dewayne

dink and dewayne. mmtr 1999

my first memory of dewayne was standing off the side with a group of his Team BAD boys at the finish of the shut in ridge run, probably 95 or 96. they were a serious looking group, but dewayne broke into a smile and walked over to our local brood and started cracking jokes and introducing himself and his crew from huntsville. they were a group of guys who all trained together a few days a week and went to races trying to run fast. we all became quick friends. i think 4-5 of them were sub 2:40 guys with roland winning the race that year. those gold colored singlets. dewayne was also had crazy hair, earrings. typical rocket scientist. if you've never met a rocket scientist before, you had when you met dewayne.

next memory was waiting at the start of the grandfather mountain marathon in boone, nc in the late 90's and i see the same group of dudes roll up on harleys and running shorts. again...Team BAD with the hugs, smiles and buttermouths. they ran hard and then jumped on bikes and rode back to huntsville just like they came in. 

mountain masochist in 99 was the next encounter. Team BAD is now out of the gold kits and into the nike pro kits pictured above. dewayne was in full conversation coming into aid stations like he was out on a long run with his buddy dink. they socially put down a 3rd and 5th place finish that year. watching those two guys that year sure made trail running look a helluva lot more fun than road running.   

finally in 2000, i was standing at the foothills trail head in laurel fork creek on a random two lane road in south carolina waiting on some guy named claude to get his civil war era blunderbuss to fire and run some 35 miles unsupported to upper whitewater falls up in north carolina on a typical humid day in august. i think clark and i were the only one's i saw not wearing long trail gear. we take off and clark and i separate pretty quickly with byron backer and after about 5 miles two things happen; clark takes off, setting the course record that still stands 20 years on now and dewayne, who missed the start by 2 or 3 minutes catches us. i end up spending the next 25 miles running next to dewayne on a remote trail that transcends state lines talking about life, family, trail running and Team BAD. along the way i started to cramp about 30 miles into it and dewayne takes off. i come around a corner with dewayne at a dead stop in the middle of the trail. he had waited for me to point out a huge cottonmouth snake eating a mouse in the middle of the trail. i'll never forget the excitement on his face. "you ever seen anything like THIS in your road races?" with a huge grin. he takes off and beats me up the stairs and is humbly gracious at the finish. at that time, my marathon PR was significantly faster than his but he beat me soundly. 

next year, dewayne is the throes of his dominance at mountain mist 50k on his home course in monte sano. i was still fairly green ultrarunner, i spent all winter training to break his win streak. i tried to psyche out the Team BAD boy by painting my nails black and came up to him during the pre-race dinner and told him "i was gonna stick to him like glue tomorrow". he smiled, said he looked forward to it. sure enough, a triathlete took off early and dewayne and i settled in and picked up where we left off the previous august. he's giving me a tour of monte sano while i'm stuck in my head racing. he did share his secret bottles of sweet tea he had stashed in various hiding spots vs. using crew. we caught the early leader and i took the lead and made a break from him just past 25. shortly after, come mile 26 i was walking with cramps and dewayne tactically comes up on me at the base of waterline trail climb that is famous in the race course and says "now would be a good time to stick to me like glue" with a wry smile and precedes to run away from me again and win his umpteenth mountain mist in a row at that time. rob youngren catches me walking and asks "how the glue sticking to dewayne was working out". i took my fair share of lumps as a young, cocky newbie. the winners were very gracious. dewayne made a point post race of seeking me out to give me counsel on how to come back and break his streak the next year. even at his best...he was the best kind of human. 

few other races here and there. some night road races, a 10 miler on the redstone arsenal where dewayne worked. then...i moved west. social media allowed virtual connection here and there and when i checked my email after my first western states, dewayne had a note of congratulations on my finish at the top of my inbox and he recalled that conversation we had about the race some 9 years before. i had no idea he was watching. i don't know if he ever knew the impact he had on getting me there. 

december 2018 i'm working the lottery in auburn and i hear his name called. quick look at my phone shows me that indeed, it had been 1994 since dewayne had a finish at western states. the past three or four years i had seen dink as either a racer or spectator at states, and the re-connection always felt good. so i was looking forward to having dewayne come west. a few messages back and forth and we meet in squaw for a short catch up after 14 years of not seeing him. same old dewayne. little grey now, but that smile was the same. i missed his golden hour finish as i was up on robie but he did pause for a big hug on his way past heading towards the track. turns out, unexpectedly, that's the last memory i'll have with him and like so many others i've thought about in the last few days, i'll cherish it.  

dewayne satterfield was one of my first real ultrarunning heros along with his buddy, dink taylor. dewayne was cool. he was smart. he was sincere and he was the rug that generally tied the room together and i wanted to emulate so much about him. i thought a lot about Team BAD while training with my eugene crew some years later and i imagine the bond our crew formed was a lot like what they had going on in huntsville in the mid 90s. it was magical and it was authentic, just like dewayne. 

i'll miss you, my friend. 

dewayne 2019 western states as captured by larry gassan