Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1984. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - December 10, 1984
But according to the meet director, Ed Bowes, who also serves as the Loughlin coach, the 31st annual games starting Saturday may be the last. The reason, he said, is a staggering decline in entries, which last year totaled 192 schools and just under 4,000 athletes. Even though he has extended the registration deadline for the meet, Bowes said, only 125 schools representing 2,000 to 2,500 athletes have signed up, the smallest field in more than 20 years.
The explanation for the decline seems to be a combination of concern about deteriorating conditions at the armory, which has been used as a shelter for homeless men since 1982, and an epidemic of medical ignorance. Bowes said he had been told that many schools were staying away because of rumors that some of the homeless men at the armory had contracted AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), the often-fatal disease that has been especially prevalent among homosexuals.
"A coach on Long Island told me he'd heard it from his wife who is a nurse at a hospital in the city," Bowes said.
Is there a real health threat to athletes competing or training at the armory? According to the city's health commissioner, Dr. David J. Sencer, the answer is emphatically no. Dr. Sencer said he did not know whether any AIDS patients had stayed at the shelter before or after contracting the disease, but he insisted that even if they had, it would pose no danger to others using the armory.
"It's not a problem," he said. "You don't get AIDS by being around, or having casual contact with, someone who has AIDS. It is spread by addicts' sharing needles or through sexual intercourse. There is no danger from being in the same building with someone who has AIDS."
Bowes said that some coaches had expressed special concern because the high school boys used the same bathroom as the homeless men, but even that, Dr. Sencer insisted, posed no health threat.
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