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Race grew into community event under Froehlich’s direction

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By Alma Gaul | Friday, May 2, 2008 4:15 PM CDT | () comments

Sunday, July 22, 2007

The race that is now the Quad-City Times Bix 7 began in 1975 with 84 runners as a sideshow to the jazz festival named for Davenport music legend Bix Beiderbecke.

Ed Froehlich took over as race director in 1980, boosting participation to 500 runners and attracting Bill Rodgers, then America’s premier distance runner. Froehlich remembers the race as a failure, though.

It rained all morning and "the timer went out and people had to walk two blocks just to get to the finish line," Froehlich said in a previous Times interview. "The chutes were so backed up. It was embarrassing."

But the race continued to grow and has been the largest road race in the Midwest every year since 1988 and one of the 10 largest nationally since 1987. It also has been called the most community-spirited race in the country.

The challenging event topped out at 25,182 registered participants during its 25th anniversary in 1999; recent participation has been between 18,000 and 20,000. This year’s Bix 7 will be capped at about 15,000 participants because of the introduction of timing chips.

The race has changed in other ways through the years, too. In 1981, the Times signed on as its title sponsor, and there has been steady growth among auxiliary sponsors.

Supplemental events have been added to stir interest, including the two-mile Quick Bix, Alcoa’s Jr. Bix 7 for younger runners, quarter-mile sprints up the Brady Street hill and the Race for the Jackpot. Walkers also are welcome.

Along with the development of the race has come the growth of nearly 65 committees that keep it running smoothly, overseeing every aspect from registration to cleanup.

Froehlich, 60, is now in his 28th year as director. "He loves the Bix and feels very responsible to the community for it," his wife, Sandy, says.

In 1993, Froehlich was selected as Race Director of the Year by Road Race Management, and, in 2005, he received a lifetime achievement award from the National Distance Running Hall of Fame and was inducted into Running USA’s Hall of Champions.

Froehlich has even run the race himself, although that was in the 1970s, before he became director.

As a teenager, he preferred basketball to running, but he excelled in both.

In addition to being race director, he is an agent for State Farm Insurance. Before that, he worked 10 years at Oscar Mayer, cutting meat.

He was born in Norfolk, Neb., and his family moved to Davenport from Ottumwa, Iowa, in 1959. He is a graduate of West High School.

He and Sandy Rynor married in 1966 and have two children, Jeff and his wife, Diane, and Jacquii Olson and her husband, Jay. Their grandchildren are Lucy, April and Ben Olson.