History
By D. Gary Webb, Daily News/Spectrum sports columnist, SUU beat writer and participant in the Utah Summer Games.
Twenty years ago the first season of the Utah Summer Games was held. Twenty years later, the Games are still going strong, and “Raising the Bar” is an event that seems to have happened in each of the previous 19 years.
Utahns don’t need a reminder that every year is supposed to be better than the year before, whether it be welcoming the world to the state for the Winter Olympics or ushering in another decade of the Utah Summer Games.
Raising the Bar, a term commonly used in the high jump or pole vault, has been the call-to-arms for volunteers and participants in the Games and at other world-class events around the state since it became the crossroads of the west more than a century ago. The Utah Summer Games are simply, but grandly, an extension of that spirit of the West.
In The Beginning
In the beginning, the Utah Summer Games were a vision. Not a dream, but a vision, and the difference is that of something hoped for versus something to be accomplished, and Dr. Gerald Sherratt never was one for hoping and dreaming. He made things happen.
It was Sherratt, then President of Southern Utah University (then Southern Utah State College) , who realized that thousands of Americans and Utahns would be traveling through Cedar City on their way to the 1984 Los Angeles-sponsored Summer Olympics.
Sensing as always a way to bring attention to Utah, Cedar City and the state, Sherratt envisioned a mini-Summer Olympics that folks could stop and watch or participate in.
The logistics of time, money, venues and qualified people to run the show didn’t slow Sherratt down. It never has.
Sherratt knew he had the basic ingredients with the facilities of SUU and the knowledge that Utah citizens, and especially those in Southern Utah, would pitch in as they had since floods washed away the first settlement – a fort built with the hands of some of Sherratt’s ancestors as well as those of many longtime, solid Cedar City families.
Then came the sacrifice of building the University from a combination high school and extension of Utah State to a quality NCAA program. “Surely,” thought Sherratt, “If we can do that, we can do this.”
And he was right, and the Utah Summer Games were no longer a vision, they were on their way to becoming a reality.
Growing up
While Sherratt and his hand-picked group weren’t able to catch the flow from the ’84 Summer Games, he did have a blueprint ready for 1986 – the first year of the Utah Summer Games. It took a couple of years to come together, but with the completion of the Centrum Arena, the Games were called to the starting line.
Sherratt thought his idea was something original, unheard of. He laughs now at his “original” idea of twenty-two years ago. As it turned out, Sherratt discovered a similar event in New York while planning his own Games.
A trip to the Empire State Games gave Sherratt’s group a standard to start from, but the Utah Summer Games had to be better than anywhere else. Such is Sherratt’s legacy.
Rich Wilson was brought on board to run the Games after the first year, and Wilson’s foresight and vision matched Sherratt’s. Wilson was a never-say-die, or even “wait” kind of guy. Wilson raised the bar once again.
The state was divided into regions, with each region holding its own mini-games to qualify for the Cedar event. From the beginning, then, the Games have been a statewide effort.
Teams from different regions originally marched into Eccles Coliseum in team-colored shirts, points were kept for each region and a trophy given to the team with the best effort.
They say the only thing that is truly constant is change and a change was in the works for the Utah Summer Games.
Change, and Raising the Bar
After several seasons of the regional meets, they were discarded. The reasons are irrelevant, but the creation of something more holistic, more uniting, more “Utah-like” was needed.
The Games’ vision was to include all of Utah’s people, no matter the age, the hometown or the event. Regional qualifications were dropped, bringing to Cedar City the best and the less in all venues.
The vision-turned-reality-turned-city centerpiece welcomed world-class athletes such as recent Olympian heptathlete Tiffany Lott and local world record holder Dr. Rodney Brown, as well as the weekend warriors.
Wilson and Sherratt insisted that the Games be a statewide playground for athletes of any age, be they recently deceased Walt Brooks over 90-years-old throwing the shot put, or tiny arm wrestlers straining their little muscles for a chance at the gold. Change, once again, forced the bar to raise.
Play Your Game
After more than a decade at the helm and the Games fully established, first Sherratt and then Wilson stepped aside. Their vision was an established reality, but now it was up to others to continue the plan.
Change is inevitable, and so is flexibility. Over the second decade the Utah Summer Games changed to fit the wants of the state.
The track, baseball and gymnastics portions of the Games took on a lesser role, as did many of the adult sports. The number of participants and venues continued to grow, however, as softball and soccer gained in numbers.
Rather than being a sign of a decline in the Games, however, soccer and the addition of racquetball, skateboarding, inline skating and other more youth-oriented sports pushed numbers beyond the original vision and required much adaptation.
More soccer fields – many, many more soccer fields – were found, and grass was planted by the city, the school district and the University to accommodate the sport. Some sports were dropped, while others, such as the family cross-country event, have been kept out of tradition and the refusal of organizers to let numbers dictate all outcomes.
Up one More Notch
Currently, Casey McClellan is running the Utah Summer Games, and doing so with the same ideas Sherratt and Wilson had – to allow as many Utahns to participate in as many events as possible.
Indeed, were it not for Southern Utah University the Games would never have become, and without the support of the Iron County School District, Cedar City Corporation Emplyees and the groundskeepers from all three organizations, the Games could not have adapted to the changing needs.
While the volunteers that run the events are largely overlooked, they are without peer, and the organization and assignment of venue supervisors and officials is beyond comparison.
As the Utah Summer Games enters its third decade it has become more than a vision, it is an integral part of the state and Cedar City’s heritage, its quality and diversity of life.
The participants of those early Games are now bringing their children and grandchildren to Southern Utah, often planning their vacations around events. USG has tweaked and arranged the Games in an effort to allow gamesters to be involved in as many sports as possible.
The Utah Summer Games are a hallmark, a landmark and a place where anyone can set his or her own mark.
Come, set your sights a bit higher, and raise your own bar even as the USG has set theirs. Welcome, all, to the 23rd season, reunion and experience of the Utah Summer Games.
