The 103rd running of the Drake Relays always brings a thread of nostalgia to my mind. It usually comes back to remembering one race, when the Relays were a little bit younger and had a gravel track.

In my mind, it still rates as the top thrill of the more than 60 Relays I've covered. The year was 1957 and it brought Dave Sime and Bobby Morrow, the two best 100-yard sprinters in the world, to Des Moines for a head-to-head duel. Sime was from Duke and Morrow from Abilene Christian.

It was a cold, rainy day, kind of what you'd expect at the Drake Relays. I had taken my father with me for this Drake experience, and we stood at the end of the track to watch these two Olympians.

It didn't matter that the Drake track at that time was gravel. It wouldn't have mattered if it had been polyturf or astrotruf or out-of-space turf.

These two runners, the weather conditions as they were, just glided over that surface in a photo finish in which Morrow was the winner. I've seen a lot of great times posted at Drake and great individual performances, but that one has always been at the top of my list.

Have the Drake Relays changed over the years? Yes, they have. Drake has gone for the "name" athletes at times to boost attendance.

Drake also went through a time where it did not pay appearance money to top champions, but its main core has always been the Big Ten, the Big 12 and the southern schools to go along with the high school program.

The high school program, in my mind, has been enhanced by the way the perfectly organized Drake Relays officials have put the high school athletes right in with the featured performers. I would judge a high schooler today is probably more honored to run in the Relays than in the state high school meet, although both of them are oustanding.

With that in mind, Linn-Mar has sent some potential champions to Des Moines this week with Brandon Ophoff and Josh Evans. And to all of the Metro participants, I'll use a Kentucky Derby term: Good racing to you!

(Bob Brooks is sports director at KMRY and has been one of the leading voices of college and prep sports in Eastern Iowa for more than 65 years. He is a 10-time winner of the Iowa Sportscaster of the Year Award, and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana in 2004. His sports reports can be heard weekday afternoons at 4:30 and 5:30, and Saturdays at 6:40 for the Hawkeye football wrap-up.)