Sports As A Motivator to Get Well. Ask Yourself, "What Motivates Me?"

Norris Hanes, 56, has a reason to be all smiles. He is making his way back to world-class status in the sprints after surgery for prostate cancer.

By Ray Glier

There was no confusion in Norris Hanes’ mind. His athletic ambition in January as he prepared for surgery to try and stop prostate cancer was unflagging.

He was going to walk out of the hospital and run fast again.

There were anxious moments about a lot of things, no doubt. But as far as running fast again, the 56-year old Hanes, once the top-ranked 50- or 60-meter man in the U.S. and world, always thought he could reclaim his speed.

This week that speed, most of it at least, was reclaimed at the Masters Pan-American Games in Cleveland. On Monday, Hanes ran 11.86 in the 100 meters to win the gold medal (M55).

That ranks him third in the U.S. going into this weekend’s USATF Masters Outdoors Championships in Sacramento behind David Gibbon (11.57) and Craig Wood (11.77).

Norris also won gold in the Pan Am 200 with a 24.19. That’s second in the U.S. behind Wood (23.57), who is a year younger.

“This was the vision seven months ago,” Hanes said by phone from the grandstands at Baldwin-Wallace College south of Cleveland. “To be able to get back out here and do well, that's what kind of got me motivated to go out when it was cold and not be feeling that well."

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in America where 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with the disease in his lifetime.

More than 80% of all prostate cancers are detected when the cancer is confined to the prostate, or the region around it, according to the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Still, 94 men die every day in the U.S. from prostate cancer.

A spread of the disease was top of mind for Hanes, but not far behind in his consciousness was his Masters track career, which he started in 2018. He won't let go of it easily. 

Perhaps this is a good time for Geezer Jocks to have a meeting in the mirror and say to themselves, “Why am I doing this?” This board meeting with yourself can be about anything related to fitness. Go ahead. Check in with yourself today.

For Norris, part of his motivation were the people in the masters community. He runs with the Potomac Valley Track Club, but he has supporters throughout the country.

“It was a real motivator to be out here and being able to compete and just to be around the community again and them congratulating me, not just for my placement, but just from what I've been through for the past seven months.”

When he started training for Masters track full time five years ago, Norris gobbled up new real estate fast. His times got better quickly and the improvement came in bunches because he had been out of the game and was knocking off rust. He zoomed up the sprint event world rankings.

Hanes, who went to the University of Maryland and lives in the D.C. area, is tall and lanky and is very reactive at the start, which accounts for his world-best times in the 50 and 60. You would think somebody that tall has a lot to unfold out of the blocks, but Norris deals with it with explosiveness and immediate long stride. He also has this bounciness down the track.

“Starting out a few years ago, I was getting better by leaps and bounds,” Norris said. “Now it's incrementally smaller. This is a championship, that's why I was hoping to get something better than this (time), but this might be the first year where I didn't improve on my times."

Cleveland and the Pan-Am Masters are Hanes’ one trip of the year. He has the Maryland Senior Games to look forward to, but what is really motivating him are the World Masters Athletics championships next March in Gainesville, Fla.

“I still want to do better, but I have to keep some perspective because there's a lot of people who can't do something like this, who've been sick and had cancer, or  injuries and health challenges,” Norris said. “I've been very fortunate to be able to work through that and have to remind myself that I'm very fortunate to be out here.”

And that's part of the story, too. The 100 meters might be an individual event, but Hanes does not feel solitary.

“When I talk with other people that know my story, they've got similar stories," Norris said, "and they're happy just to be out here and recovering and being able to compete.”

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