Article written by Ben Shlesinger
While he was track coach at the now-closed, but soon-to-be reopened Woodward High School, Greg Dunston had an idea. He wanted to start a track meet at the Rockville school and naturally called it the Woodward Relays. That was in 1973. This past weekend, Dunston celebrated the 50th Woodward Relays, which hosted 25 different teams from across the area.
The 50th cross country Woodward Relays race was held in the fall (both meets lost two years to COVID). While 50 years of anything is worthy of celebration, the Woodward Relays held special significance for Dunston. The race was dedicated to his wife Donna who helped lead things from the very beginning, and unfortunately passed away two years ago.
“We couldn’t have done it without her,” Dunston said. “My wife had the results and would score the meet. Eventually when we had kids they would all help and do things like take the times from the races and run them up to my wife so all the results could be tallied.”
When Woodward High School closed in 1987, Dunston took the meet with him to Walter Johnson High School (Disclosure: Dunston was this reporter’s coach at WJ in the late 90s). He eventually moved on to Richard Montgomery High School and hosted the race at Montgomery College before bringing it to RM. Eventually it went back to WJ for several years before finding it latest home of nearly two decades, Georgetown Prep.
Over a half century the meet has hosted a bevy of college conference champions, NCAA All-Americans and several Olympians. But was has kept it going in the desire to support the entire racing community. “I was going to take it wherever I had to take it to keep it going,” Dunston said. “I wanted to have something where parents could say, ‘I ran in that meet.’ Grandparents can say to their grandkids, ‘I and your parents ran in that meet.'”
Kevin Milstead, from MoCo Running, started www.woodwardrelaysfan.com, where you can look up results from both cross country and track and field meets from the very beginning. Dunston, now in his 70s, has no desire to slow down yet. But he does have one idea for the race’s future.
“Maybe we bring it back to Woodward when it reopens in few years. That would be a nice full circle moment,” he added.