[2] After graduating from Harvard in 1933, Cloney taught and coached football and hockey at Roxbury Latin School while continuing to work as a sportswriter.
During World War II, Cloney was an officer in the Field Artillery Branch of the United States Army.
[4] During Cloney's tenure with the B.A.A., the Boston Marathon grew from a small event that took little planning into a near full-time job.
It attracted top athletes, including Cornelius Warmerdam, Wes Santee, and Ron Delany.
[7] In 1966, Cloney rejected Bobbi Gibb's application to enter the race on the grounds that women were physiologically incapable of running 26 miles.
[8] Gibb nevertheless ran unregistered and finished the 1966 race in three hours, twenty-one minutes and forty seconds.
[9] The following year, Cloney and Jock Semple attempted to physically remove Kathrine Switzer's numbered bib off of her running clothes.
[10] After the race, Cloney stated that "Women can't run in the Marathon because the rules forbid it.
[12] In 1981, with the Amateur Athletic Federation and the International Long Distance Race Directors Association both developing systems to pay runners, Cloney made the decision to commercialize the Boston Marathon, which had never before awarded prize money.
[13] The decision to commercialize the race was controversial and caused its longtime benefactor, Prudential Insurance Company, to end its relationship with the Boston Marathon.