Creigh Kelley has been the finish-line announcer at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race only for the last seven years.
But his ties to the race and the Atlanta running community run far deeper and longer than that.
“It’s so appropriate,” Kelley said of his race-day role. “Peachtree has been a core part of my life since I got back into running.”
Kelley’s voice is familiar to the tens of thousands who have crossed the Peachtree finish line on 10th Street in recent years. As runners stream down 10th, Kelley encourages, praises and celebrates them over the public-address system.
“It’s about keeping it important to the person at that moment,” said Kelley, 67, whose first name is pronounced “Cree.” “They don’t have to hear their name, but you can find a way (to recognize them).”
It is part of a six-hour shift at the microphone, first calling the play-by-play for the elite races and then helping bring home the rest of the 60,000-runner field.
“He thrives off the race-day excitement,” said Jeff Galloway, the winner of the first Peachtree, a pillar of Atlanta’s running community and a good friend of Kelley’s. “He gives a perspective on it that a regular announcer that doesn’t really run a lot or announce a lot really (can’t).”
Galloway, the Olympian and owner of the Phidippides running store in Atlanta, played a critical role in Kelley’s life. Kelley moved to Atlanta in 1974 after being discharged from the Army. A runner at VMI in his college days, Kelley wanted to get back into the sport, so he was directed to Phidippides, where Galloway himself sold him a pair of shoes. Kelley asked him to train him, and Galloway, who was just beginning his career as a running instructor, took him on.
Galloway encouraged him to run the Peachtree and join the Atlanta Track Club, and Kelley did both. He said he ran his first Peachtree in 1976, at age 29, in just under 33 minutes, which would have been a top-five finish in the men’s 25-29 age group last year.
Kelley was working for a corporate hiring company, but, caught up in the running boom, asked Galloway if he could open a Phidippides store. Galloway replied that the Atlanta market was saturated, but that he could open a store in Denver.
“I said, ‘I like to ski,’” Kelley said.
In 1978, Kelley moved his family to Denver, where he has been ever since. He first owned a chain of Phidippides stores, then moved into representing runners and then managing races. A television interview at a race where he represented the winners opened up the field of announcing. Kelley now calls 28 races a year and his company manages 50 races a year.
He began announcing the Peachtree in 1997 at the invitation of former race director Tracey Russell. And he can trace his professional success all back to Atlanta and its July 4 road race.
“This was my way to stay in the sport,” he said, “and it all started with Peachtree. It all started there and kept coming back there.”
Russell and track club staffer Elizabeth Unislawski were among those to encourage Kelley during a fight with cancer two years ago, binding him even tighter to the race. He has stayed close with Galloway, as well. Kelley will be back to announce a half-marathon Galloway is putting on in December.
“Peachtree is one of those things that I put on my calendar and say, ‘I can’t wait to get there,’” Kelley said. “I know it sounds childish or sophomoric or high school, but it was that important to me then and it’s continued to be just a privilege.”
