{"id":1336,"date":"2022-07-05T18:51:37","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T18:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/?post_type=stories&p=1336"},"modified":"2022-08-12T19:00:28","modified_gmt":"2022-08-12T19:00:28","slug":"red-dynasty","status":"publish","type":"stories","link":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/news\/red-dynasty\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Dynasty"},"content":{"rendered":"
Faculty and staff runners from Eastern\u2019s team \u2018Red \u2019 continue to dominate Bloomsday\u2019s Corporate Cup.<\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

O<\/span>n May 1, <\/span>after a two-year pandemic hiatus, the Bloomsday road race made its triumphant return to the streets of Spokane. Much to the chagrin of their competition, EWU\u2019s Red team, a running force that has dominated the race\u2019s \u201cCorporate Cup\u201d competition for 23 straight years, were also back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Eastern’s team ‘Red’ continued their dominance at the 2022 Bloomsday Corporate Cup competition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By race\u2019s end, to the surprise of pretty much no one, team Red had once again finished with the title, racking up a perfect 3,000-point score.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the most successful athletic team that Eastern has ever produced,\u201d quipped team member Grant Smith, a professor emeritus of English at EWU who, at age 84, has for four-decades been the team\u2019s leader and lead recruiter.<\/p>\n

Eagle football, of course, has won a national title. But EWU Red\u2019s now 24-year-long streak gives that moment of glory a run (so-to-speak) for its money.<\/p>\n

Bloomsday\u2019s Corporate Cup is sort of a race within a race, with runners representing a business or organization competing for top places and times within 13 different age groups for men and women. The first-place finisher in each group contributes 1,000 points to the team total, with subsequent finishers receiving points based on their proximity to the winner\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

Teams are limited to five runners. Three of these earn scores, while the remaining two stand in for tie-breaking purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is cool when we hit 3,000, and it\u2019s cool when we are all perfect across the board,\u201d said team Red\u2019s David Millet, director of EWU\u2019s Veterans Resource Center. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t happen very often.\u201d<\/p>\n

But often enough, apparently. This year\u2019s total of 3,000, in fact, marks the seventh-straight year Red has recorded a perfect score, and the 10th time overall. \u201cWhat would you equate it to?\u201d said Millet of the streak (before this year\u2019s win). \u201cIt\u2019s like the Triple Crown that Cooper Kupp won. It\u2019s that one year where everything lines up and falls into place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the run up to this year\u2019s race, Curt Kinghorn of Runners Soul, a running-gear retailer in Spokane, wryly commented on his own previous teams\u2019 track record of futility against Eastern\u2019s Bloomsday runners. Try as they might, he said, his group could never match the scores of Red\u2019s older guys, who excelled within their age groups. \u201cThey refuse to lose,\u201d says Kinghorn. \u201cIt seemed they kept getting faster the older they got.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2014 <\/i>By Dave Cook<\/b>. An earlier version of this story, Seeing \u2018Red,<\/i>\u2019 appeared under Cook\u2019s byline in The Spokesman-Review.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faculty and staff runners from Eastern\u2019s team \u2018Red \u2019 continue to dominate Bloomsday\u2019s Corporate Cup.   On May 1, after a two-year pandemic hiatus, the Bloomsday road race made its triumphant return to the streets of Spokane. Much to the chagrin of their competition, EWU\u2019s Red team, a running force that has dominated the race\u2019s…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-1336","stories","type-stories","status-publish","hentry","stories_categories-alumni-profiles","stories_categories-athletics","stories_categories-sports","stories_tags-spring-summer-2022"],"acf":{"subheading":"","featured_image_format":"cover","display_byline":false,"display_date_published":false,"featured_video":"","Links":false,"Resources":false,"page_hide_sidebar":false,"page_enable_page_nav":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/1336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/stories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/1336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1344,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/1336\/revisions\/1344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}