The greatest personal collection of Michigan athletic history can be found in a most unlikely place: in the cold, dingy basement of a three-story townhouse off South Main Street. The floor is cluttered with scrapbooks and boxes of memorabilia. The tables and shelves are like an intricate game of dominos; removing one item would undoubtedly disrupt the chaotic perfection.

“Down the stairs and to the left,” a voice calls. “The light switch is on your left hand side. I’ll be down in a moment.”

After a few minutes perusing the seemingly endless wall of photos, light footsteps are heard descending the stairs, and into this shrine of Michigan sports history walks Red Simmons, the father of women’s sports at the University of Michigan. He takes a seat in a wooden rocker, his leather moccasins tapping lightly against the frigid floor.

Red celebrated his 100th birthday yesterday, but if you happened across him on the street or in the gym — where he still works out five days a week — you wouldn’t be able to tell. His hair is flecked with red strands; his blue eyes shine with the vigor of a man years his junior.

Shifting his weight in the chair, Red pulls up the sleeves of his navy Michigan sweater, revealing what his eyes and hair could not show. For a moment, he unclenches his fists and wrinkles like a mountain range form on his hands.

His age is in his skin.

“It’s old man skin,” he says, only slightly joking.

Red reaches to check the small golden watch on his left wrist. He has dinner plans with his wife, Lois, in a few hours, and he wants to make sure he has enough time to tell his story.

He won the watch in 1932 at the Penn Relays, then considered the National Championships for collegiate track. In those days, it clung tight to his wrist. Looking at it now, hanging loosely on his slender frame, it’s clear the strain 100 years has put on the man. He didn’t have old man skin then, he jokes.

It’s fitting that Red still has the watch. In their 78 years together, this timepiece has seen the unlikely story of a man who changed the face of sports at the University of Michigan. The watch is a witness to the life of this quiet legend.

Ever faithful, the watch ticked on as Red spent 25 years on the Detroit Police force, where he competed in races and perfected his weight-training regimen. The watch was there when Red proposed the idea of a women’s track team to then-Michigan Athletic Director Don Canham — a legend of Michigan athletic folklore in his own right. It saw the discovery of Red’s first protégé on the track, and, for the next 16 years, it loyally calculated the splits of the girls who traveled across the state to be coached by the man who dared to call women athletes.

And after all these years, the watch hands still tick past the hour markers.

“See, it still works,” he says with a satisfied grin.

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Red was born January 5, 1910 in Redford, Mich. — a small farming community just west of Detroit. Red’s eighth-grade teacher, Mr. Pontius, spotted a talent in the young man and asked his parents to allow him to attend nearby Redford High School so he could train to be a runner. Pontius had convinced the farmers in town to mow a track into the field behind Beech Road Middle School. And it’s here, in Redford, off 7 Mile Road, where Red and a few other boys would train after school.

Red discovered he had natural talent and soon developed into a great runner. In the fall of 1929 he enrolled at Michigan State Normal College — now Eastern Michigan University — after he garnered the attention of coach Lloyd Olds.

“I didn’t have anything for (the first) month and a half, maybe longer,” Red says. “I hitchhiked … and every day I carried my lunch, went to class and never bought a book.”

He washed wrestling mats in the basement of the school’s gymnasium to pay for tuition — which cost $18.50 per semester.

Red points to a photo in his basement, torn at all four corners and matted behind a dark mahogany frame. It’s a picture of his eighth grade class. “He changed my life,” Red says, pointing to Mr. Pontius in the back row. “If it hadn’t been for this man, none of this stuff would have been here today.” Red looks around his basement, surveying the images, before turning and pointing to himself.

Next to this hangs another memorable image for Red: a photo of his mile relay team at Michigan Normal. Despite being a hurdler, Red wanted a spot on the relay team because he knew it had the best chance at a national championship. For three years he won the fourth spot in the time trials.

At the Penn Relays in Philadelphia in 1932, Red received a perfect handoff and a four-stride lead going into the second leg of the race. The lead lessened during Red’s 400 meters, but it didn’t matter. His teammates knew it would be difficult for anyone to catch him.

After winning the race, the four runners were led to a man seated at the awards table near the far end of the track.