Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The Jerry Siegel Race, part 3 of 3

First read part 1 and part 2.

In February 2008, five months before Boys of Steel came out, I pitched my Jerry Siegel Race idea to the wonderful Glenville Development Corporation and they liked it. They earmarked a tentative month for the event. They sent the letter I’d written to the celebs. They suggested that we look for a corporate sponsor and mentioned one company in particular that was looking for a health initiative to fund. Running is healthy! I imagined that whatever sponsor we got would foot the bill for the race T-shirts.

I also pitched the Jerry Siegel Race to the organizers of the annual Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois, which I was planning to attend that June. Of course, that would not take place on the actual route, but would still be a sixth of a mile accompanied by John Williams.

Eventually, I even planned to do a third race in my town, sponsored by the local independent bookstore.

However, none of the races happened. Here's why:

Cleveland—It was hard for me to do as much as I wanted to do from afar and I wouldn't have asked anyone else to take on the responsibility. (Though my primary inspiration with the race was not to raise money but rather to do some small part to unify an historic community, I was thrilled when, later that year, a superstar team led by author Brad Meltzer fundraised on a far greater scale that my race ever could have. The newly formed Siegel & Shuster Society and friends collected more than $100,000 to restore Jerry's house and install commemorative
markers at both Jerry's and Joe's sites.)

Metropolis—A town official ended up nixing the race because the road chosen for the route would have had a cable (yes, I do remember it being a single cable) strung across it for another aspect of the Superman Celebration. That was a safety concern. (Somehow marathons with thousands of entrants and probably as many potholes, among other little bumps, go on anyway.)


Hometown—I was following up on too many promotional ideas at once and that one—though among my favorites—was set aside. I could tackle most of the other ideas on my own but that one would require help and, again, I didn’t want to burden anyone at the time.

Yet I remain determined to make a Jerry Siegel Race happen one day, particularly in Cleveland. In fact, I’m quite certain it will, and I’ll be running it with a big smile, in a hurry to get to one of those Superman mini-pizzas.

1 comment:

Billy Hogan said...

Superman mini-pizza? Where can I try one?