for Suffern during the winter season and ran the County 300-yard record off his hoops conditioning. He was even benched for one game by basketball coach Ed Kolakowski for running the race, even though the meet didn’t conflict with a practice or game.
Earlier in the winter season, during a basketball game at Nanuet, Mark was issued a direct challenge by his chief rival, two-time defending County 440 champ Alan Roy, who pointed to him from the stands and said he was “going down this spring.” The showdown would have to wait till the County meet, after Mark sustained an early-season ankle injury that prevented him from competing in the dual meet with Nanuet. Mark edged out Roy at the County meet, their only head-to-head matchup.
As a junior Mark dropped down to the 100 and 220 when coaches Gaunt and Biddy asked him to fill the position vacated by teammate Aroz DeFreese, the ’69 County 220 champ, who had quit the team for religious reasons. Mark engaged in some memorable sprint duels that season with Spring Valley’s Charlie White, the two-time County 100 champ who later starred in professional football.
Mark calls Biddy and Gaunt “two of the best mentors I’ve ever had in my life. I owe them a tremendous amount not only for what I accomplished running around in circles but for all of the life learning I received from them.” He also credits teammate Kevin Carroll – who had one withered, nonfunctional arm – for being a role model and inspiration for the entire Suffern team.
At Davidson College in North Carolina, Mark was the Southern Conference 440-yard champion in 1975 and established school records in the 440 (48.6) and as a leg on the mile and sprint medley relays, and also clocked a 9.6 100 yards as a sophomore. He graduated with a degree in psychology and although he went on to earn a master’s in education and counseling psychology from Auburn, his career aspirations changed to the field of business. He spent 12 years as a sales representative for Procter & Gamble in New Orleans and other Southern cities before moving to Atlanta to work for Reebok, and its subsidiary Avia, until 1996.
Mark’s peripatetic professional career took him to Waco, Texas, where he worked for Spenco, the medical company best known for its shoe inserts. He served as president of the company for two years and vice president of sales and marketing for three. In 2002 he moved to Roanoke, Va., to serve for two years as vice president of global business development for a rubber manufacturing company, helping to develop finished footwear products from manufactured raw materials and coordinating outsourcing of the products in Asia and Europe. He then spent three years as a business-analysis consultant before relocating to the Seattle area to become vice president of sales and marketing for BodyGlide, a company that makes an anti-chafing product. He currently serves as Western regional sales manager for Ecco, a casual footwear company headquartered in Denmark. He works in the performance division for outdoor specialty and running shoes.
Mark, who’s 56, resides in the Seattle suburb of Bothell with his wife of almost 29 years, Karen. They have two daughters, Malissa, 27, and Lane, 24, and a son, Chase, 20, and a 22-month-old grandson.
Always an avid runner, Mark became an endurance athlete who completed several marathons, with a very respectable personal-best of 3 hours 22 minutes. He also excelled in swim-bike-run triathlons, capturing third place in his age group in the 1990 Gator-Man championship at Lake Pontchartain in New Orleans, at age 37. He continued running until about five years ago, when he underwent his fourth arthroscopic knee surgery.
“I still work out at the gym, but I can’t pound the pavement anymore,” Mark says. “When I was running, I followed the Joe Biddy philosophy: If you’re throwing up, then your training must be progressing at a good rate. In cycling I could never get to that point. Running was a passion of mine for a long time and still is, really. I still talk running all day long.”