Roland Dyer

A Little Guy with a Big Heart

Roland Dyer, a Winslow native born on March 20, 1941, is remembered by many as Maine's "pioneer of road racing" for his era. Almost single-handedly, he developed a road racing program for southern and central Maine by organizing scores of annual road races through the 1960s and early ‘70s. An excellent runner himself, Dyer would compete in the same races he directed, quite a feat in itself. On top of that he put out a regular newsletter. He had an enthusiasm about running that was un¬matched, and it rubbed off on others. He was a great salesman for running in Maine.

In his short life of 30 years, Dyer had a great influence on Maine road racing. While working at Sears at Cooks Corner in Brunswick in May, 1971, Dyer was riding his bicycle across the parking lot and was struck by a car. He died not long afterwards at a Portland hospital. His death threw many Maine runners into a state of shock and disbelief, and his death put Maine's road racing program at a momentary standstill. Maine's running community simply was not prepared for a loss of this magnitude. Dyer had shown the way and now he was gone.

A Winslow High graduate of 1959, Dyer ran track and cross country. His interests also included art and playing drums in a dance band.

"Roland was one of the few kids who looked at track as being as good as any activity - football or basketball," said Bob Nixon, Dyer's track coach. "He was serious about it and wanted other kids to be serious about it. By example or by doing, he was a natural leader. I'm sure he never shrugged a workout. Nobody would think of running even five miles a day at that time, but Roland would. I'm sure he worked out on Saturday and Sunday even though we didn't have formal track practice."

One of Dyer's teammates, Dan Cassidy, described him as "a little guy with a big heart. Anything he did, he did well. He was always on the ‘give’ side and he didn't have much to give except of himself."

Carroll, Roland's younger brother, says he remembers how Roland used to design many different loops starting from their home in Winslow. They ranged from 13 to over 30 miles, with some going way out to China and Albion. Dyer was naturally drawn to the Boston Marathon and rarely missed a year.

Then in 1963, Dyer started attending AAU meetings where he got to know Steve Ross, who was then president of the Maine AAU. It wasn't long before Ross appointed Dyer as the state's long distance running chairman. "I'd say he was very enthusiastic and he was also very well organized," Ross remembers. "It was right after that when Roland got involved and started promoting road races."

Living in the Brunswick area, Dyer would go out and find businesses to sponsor his races, then direct them and also run in them himself. Dyer, like Ross, went by the AAU rule book. He also made a point to keep entry fees low, never charging more than the standard fee, $1. Dyer also kept meticulous records of the progress of road racers via a point system of his own design. He kept runners informed by putting out, at his own expense, a newsletter which he called The Pine Tree Road Runner. In it was a race schedule, complete race results, his own commentary, and his point system. This, he gave runners at no cost, although he accepted donations.
"It seemed like every time I picked up the paper, there was a race somewhere being organized, and Roland was involved in it," said Coach Nixon. "It didn't make much difference which end of the state it was in, Roland Dyer was involved."

When I was a little kid we went to all those running events on weekends," said Dyer's daughter Zonda Belmont, born in July, 1963. "I remember passing out water, watching him run, and watching him organize races."

Dyer was known throughout New England as a man who was 10 years ahead of his time. He had developed a road racing program that was comparable to that in Massachusetts, yet he was doing all this for a handful of runners, perhaps 35 statewide. Dyer was also years ahead of the national running scene when it came to women's running. He encouraged women to enter his races and took pains to see that they were accommodated. He even put on his own women’s-only races years before this became common in other parts of the country.

Diane Fournier, a pioneer of women’s road racing in the state, fondly remembers her first road race. It was a nine-miler in Winslow which was organized by Dyer. She recalls how Dyer went the extra mile to see that she had a place to change and shower. Dyer even made sure that the trophy she got had a female figure.

Dyer would do just about anything to help his fellow runners. He helped younger brother, Carroll, who was also interested in running, by often driving from Brunswick to Winslow to pick up his brother and take him to races, then driving him home afterward. He did the same for another rising star, Ken Flanders who ran at Deering High School. "When I was a young high school runner, Roland once traveled from Winslow to Portland just to give me a ride to Bangor so that I could compete in a road race. This is an example of the dedication and love he had for the sport he started in Maine," said Flanders in a letter to the Dyer family after Roland's death in 1971.

Maine Running Hall of Famer Bob Hillgrove couldn't agree more. He remembers Dyer telling him, "Bobby, you've got to get out of state and get some good competition." Hillgrove said that Dyer took him and others to compete in a race in Canada, and there were other trips, too, to southern New England when Dyer filled his car with runners. "There was nothing he wouldn't do for any of those runners," said Hillgrove.

After Dyer's death, the Riverside 5K and 10K races in Portland in March were renamed the Roland Dyer Memorial Races, and the annual Three-In-One Day Race in Winslow, directed by Steve Ross, was also renamed in honor of the Winslow native. When Ross moved to southern Maine, Gene Roy of the Central Maine Striders kept Dyer's memory alive by continuing the Dyer Memorial 5K. Roland's father, Marvin, served as honorary race starter.

On the living room wall in the Dyer home on Garand Street, there is a photo of Roland playing the drums with his dance band, one of only two photos the family has of him. One day, several years after the death of his son, Marvin sat in his favorite chair in that living room, gripped the arms firmly in his hands and nodded toward the picture. His eyes filled with tears, and he said, "What Roland liked about running was the friendliness of the people. They would come up to each other after the race, Roland would say, and shake hands and hug each other. There were no hard feelings."