Before Retirement Last Spring, Jack Pfeifer Helped Shape The Growth Of The Armory And Preserved Its History

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

High above street level in the New York Hilton Midtown, Jack Pfeifer took a look around his room and saw a who’s who of college track coaches.

John McDonnell from Arkansas. Pat Henry of Texas A&M. Dennis Shaver of LSU. Bubba Thornton of Texas. Mick Byrne, then of Iona. Duke’s Norm Ogilvie.

They had all brought their teams to New York City to compete at The Armory.  

It was a moment that told Pfeifer that the college meet he had built had finally reached critical mass.

“It really put The Armory on the map,” Pfeifer said. “A lot of coaches and fans of college track didn’t know about the place. But suddenly it was ‘I really want to go to that Armory meet.’”

Pfeifer retired as a full-time Armory staff member in May and has handed over his duties as the Manager of College Track to Aaron Robison.

But Pfeifer’s impact across nearly 20 years at The Armory, including the past 11 as a staff member, goes far deeper than building up the meet known as the Armory Collegiate Invitational and (renamed) New Balance Invitational – one of the anchors of the uptown facility’s busy winter calendar.

Pfeifer’s personal attachment to the building grew out of his first visit to The Armory, at the invitation of Dr. Norb Sander, in 1999.

“I did like the feel of the place right away,” Pfeifer said. “The old wooden seats, the original floor that you could see around the edges, that huge high ceiling and the light coming through the windows, and I liked the way it was built – like a tank.”

Over the years, Pfeifer took a leading role in bringing texture to the history of the building.

“More so than creating an event, like the college meet, and more so than helping create the high school program, I was interested in making it clear to the public that this place had a great history,” Pfeifer said.

In addition to becoming one of Sander’s most trusted advisors, Pfeifer set out to amplify the message about what was going on at The Armory, and what had occurred there in the past.

He produced an annual yearbook, starting in 2001, filled with stories and reference material about the rich history of track and field throughout New York City. A former editor at the New York Times, he was also instrumental in developing armorytrack.com as a news outlet. Pfeifer is the President of the Track and Field Writers of America, an organization he helped found in 1973.

He poured countless hours researching meet results spanning more than a century in order to account for 237 records that had been set in the building. (Those achievements adorn the stairwells that lead to the second and third floors).

He kept track of the building’s prestigious high school records and updated the large display on the track level where so many athletes have taken photos over the years.

When a record was broken, Pfeifer’s practice was to save the old plaque and give it to the person whose name was on it.

“I still remember giving Sanya Richards her record plaque for the 200 meters, and how thrilled she was to have it,” he said.

Pfeifer, who spent part of the off season living at his residence in Portland, Ore., also organized the second-floor track and field library and spent time acquiring relics, books and meet programs online in order to create a space that houses a wealth of information and culture related to the sport of track and field.

“Jack’s wealth of knowledge and understand of track will be missed at The Armory,” said Bassett Thompson, Director of Track and Field and a former colleague on the building’s third floor. “He is a walking encyclopedia. Personally, I will miss his knowledge of Jamaica high school track and field. Almost every Jamaica athlete I mention to him, he knows where they went to high school and college.”

But it was the college meet, going all the way back to Pfeifer’s first year of taking it over in 2001, which helped resurrect collegiate track at The Armory.

It was a daunting challenge.

“The major coaches around the country, when I suggested coming to a meet in New York City, thought I was out of my mind. New York City terrified them and their kids,” Pfeifer said. “They said that it was dangerous, expensive, too cold, there were hoodlums on the streets, all the things you can imagine.

“The first thing I had to do was convince them that coming to New York was a cool and exciting thing to do.”

Once he persuaded a couple of the high-powered coaches, others took note.

“Once they came to the city and had a good time, they told their friends,” Pfeifer said. “In a couple of years we went from begging people to come to turning people away.”

The arc of the meet eventually crested and began to decline as some of the bigger schools built their own indoor tracks and opted to stay closer to home.

Pfeifer expanded the college footprint at The Armory by luring the Big East Championships, bringing back the Heps for the first time in 55 years, and securing many other conference championship meets.

The relentless nature of the winter schedule and the grinding demands of the next project created “constant challenges,” he said.

“More than one time I thought I was ready to move on,” Pfeifer said. “It could be a hard place to work with long hours and chaos behind the scenes.”

He kept coming back, year after year, committed to raising the profile of The Armory and celebrating its unique place in track and field.

“People would look at the calendar on the wall, with virtually no days missing, and sometimes they’d say ‘How do you do this?’ How is it possible that you do this?’” Pfeifer said. “I took that as a real accomplishment, to be part of this core group that accomplished what people in other places thought was impossible.”