Calling the Shots:

It wasn’t too long ago that Sam Felsenfeld was working at Orange Coast College and pitching sports stories. But now he’s the story.

Felsenfeld, 35, a former sports information director at OCC, is planning to run 60 marathons this year all for his son, Jack.

Felsenfeld’s son, 6, the second of his three children, is severely autistic. Last year, Felsenfeld came up with idea to run in order to raise money for autism. He created a blog, Operation Jack, and soon thereafter set up a schedule for 2010 after he had found out that he could run for Train 4 Autism. He wants to bring more publicity to Train 4 Autism, but most of all he wants to help his son.

Felsenfeld says Jack doesn’t have a fair shake. Jack, who is still in diapers and does not talk, receives in-home therapy six days a week. When Felsenfeld runs he thinks of his son.

On Sunday, he was in Moblie, Ala., running the Firstlight Bank Marathon and thoughts of Jack helped ease the pain. There was plenty of ache. He had just ran the Mississippi Blues Marathon in Jackson Saturday. But he kept thinking of his son.

Through work for his charity, Felsenfeld met someone who offered Jack hyberbaric chamber therapy, which has been known to be helpful for autistic children.

“If I have to run myself into the ground to get that for him, then it’s all worth it,” said Felsenfeld, now an independent website developer living in Lake Forest. “Everything else that comes is gravy.

“I was thinking about it in Mobile. I was thinking about the pain was earning him that. It’s totally worth it.”

Back when he worked at OCC, from 1999 to 2002, Felsenfeld had a different lifestyle than that of a runner. Sure he now indulges with meals at In-N-Out and late-night ice-cream runs, but back then it was the norm and there wasn’t any form of exercise taking place either.

A little more than five years ago, Felsenfeld hit a low point. It seemed the only thing high in his life was his cholesterol level, over 300. Also, all his beer-drinking days from college and even after caught up to him.

His liver suffered mostly.

A doctor asked him in 2003 if he had been drinking alcohol on the way to the examination because he had never seen results so horrible.

Felsenfeld was overweight too. His wife, Tiffany, worried for Felsenfeld. She bought her college sweetheart an iPod and he started to use it on early-morning walks around the neighborhood.

Soon the walks turned into jogging and then running longer distances. He then took on half-marathons, marathons and ultramarathons. Now he hopes running will help his son, his charity.

Some times when he runs, Felsenfeld will be amazed that he can even finish. When he was 16, he suffered a broken neck after some horseplay with classmates. He says he’s blessed that he wasn’t paralyzed.

Aside from that trauma, Felsenfeld also battled with the fact that he was never athletic. How could he become a runner when he was the same guy who cheated on the mile during P.E. in high school?

He lived the college life for sure, drinking beer as he followed Kansas State football. But now that’s all changed. He doesn’t drink beer any more.

Now all he’s concerned with is the next marathon, the next mile, the next trip. He has flights to coordinate, charity functions to attend and blogs to post on his website. To him, it’s like another job.

To reach 60 marathons in a year, he just wants to recover from each one each week. He hopes to avoid injury, but most of all he wants to bring more and more attention to his charity.

He’s planning to run the OC Marathon, in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach, May 2.

“What I’m trying to do is turn myself into a traveling circus and along the way I hope people jump on the bandwagon,” he said. “If I’m sore or in pain, I know that’s just part of the deal. If you want to make a difference, I think you have to do something crazy. That’s what I’m doing.”

Felsenfeld will run his fourth marathon of 2010 Sunday, when he competes in the Rock ‘N Roll Marathon in Phoenix, Ariz.

“I’ll be a tiny fish in a big whole pond,” he says. “But I just gotta keep running them.”