June 17, 2024
Bob Schul
(September 28, 1937 - June 16, 2024)
News came this morning that Bob Schul passed away yesterday at his nursing home in Middletown, Ohio. Bob as anyone who reads this blog knows was the 5,000 meters Olympic Champion in 1964 in Tokyo, the only American ever to win that event. Bob and Billy Mills who won the 10,000 meters that same Olympics could arguably claim to have been the catalysts of the Running Boom which would follow a few years later.
Bob running in Dayton, 1955 for West Milton HS
Bob Schul grew up on a farm near West Milton, Ohio where he was a good high school runner. Not a state champ, he finished 6th his junior year and fifth his senior year in the mile.
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He went on to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, but after a couple of years dropped out and joined the Air Force where in California he came under the tutelage of Mihaly Igloi and the L.A. Track Club. Bob thrived on the rugged training methods of Igloi and began a great career of middle distance running in the early 1960's. His career culminated with that win in Tokyo. He was a clear favorite going into the race and did not let anyone down with his performance especially in that last lap where on a soggy track his last 200 meters was equal to Peter Snell's last 200 when Snell won the 1500.
Here are the last three laps in Tokyo Link: Bob Wins The Five Thousand
In the years following 1964, Bob operated a small running shoe store in Troy, Ohio and also began coaching in several high schools and eventually at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. He also taught school in several local school systems. It could never be said that Bob in any way really financially benefitted from his running career.
I first saw Bob run at Miami of Ohio in a dual meet with Ohio University about 1958. The meet ran concurrently with the Miami Invitational high school meet. I'm not sure the NCAA would allow such an event today. Anyway Bob easily won the mile in 4:16 and as I watched from the infield I had never witnessed anyone run at that level and so smoothly and relaxed. I think I dreamed about that race for months after. Then a few years later we started seeing Bob on national TV winning races. At the time of his Olympic win I was a junior at the U. of Oklahoma and recall watching that race on TV in the Jefferson House lounge. We had already witnessed Billy Mills a few days earlier winning the 10,000 in a great surprise. Bob's win was no surprise. We all expected it from the way Bob had been performing in the lead up to Tokyo for about a year. His 54 last lap was something to behold.
One story Bob told me years ago that I don't know has ever been repeated concerns his participation in the 1968 Olympic Trials. Few would remember that. He had not been seriously training in 1968 but ran a few races and suddenly found that he was eligible to compete again in the 5000 to make the team in September. He had a problem though. He had a bad case of hemorrhoids. The father of one of the Villanova runners was a doctor and in attendance at the trials. When he heard of Bob's predicament he offered to perform a hemorrhoidectomy in Bob's motel room at Echo Summit. No hospitals in the immediate area and who had insurance? Bob needed the surgery and received it with a local anesthesia while on his belly on the bed. I think they used the motel shower curtain to cover the bed. Bob's wife was asked to hold down one of his legs but had to leave before the surgery was completed. The operation was a success, and Bob asked how he was going to be feeling in two days when the finals were to be held. The surgeon started getting a bit green around the gills when he heard Bob's question. "I thought you said the finals were in two weeks?" So Bob toughed it out two days later and finished a distant sixth place. None of the times were very fast due to the altitude, but that didn't matter. But ask anyone who has just had that surgery if they could run an O Trials race in two days. Here is the box score.
Another brief story that few people know about Bob. He was in the Peace Corps. Have any other Olympic champions ever been in the Peace Corps? He served as the national track and field coach of Maylasia as his assignment in1971. While there he was able to become familiar with the British Hash House Harrier runs, but that's another story. Here is a link to a piece I wrote about Bob and some other athletes who served in the Peace Corps link: Bob Schul in the Peace Corps
Another little anecdote about Bob:
Rich Davis, former men's cross country coach at U. of Dayton accompanied Bob and a group of his runners from the Dayton area to Europe for a running tour. When they were in Austria, somehow they got separated from Bob and asked the hotel clerk if they knew where 'Bob Schul' could be found. Bob's name in German means something like 'bob sled school' so that's where they sent them.
I truly believe Bob was one of the least appreciated Olympic champions in our country, ever. Admittedly Bob could rub administrators and suits a bit the wrong way. But it wasn't really an arrogance that made him that way, it was more an honesty and outspokeness of an Ohio farm boy. GB
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After his stint in the Air Force, I overlapped with Bob at Miami (OH) for almost two years. Though he competed only occasionally for Miami, we had many opportunities to see him train - twice a day and often doing fast short intervals in both am and pm sessions. And often with a handkerchief mask during out door winter sessions. He was of the smoothest distance runners I’d ever seen.Jack Bacheler
Subject: Bob SchulI just heard that Bob Schul passed away yesterday.I had the good fortune of knowing Bob, training under him for a few months, traveling with him to the 1974 Thanksgiving Day Race in Cincinnati, coaching against him when he was at Wright State, and visiting him earlier this year at the Bickford Home in Middletown. He was reared in West Milton, attended Miami, trained under Mihaly Igloi in California, coached at several high schools in Dayton, coached at Wright State where they were seventh in the NCAA Division II with only Dayton runners. He was a world record holder and Olympic champion with an incredible knowledge of the physiology of the human body and a unique way of applying that to running. In Ohio annals Bob was the distance equivalent to Jesse Owens. He will absolutely be missed.Bill Schnier
More details on Bob's life and post running career in this article from the Dayton Daily
News by Dave Jablonski Remembering Bob Schul
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