Rogers60

Imagine a shipwreck of the good ship John Rogers, the crew being disbursed among various islands to safety. Playing the old classroom sociology game of "Who would you most like to be shipwrecked on an island with?" I'd say, without hesitation, my usual gang of pirates: Ken Kelling, Barry Robinson, Bob Martin and Norm Cooper. Just about everything I did, everywhere I went, all or at least one of those guys would be with me--packed together into my old blue bomb 1950 Chevrolet. We would be heading to a game; sitting together on the cross country or track team bus; roaming around the hallways before class every morning; walking to school and home after practice; eating in the cafeteria; attending Hillyard Booster meetings or playing pool at the same. As the old refrain of alumni goes when talking about alumni friends, "We did nearly everything together." Nevertheless, the track/cross country team activity was the core of our relationship with each other.

 

And so it was with Barry Robinson, who became Spokane's mile running sensation his sophomore year, 1958, in track. Naturally, being an athletic sensation so early in his high school life, his name was always in the Spokesman Review or Spokane Daily Chronicle sports pages. He was never written up as just Barry Robinson--it was always "Sophomore Barry Robinson." Barry went on through Rogers, as did the rest of us in the normal sequence of junior and senior years, and the sports writers subsequently referred to him only as Barry Robinson, but to me and the rest of the distance running crew, he remained "Sophomore Barry Robinson." And so he remains to me.

 

"Sophomore" was consistent in everything he did. His face, whether running or just being Barry, had the same expression: a round-shaped mouth, all front teeth on display to the viewer in a Teddy Roosevelt smile, eyes with a "I know what I'm doing," concentrated look. He always had that slightly grown-out crew cut--not a flattop--a genuine, rounded crew cut. When he ran the mile, he started and finished with pretty-much the same pace, always having that same, "I know what I'm doing," expression, looking straight ahead, not really looking at anything, his head slightly sashaying left and right. He'd break the tape at the finish, be congratulated by teammates, and modestly walk off, quietly and shyly receiving the congratulations but not a cknowledging them.