Contact: Phil Hearn
Phil Min
When Phil Min pressed the ignition key to the new luxury SUV and its headlights flashed on, the Mississippi State professor was a stunned but happy guy.
"I was pretty shocked," the 48-year-old MSU assistant professor of music education said of his recent experience in winning a 2004 Mercedes-Benz M-Class sports utility vehicle, which has a retail value of about $40,000.
The super vehicle was the grand prize in a drawing for registered, official finishers in the 2004 Mercedes Marathon or Half-Marathon, both of which attracted several thousand runners to Birmingham, Ala. Min ran the marathon--his 20th such race covering 26.2-miles in the past three and a half years.
But, while his completion of the marathon required a lot of heart and endurance, Min's receipt of the winning number at a post-race drawing for the Mercedes was pure, unadulterated luck. And he almost didn't make it.
Already in Birmingham a day early to register for the race, Min suddenly realized he had left his running shoes behind in Starkville, more than two hours away. Accompanied by his wife, Leigh Ann, a Birmingham native who lives and works in the city, he made a whirlwind round trip to retrieve the shoes.
"I could have easily ditched the race at that point," he said. "They had been advertising the Mercedes (drawing) all year, but you don't think you actually have a chance of winning. That's not why I signed up for the race. We got back to Birmingham with about an hour to spare before they closed registration."
But that's not all.
Leigh Ann, an administrative associate to the dean of medical school admissions at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, parted company with her husband following the marathon, thinking he was on his way back to Starkville. Fortunately for the couple, however, he decided to hang around for the drawing.
"You had to be present to win," he said. "They pulled out 10 numbers, announced all the names, and two of the people weren't there.
"They announced two more names and mine was the last one," he continued. "Each finalist walked up and pulled a set of keys out of a bucket. I was the final one, so they just handed me the last set of keys. My number was 6.
One by one, the first five finalists walked up and pushed their ignition buttons to see if they could unlock the car. No luck.
"I was the sixth one to go up and when I pushed my button, the lights of the car came on," he said. "Having just run a marathon, I was already pretty numbed out. A guy with a camera captured my expression for TV."
Leigh Ann didn't find out about Phil's luck until about 8:30 that evening, when she returned home and found him still there. "She thought I was joking when I told her what had happened," he said.
Min, who joined the MSU faculty as assistant band director in 2002, said he and his wife have completed all of the necessary paperwork to take possession of the luxury SUV, but have not yet done so. Produced at the Mercedes plant just east of Tuscaloosa, the vehicle sits for the time being at Crown Automobile in Birmingham.
"My wife is looking at selling it," he said. "It's up to her. I told her I had done my part. She puts up with me and supports my running. She deserves it."
Min, who is 5-feet-10, said he started running marathons in 2000 and "lost 70 pounds over seven months," trimming down from 240 pounds to about 170. In addition to Mississippi and Alabama, he has run marathons in Chicago, St. Louis, Mo., Little Rock, Ark., Memphis, Tenn., and Nashville, Tenn., and portions of Kentucky and Virginia. The Mercedes Marathon clearly was his luckiest.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Min said he has lived most of his life in the South. He taught in the public schools of Alabama and Georgia for 23 years, most recently as band director at Vestavia Hills High School in suburban Birmingham. He holds a doctorate in musical arts from the University of Memphis.
The Feb. 8 Mercedes Marathon was sponsored by Birmingham Marathon Inc. The drawing was sponsored by DaimlerChrysler Corp., Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, Mercedes-Benz U.S.A. and Crown Automobile.