Interview with Don Bowden

Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Hall of Fame Class of 2008 Interviews
INDIANAPOLIS - USA Track & Field announced on Tuesday that Don Bowden, Bill Carr, Jimmy Carnes, Johnny Gray and Bernie Wefers have been elected to the National Track & Field Hall of Fame. Below are recent interviews with the living inductees.
DON BOWDEN
Q: What was it like for you to learn that you had been elected to the National Track & Field Hall of Fame?
A: I was just thrilled -- thrilled to death. It's one of the highlights of my life, really. It's really a culmination of my track career to be honored that way. It's really a thrill and I'm very thankful. I have a lot of old friends that had been wanting this to happen and it's wonderful to be included.
Q: How did you get started in track and field?
A: I was born in San Jose, California, and went to Lincoln High School, and the football coach was also the track coach at that time. I was 6-2 and 140 pounds back then, and I wanted to be a football player, although I could run pretty fast. The track coach told me that I had running ability and that my father was his dentist. He said that if something were to happen to me on the football field, he'd have serious problems (laughter). He said 'We're going to make a runner out of you, besides, the first time you'd get hit on a football field it would take a mop and a big bucket to pick you up.' That's how I got started in track.
Q: Most people know you as a 1,500m/mile competitor. Is that how your track career began?
A: I was really a half-miler. That was my best race and that's what I ran in high school. I set the national high school record in the half-mile. Actually I never ran a mile in high school, and in those days people were very afraid of running, thinking it would affect their heart. My mother always wanted me to go to the cardiologist to take tests to make sure this was going to be OK for me and that I wasn't going to extend myself.
Q: How did things go for you once you enrolled at the University of California-Berkeley?
A: My father had gone to Cal, and I went to Cal because it was a great academic school, but I primarily went there because of Brutus Hamilton (National Track & Field Hall of Famer), who was a longtime coach there, who was a wonderful gentleman and a great man. He believed that an athlete should participate in sports as just part of his life. He wanted you to have an active social life and to do well academically, and do well in track and field. He wanted me to graduate as a well-rounded individual and not just put all the emphasis on athletics, and I appreciated that.
He was from the University of Kansas, where he coached Glenn Cunningham (National Track & Field Hall of Famer). Coach was a decathlete himself and finished second at the 1920 Olympics. Those are the reasons I came to Cal. I ran the half-mile for him, and then one day he suggested that I run the mile at the end of my freshman year, and he trained me for it. I ran 4:11.7, and that was the fastest that an 18-year old had run the mile. It was a freshman record. That was the only mile I had run up to that point in my life.
Q: You qualified for the 1956 Olympic Team by barely finishing in third place in the 1,500 meters. What do you remember about that race?
A: That was unbelievable. I think the Olympic Trials is the toughest race of all, because the pressure is so great. You train for years and years and you know that they take one through three (place finishers), and everyone else stays home. That's real pressure. I had an Achilles tendon injury, so I hadn't worked out much that year. So I was really concerned about that. The 800, which is my favorite race, was loaded with talent, so my best chance was in the 1,500, which had some great runners in that as well. I just kind of hung in there and I dove at the end and I think I got on the team by an inch.
Q: What was your experience like at the Olympics in Melbourne?
A: It was fantastic to be part of the U.S. Olympic Team. I met some great people and it was really a great experience for me all the way around. I had made a deal with my dad when I went to Cal that I would run track and graduate with my class. The problem came in 1956 in Melbourne that the seasons are reversed and the Olympics are in October and November, and Cal was on the semester system, so I would miss the fall semester at Cal because I would be gone too much. So to stay with my class I went with double summer sessions, which went on all summer. I trained and would run on weekends someplace, and I came down with mononucleosis, and I was just recovering in time to go to the Olympics. I could run, but in the Olympics the heats are run so fast, and it's not just the fastest person that wins at the Olympics but the strongest person that can get through all those heats in the distance races. I wasn't strong enough, so I didn't beat too many people there, but it was wonderful to be there.
Q: You're known primarily for being the first American to break the 4-minute mile barrier. Could you talk about that experience?
A: I was primarily running the half-mile, which was my best race. Roger Bannister first broke the barrier in 1954 and I was still in high school then. Three years later in 1957 no American had run under four minutes, and my coach Brutus Hamilton said, 'I really think this is something you can do.' The race where it happened was my last mile of the year at the Pacific Association Championships in Stockton on June 1st. It was a strange situation because I had taken an Economics final earlier that day and they were having the high school championships at Edwards Stadium right next to where I was taking my final. There were times when I would hear the gun go off and I would jump (laughter). I got through the final and it was one of those beautiful nights and it just seemed that there was more oxygen in the air for some reason, and it was a beautiful track. They were giving me the lap times on one side and Brutus was on the other side, and he kept saying 'You're right on, you're right on, you're right on.' And it was just one of those days in sports when everything goes right and it was really a hard race, because there really wasn't any competition, and I ran pretty close to 60 seconds per quarter if you look at the lap times. I came around that final backstretch and Brutus yells 'You got it, go for it!' I turned it on and ran as hard as I could run and was very fortunate that I did it.
Q: What was your reaction after it happened, and what does that accomplishment mean to you all these years later?
A: It was a great thrill. It's always a great thing when you can really work for something, set a goal and accomplish it. It was great that Brutus and I as a team had worked together and overcome a lot of things and reached a goal. We worked for it and made it happen and whether it's sports or business or anything else, it's always fantastic when you can do that. I had great support and stability from my family and my coaches, and it's been really a great thing all my life. I've maintained a lot of great friendships with my teammates at Cal, and its fun when people tell me that's one record they can't take away from you.
Q: What were the qualities that made you such a good middle distance runner?
A: I think I was blessed, really. I think Brutus put it the best when he said, 'Don, you're divinely gifted,' and I think that's a nice way to present it. I had a very efficient cardiovascular system. I could just process things more efficiently, I guess. You have to work hard and have the right attitude, and there are a number of factors, but unless you have the physical ability and gifts to start with, you can't make it, it doesn't work. I had a good coach and mentor to bring me along at the right speed, and that's when you're fortunate when everything comes together.
Q: Could you talk about your life after track?
A: I've really had a great life. I've worked for several large corporations, starting with the 3M Corporation, and I worked a lot with Hall of Famer Bill Nieder (shot putter) from Kansas. We worked together at 3M when they invented the Tartan track, so we were there right at the start at the first synthetic track that was ever used, and I spent several years there before working with Allied Chemical. Later on I went to work for a company out of Wichita involved with tennis court re-surfacing as their export manager. These days I represent a number of manufacturers in that business in the export market.
Source: usatf.org