Turkey Trot: Lehigh’s longest-running spirit week tradition

Almost 600 students and faculty joined together this past Thursday at the Packer Memorial Church to embark on the 59^th annual Turkey Trot, an uphill, two-and-a-half mile race around campus.

This year, Michael Horgan, ’16, took first place, followed by Alex Hiznay,’16, in second and Evan Gaj, ’16, in third.

The Turkey Trot is an intramural event that takes place every year, rain or shine. While the course of the race has evolved over time as a result of changes in Lehigh’s landscape, the turnout and purpose of the event has remained the same. President John Simon was the first person to sign up to run in this year’s Turkey Trot, which started in front of the Packer Memorial Church and ended on the UC Front Lawn.

“If you want tradition, there it is,” said Jane Josephson, the director of Intramural Sports and Recreation at Lehigh, who oversees the planning of the Turkey Trot. “I don’t think there’s anything older in terms of Lehigh-Laf spirit events, except the football game.”

Josephson said participants aren’t encouraged to wear costumes or unique clothing, yet year after year students come out in a diverse array of costumes, ranging from Santa Claus to pilgrims and turkeys, and sometimes even bananas. She said as long as none of the costumes are vulgar, she doesn’t mind if students dress up.

Barb Turanchik, the director of club sports, has been at Lehigh for 35 years. She helps Josephson plan the Turkey Trot, and has watched the race evolve over the years. She said there used to be more student participation, but that spirit week — the week leading up to the Lehigh-Lafayette football game — also had more hype back then.

However, Turanchik believes people still choose to run in the Turkey Trot each year because it becomes part of their Lehigh experience. Turanchik said the cycling club leads the race to prevent people from getting lost.

“It’s nice to walk away from your university saying you did something like this more than once,” Turanchik said. “Some people have pride about running it all four years, it becomes part of their tradition at Lehigh.”

Henry Smither, a fifth-year student, said this was his fifth year participating in the run.  He signed up freshman year because he was on the crew team and they all signed up, and other years he wanted intramural points and a free t-shirt.  This year, he signed up because he wanted to participate during his final semester at Lehigh.

“I think it’s a fun tradition,” Smither said. “It’s exhausting. Every year it reminds me how out of shape I am … you realize how steep the damn hill is.”

While the Turkey Trot is typically held during Lehigh’s spirit week, last year it was moved up a week because Josephson knew many other spirit week events would be taking place the following week, and she wanted the race to capture the largest audience it could. That year, Josephson saw an overwhelming group of faculty members sign up to run because they had just finished 4 o’clocks. As a result, she plans to continue holding the Turkey Trot the week before Lehigh-Laf, as long as people continue to participate.

Five years ago, Josephson added a new subset of the Turkey Trot, called Too Hot to Trot, which is a mile-long competitive race created to encourage more faculty and staff to participate. This year, 77 people registered for Too Hot to Trot.

“This is a Lehigh tradition, it’s not just students,” Turanchik said. “It’s everyone. It’s a community. The Lehigh community can celebrate this. That’s why Jane tries to be inclusive of everyone coming together.”

Turanchik said that when she was a student, a turkey dinner was given to the winner of the race and a banquet was held for the top finishers. Over time, the prize has changed to t-shirts.

Smither said he always starts the race with his friends, but they always end up finishing at different times. He said one of his friends signed up this year for the first time and was in the front of the pack for the beginning.

“Then he just stopped and got in a car by Hawk’s Nest and went home, he couldn’t handle it,” Smither said.

Josephson acknowledges that it’s a tough event, and people should be rewarded for doing it.

“It’s one of the only events where everyone has a smile on their face when it’s done,” Josephson said. “It’s one of those things that makes you feel good.”