Second annual Dick Frame Fun Run, and race director Sadie Frame, ready for better weather
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
Sadie Frame had yet to develop into more than Dick Frame’s granddaughter when the longtime FPD volunteer track and field coach was first diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
It would be about half a decade before she moved into the role of pupil, becoming a hurdler at FPD as well as basketball, softball, and soccer dynamo, helping the Vikings to a GHSA Class A private soccer state title last spring and thus missing out on the GHSA state track meet she had qualified for in the hurdles.
About six months earlier, she had progressed to another role in her grandfather/coach’s life: fund-raising race director.
Year 2 in that position has arrived with Saturday’s second annual Dick Frame Fun Run, to benefit ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
And this is her baby.
Sadie Frame and Titus Moore with Dick Frame.
Photo: Sadie Frame
“I’m like the meet director,” said Sadie, a freshman at Georgia Tech, where Dick ran track in the late 1950s. “My mom, she’s the coordinator of people behind the scenes. One of my good friends is the volunteers director.”
The running begins Saturday at 8:30 a.m. with the 5K road race followed at 9 by a 1-mile fun run/walk. Medals go to the age group winners, who also get a picture with the race’s namesake.
Who has sort of agitated the race director.
“He actually went on my website and bought five t-shirts as a phantom runner,” Sadie said. “I’m like, ‘Pop, you don’t have to do that, this is your race. You’re going to get a t-shirt in the end.’
“He said, ‘Well, you know, I just want to give back.’ He couldn’t help himself.”
Phantom runners are people who sign up only to donate with no intention of running.
Cost is $25, and Frame just wants as many people as possible to sign up and show up. She and her team will have a table at Friday night’s basketball doubleheader at FPD to keep getting the word out.
Last year’s first even had more than 200 sign up, but weather led to a fair number of no-shows.
“It was freezing cold,” Sadie Frame said. “But we had a good turnout even with the weather.”
And the race raised more than $16,000. That was a chunk below the initial $50,000 an eager and naïve Frame sought upon initiating the race but was a very acceptable number once she realized what putting together such an event entailed.
“It went very swimmingly well,” Frame said. “I’ve learned a lot the past year.”
Like expanding the team. But she was happy to get the positive feedback last year on how well the event went, from websites and registration on.
She said initial numbers are down as far as race participants, but increased sponsorship and phantom runners have pushed this year’s proceeds past $20,000. The weather for Saturday morning looks to be fairly mild, in the mid- to upper-40s, sunny and dry.
The next goal is attracting a presenting sponsor.
A primary interests is raising money and awareness for ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.
And another is bringing a smile to her old coach’s face.
It’s her way of paying tribute to her 79-year-old grandfather, who was born in Indianapolis and moved to Macon in the mid-1960s. In the late 1970s, he started helping out with the FPD track program, helping churn out state champs in the old GISA days as well as the GHSA era.
And from a red and black – FPD red and black, not Georgia red and black, because this is a Georgia Tech family - scooter, he still is, hardly changing his routine – and standards – since ALS started physically slowing him down.
“I don’t know how much longer he’s planning on doing it,” Sadie said. “He’s out there Monday through Friday.”
FPD dedicated its track to Frame in the spring of 2014, renaming it, and then starting the Dick Frame Invitational Track Meet.
Slowing down physically is the only major impact ALS has had on Dick so far.
“Oh my goodness, yes,” Sadie said. “He still has his goofy attitude. He’s still his normal self, nothing’s changed.
“For sure, he’s still Coach and Grandpa.