Last lap -- Long-time Hayes Center starter calls it quits

Kent May of Hayes Center keeps an eye on the runners before starting a race at a local track meet. May has been a starter at local, district and state high school track meets for the past 38 years and will retire after the district meet in May. (Grant Strunk/McCook Daily Gazette) [Click to enlarge]

He's hanging up his gun after the Class B-5 District track meet in Lexington, the last time runners will hear his signature call: "Wait for the gun and you all get to run."

"I think it's time to get out before they tell me to get out," quipped May, who began starting races in 1971 and has worked local, district and state track meets. But he won't be too far from the track -- he plans to watch his grandkids and other athletes compete, this time at the other end of the track.

"I'll be at the finish line instead of the start, so I'll finally be able to see how those sprint races finish," he said.

As a starter, May has seen hundreds of runners compete, firing the first gun to begin the race and the second for false starts. And after all these years, May said he still feels responsible when a nervous runner bolts.

"You want everyone to compete. I always feel bad if a kid jumps the gun because you don't like to see any kid disqualified," he explained.

To keep this to a minimum, May made it a priority to calm down jittery runners with a little of what he called "preventive officiating."

"I'd go over and talk to them a bit, go over the rules a little, try to get them to relax," he said.

As a starter, May said the hardest race to start is the staggered 400, as it's difficult to see all the runners with some standing and some in starting blocks.

"Kids taking standing starts have a tendency to get more nervous, more jumpy," he said. "Sometimes they need an extra few minutes to calm down."

And some need their rituals. There are the kids who go through elaborate stretching procedures before getting into their starting blocks and by the end of the year, starters usually know who those kids are, he said with a smile.

And, forget about girls making you wait: May said it was the boys who tended to take longer getting into their blocks than girls.

Waiting for the gun to start can be nerve wracking for runners but May knows what that feels like. In high school, May became the first runner below a Class A school to break the 50 second barrier in the 440, with a time of 49.7, a school record that still stands.

Back then, runners used to dig their toes into cinder tracks instead of using starting blocks, he said and during practice, the high jump pit sometimes consisted of a pile of cornshucks.

May comes from a legacy of tracksters, beginning with his father, Richard, and extending to his brothers, all state track champions. In fact, the Richard and Lois May family was named the Hall of Fame Family by the Nebraska High School Hall of Fame in 2000.

After teaching P.E. and coaching track at St. Paul and Grand Island, May returned to farming and he and his wife, Cheryl, have passed the running baton on to the kids, all of them who were multiple sport athletes: Todd, Angie and Brent, who coaches girls middle and long distance track for McCook Senior High.

An avid runner, May still runs six miles a day and believes those who run track in high school do well in life and other sports as well. That's because they are competing for themselves as well as for the team, he said.

"Track kids know it's up to them, they have to do it themselves and are totally accountable. But it's a team effort, too, so they're also accountable to other runners," he said.

While he enjoys watching a good race, what happens at the finish line isn't the most important part to May.

"It doesn't matter if it's the best or poorest runner on the team, what matters is if they improve," he said. "That's all you can ask."