Don James
Don James '80 1992 Cross Country, Track
Certainly the kid from Warren, Ohio came from good stock.
His uncle, Bob Horton, had been runner-up in the state mile and half-mile runs as a high school star at Chalker High in the late 30's, setting a Trumbull County record for the mile that would stand for 16 years. Then Don's father, Chuck, came along to break the mark in 1955 at Leavittsburg High and take third in the state meet.
Chuck's record fell long before his son Don began his running career, but Don had restored the family honor by regaining the record in 1976 and finished fifth in the Ohio AA Meet for Champion High.
Nevertheless, the announcement of Don James' decision to matriculate at Cleveland State and compete for the Vikings in track was buried in the seventh paragraph of a news release heralding a "sterling list of CSU track recruits" corralled by Coach Dave Burger.
A tiny import from Ghana named Paul Ekow Stork, whose gaudy list of accomplishments allegedly ran the gamut from a 4:08.2 mile through a 21.3 in the 200 meters was the headline attraction in that story. Bill McGrath, second place finisher in the Class AAA mile run; Matt Dillon, who had run the state's fastest 880 and Ike Hull who had broken Olympian Sid Sink's mile record at Fairview High, shared second billing.
James headed a list of "other distance runners of note headed for CSU."
It was a classic case of underestimation.
Stork never ran a race for Cleveland State. McGrath ran briefly with so-so success, while Dillon and Hull had good, but not great careers as Vikings.
On the other hand, James set a Vikings record for the indoor mile (4:07.6) after comfortably settling in as the cross country team's No. 4 man in his freshman year.
As a sophomore, he was still No. 4 on the cross country squad, but it was an immeasurably stronger team, one that finished 11th in the NCAA Championships. And in that memorable championship race, he had passed two of his more higher-ranked teammates, Ted Rupe and Mark Kadlec, to become the second Viking (behind All-American Marc Hunter) to cross the finish line.
By his senior year James had become the kingpin of the Vikings' nationally-recognized distance corps, with a brilliant 3:45.6 best in the outdoor 1,500 meters added to his cross country and indoor track accomplishments.
In that final year it was he who led the 1979 cross country team back to the NCAA Championships and yet another Top 20 finish (19th). Along the way he had won the championships of the Penn-Ohio and the very strong Malone Invitational Meets, finished second in the All-Ohio Championships, third in the NCAA Regional Championships and fourth in the Notre Dame
Invitational, before finishing 30th in the big NCAA field.
When it was over he had become just the second NCAA Division I All-American in CSU annals.
He was of course, the winner of the CSU Athletic Alumni Association's "Most Outstanding" Award in cross country that season, an award he was also to claim in track in the spring of 1980 after anchoring the sprint medley relay team to a school record 3:31.3 clocking, turning in times of 1:53.9 in the 800 meters and 3:47.0 in the 1,500 meters and being named the Outstanding Runner in the Cleveland Colleges Championships.
When he completed his career, only three-time All-American Hunter was rated above him in CSU distance annals.
It was a long way from fifth place on the 1976 Viking recruiting list.
James graduated from Cleveland State in June, 1980 with a B.A. in Communications and is presently Regional Sales Supervisor for Lumber and Building materials for Servistar Corp., a dealer-owned co-operative with sales of over $1.3 billion based in Butler, Pa.
Typically, he has worked his way through his field in award-winning fashion, starting with the company as a Building Materials Trader in 1983.
In 1989, he was named Servistar "Trader of the Year" in the Building Materials Division.
Don and his wife, Diana, who were married in 1981, make their home in Butler with a son, Jonathan William, whom they adopted in 1989.
