Stuart Sparling

(This story first appeared in the Marin Independent Journal of February 27, 2012.

STUART SPARLING

by Barry Spitz

It was 50 years ago, 1962, that Darryl Beardall and Pete McArdle waged one of the most epic of all Dipsea Race battles. Stuart Sparling was positioned to see it better than anyone. He started one minute ahead of the pair, watched them both storm by, then finished third. A year earlier, it was Sparling himself who had created the drama, closing to within ten seconds of the winner.

Sparling began running track as a junior at Piedmont High School. He switched to the roads and, at San Francisco’s venerable Statuto Race, caught the eye of 1959 Dipsea winner Jim Imperiale. Mill Valley’s Imperiale was building a new racing team, the Marin Athletic Club, and recruited Sparling.

The 17-year-old Sparling prepared for his Dipsea debut in 1960 by making regular trips to Mill Valley from Oakland via Greyhound bus. San Anselmo’s Steve Stephens, who now owns two dozen top-35 black Dipsea shirts, was a regular training partner.

“A few Marin A.C. teammates would do practice runs every Wednesday evening over the course,” Stephens said. “At Stinson Beach, Jim Imperiale would load all of us into his Studebaker and give us a ride back. Stuart and I were about equal that year (1960), one ahead, then the other. Neither of us liked to get beaten, even in practice. But Stuart always felt the need to improve, and he sure did. By 1961, I couldn’t get near him.”

In ’60, Sparling, with five head start minutes, ran an actual time of 58 minutes, one second, and finished ninth. For 1961, Sparling, despite his top-ten finish and turning 18, was somehow awarded three ADDITIONAL head start minutes. Imperiale may have played a role as advisor to handicapper Tommy Laughran. But Laughran and Imperiale were even more generous to Marin A.C. teammate Phil Smith. Though a novice racer, Smith was young and fit, a varsity athlete at Stanford in tennis. He got the maximum 15-minute head start.

“I made up almost all of Phil’s seven minutes on me by Steep Ravine, which is where I first saw him” said Sparling. “But I didn’t have much left going up Insult, and it’s pretty hard to catch a good runner gathering steam down to Stinson.”

Although Sparling slashed his time by six-plus minutes, to 51:39, third fastest of anyone, he had to settle for runner-up honors. The next finisher was a full minute behind. Smith, Sparling and fourth placer Jack Kirk led Marin A.C. to a third consecutive team title; the streak would stretch to 12.

Anticipation was high for 1962. Race officials flew in Peter McArdle, then perhaps the nation’s top distance runner, to break Norman Bright’s 25-year-old Dipsea record. But conceding nothing was Darryl Beardall, king of northern California racing. Beardall, who also ran for Marin A.C., already had seven Dipseas under his belt, and was the reigning Best Time trophy winner.

Sparling’s handicap was slashed seven minutes. So he departed Mill Valley just one minute ahead of the three scratch (no handicap) starters, Beardall, McArdle, and an excessively punished Smith (who went from 15 head start minutes to zero!). That created the atmosphere of a match race, which it was.

“I was running 48-49 minutes in practice runs,” Sparling said. “But Pete and Darryl both went by me at the old horse ranch, before the one-mile mark. They were really flying, way ahead of course record pace.”

Beardall used his knowledge of shortcuts to offset McArdle’s edge in raw speed. The two hammered each other, back and forth, to the top of Cardiac, highest point on the course. Then the heat, the killing pace, and fatigue from an all-night shift hauling 300-pound blocks of ice just hours earlier took their toll on Beardall. He fainted.

McArdle, now all alone, treading more carefully and unsure of the way, won in 47:30, missing Bright’s record by just eight seconds. James Jacobs, with four head start minutes, was next, more than two minutes back. Sparling ran his personal best time of 51:15, bettered only by McArdle, and arrived third.

McArdle went on to finish 23rd in the 1964 Olympic Marathon, and was inducted into the U.S. Track & Field Hall of Fame. He died, while running, in 1985, age 59. Beardall picked himself up and finished, 53rd of 61. He has now completed 55 Dipseas, and won twice.

The ’62 race turned out to be Sparling’s last Dipsea hurrah. After running for Oakland City and Sacramento State colleges, he joined the Coast Guard. While at sea, he injured his right foot. It got infected—“there were 140 of us guys using four showers”—and never properly healed. Sparling couldn’t apply pressure on the foot, or even put on his shoe, much less run. A doctor told him he ran the risk of being crippled for life if he tried. Sparling listened.

“That was the end of my racing career,” Sparling said. “I started hiking, and I did fast-walk the 1968 Dipsea. But the foot still hurts, and running is out.”

Now 69, Sparling has retired from a career in real estate lending, His passions are hiking and canoeing, locally and on trips all over the world. The lure of Marin’s trails and waterways led him to buy a house in Point Reyes Station in 2005, which he shares with wife Susanna Van Leuven. He has two daughters, Stephanie (31) and Kristen (29), from a previous marriage.

Sparling still retains a tie with the Dipsea as director of a newly revived Marin A.C. Old-timers, and new recruits, gather at his home for runs, while Sparling walks.

“I really enjoyed my Dipsea racing days. There was a lot of camaraderie, and I really looked forward to our runs together,” said Sparling. “And I once did beat Darryl Beardall, in a club race around Phoenix Lake.”