Tony Huffman and Lee Dukes share several things in common.
Both men were both track and field standouts at Mississippi College (MC). Both took a break from running while they focused on their families and careers and returned to competing when they were in their 60s and still working full-time jobs.
Last month, each of them earned national titles in track and field at the Masters level.
Huffman, age 62, became the 2025 national champion for the 10K and 5,000-meter divisions in his age category (60-64) at the USATF Masters Track & Field competition at Huntsville in July. He also placed seventh in the 1,500-meter race.
Dukes, age 71, became the 2025 national champion in the 2,00-meter steeplechase in his age category (70-74) at the same competition. He is also the 2024 national champion.
“Masters is a way to continue to compete but not compete against 25-year-olds,” said Huffman, a Jackson resident who owns Huffman & Company, a public accounting firm in Flowood.
“I started this journey right at three years ago when I turned 60. I decided I wanted to get back into track and field and start racing at the Masters level, which is a growing competitive component of track and field.”
Huffman, who earned a track scholarship to MC, ran post-collegiately for 11 years and even had a sponsor who paid for his travel, entry fees and running shoes. He took a break from that 17 years ago after he broke his neck in two places body surfing in the Bahamas and had to be airlifted home and then post-recovery concentrated on his family and career.
At his first Masters national championship, Huffman finished “dead last” in his first race and discovered he needed to be more serious about training if he wanted to win.
“I was surprised at how good and competitive my age group was at the Masters level,” he said. “I ran what I considered a fast time and got beat significantly in my first race.”
For the 2025 national championship, he trained for three and half months doing speed work and long-distance runs.
“I trained hard,” he said. “I put in the mileage, lots of long distance runs and speed workouts where you train your body to run faster.”
He gave up a guilty pleasure, Dr. Pepper Blackberry, and sweets to drop his weight from 172 pounds to 157 pounds.
Between April and July, Huffman ran several 5Ks as training runs, including the Farm Bureau Watermelon Classic on the Fourth of July. When he finished in the Top 20 and was the first person over age 40 over the finish line, he knew he was ready for the nationals.
Huffman considered it to be to his advantage that the national championship location was in Alabama because unlike competitors from outside the Deep South, he was already used to the hot, muggy weather.
He brought home two medals, a ribbon and a patch that he will add to his USA team uniform, but collecting hardware isn’t everything that running at the Masters level is about.
“I’ve made a lot of friends, people I compete against several times a year,” said Huffman, who began running track his senior year in high school and went on to do so for four years at MC. “After the competition is over, we’re friends. We share training tips and try to help each other.”
Dukes began running when he was 14, earned a scholarship because of it to MC and stopped for about 14 years in his adulthood when family and career required attention. He started back competing at age 60 and chose steeplechase, an event that consists of five laps around a track and leaps over 18 barriers and five water jumps.
Last year, he won the national title in his age group and competed in the world championship in Gothenburg, Sweden. He ranks fourth in the world in his age group.
“It’s fun to see people of all ages running,” said Dukes, a Ridgeland resident. “Last year at the world championship, a woman confided to me that she had butterflies in her stomach before her run. She was 94.”
Dukes likes to run so much that he has competed in ultramarathons, which are anything longer than the 26.2-mile distance of marathon.
Three or four months before competition, he runs on the multi-purpose trails in Ridgeland and cross country trails and adds hurdles and sprints to his training.
“When you’re running trails, you know you’re going to fall,” he said. “When you’re in the woods, you know you’re going to encounter something unexpected, you know you’re going to see snakes, you have to plan to keep going and bounce back,” he said.
The cross country runs paid off at last year’s world championship when Dukes had a mishap. His foot caught on a wooden barrier, and he landed face first under water. “That’s what you don’t want to happen,” he said.
Both Huffman and Dukes keep a wardrobe of more than a dozen running shoes, which is necessary because they run on different surfaces.
Before a national competition, all competitors must show the shoes they plan to wear to race in to ensure they are regulation. They also must agree to random drug testing.
“Last year at the national event, two people were disqualified because they tested positive,” Dukes said. “It surprised me to learn that.”
Both Huffman and Dukes have been active in numerous community organizations and have for years promoted running.
Huffman is a founder of the Mississippi Blues Marathon and a past winner of the Mississippi Marathon. He was a member of the Mississippi Olympic Committee, served as a coordinator for the Olympic Torch Run and carried the Olympic flame as a torchbearer when it passed through Jackson in 1996.
He served as public relations chair for the Mississippi Track Club. He raised $50,000 for the Leukemia Society as part of its team-in-training program by running three marathons.
Vice president of clinical outcomes of the virtual preventive care company Catapult Health, Dukes served as the first executive director of the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.
“I interviewed with Gov. (William) Winter, and I told him I voted for his opponent,” he said, recalling that Winter graciously shrugged it off and told him he didn’t recall that the job description asked who he voted for.
Dukes helped the Philadelphia Sertoma Club establish the Heart O’ Dixie Triathlon, which starts with a swim at Lake Tiak O’ Khata in Louisville and ends up with a run concluding on the horse racing track at the Neshoba County Fairgrounds, in 1980.
“It’s still going on,” he said. “It’s the oldest continuous triathlon in the 48 states.”
Tony Greer, who roomed with Huffman at Mississippi College and was a member of the track team with him, praised the two men for their discipline in training and their performance at the national championship.
“As a Masters runner, you have to listen to your body, get sleep and rest and recover when training,” he said. “They run lots of miles.”
Greer watched both men interact with the other runners at the national championship.
“There’s a tremendous amount of respect for Lee among the athletes,” he said. “Tony is really new, but he’s back in the game.”
Greer, an assistant track and field coach at Mississippi State University who specializes in pole vault, said both men ran “textbook races” at the nationals.
“It’s something they learned at Mississippi College,” he said. “They knew when to draft, when take the lead and when to hold back,” he said. “They did it beautifully. It was a beautiful thing to see.”
Both Huffman and Dukes plan to continue competing.
“Don’t underestimate us old guys,” Huffman said. “We still have it in us.”
