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Elliott Denman represented the Unites States in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia in the 50-kilometer racewalk and finished in 11th place. He was the 1959 U.S. National Champion in the 3,000 meters and 50k racewalks, while also earning a Bronze Medal at 20k. Elliott won the 1961 Maccabiah Games 3,000-meter racewalk in Israel. He walked the New York City Marathon 33 consecutive years from 1979 to 2011. Elliott was a journalist for many decades, including thirty-five years as a writer and sports columnist for the Asbury Park Press. Events he covered included twelve Olympic Games, World Track and Field Championships, Final Fours, World Series and All-Star Games, as well as hundreds of track and field meets. Elliott was a race director, race official, helped revive the Shore Athletic Club in 1964 and coached both cross-country and track and field at Monmouth College. He was inducted into the New York University Hall of Fame in 2008. The New Jersey International Track and Field Meet at Monmouth University was named in his honor in 2023. Denman received the 2024 Bob Hersch Award for Lifetime Service to the Sport of Track and Field from the Track and Field Writers Association of America. In honor of Elliott’s ninetieth birthday this year, he will soon be publishing ‘Ninety Recollections from Ninety Years.’ He resides in West Long Branch, New Jersey, with his wife, Josephine, of sixty-two years. They have three daughters and eight grandchildren. Elliott was extremely gracious to spend over two and a half hours on the telephone over two days for this interview in September 2024.
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1956 OLYMPICS AND OLYMPIC TRIALS Elliott, you are best known in the competitive track and field community for making the 1956 Olympic team in the 50-kilometer racewalk, which is 31.1 miles for those who aren’t as familiar with metric distances. How big of a dream was it of yours to qualify for the Olympics, what did it mean then and what has been the impact on your life for nearly seventy years as far as opening doors and credibility as an athlete to be once and always an Olympian?
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It has impacted my life immeasurably. It has opened up a million doors. There are so many things I have been able to do over many years that can be traceable to that one moment of good fortune. Just by having that status of being an Olympian, it has done amazing things for me. If that had not happened, I think my life would have been quite different. It isn’t that I built my whole life around it, but some people only talk about my one moment in the sun. I never do that, but other people do and have opened those doors for me. I certainly appreciate those opportunities. I was a long shot to make that Olympic team in 1956 in an event they call the longest and the toughest as it is nearly five miles longer than the marathon run. I was the longest of long shots to make that team and didn’t come close to winning an Olympic medal. I was far back in eleventh place.
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Can you take us through the Olympic race including how you felt during your five plus hours on the course, what the weather was like, the spectators and hydration stations?
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At that time, the 50k racewalk was held on an out-and-back course. We basically followed the same course as the marathon runners, but we added about two-and-a-half miles extra at the end before we turned around to head back. We started in the stadium and did a lap-and-a-half. We were fairly bunched and then the separation started. I was never a contender. I was way back. One of the factors that helped me with my place was that it was a ninety-degree day. I didn’t mind that at all. I came from a hot part of the United States. Also, my Olympic Trials race in Baltimore was on a ninety-degree day. I was able to prosper in the heat. It knocked out a bunch of my European competitors and many were on the DNF list including the Russian who held the pending World Record and John Thompson of England who went on the win the 50k racewalk in the following Olympics in Rome in 1960. Many guys wound up on the DNF list, but I plugged it out and wound up eleventh. I wasn’t close at all to the winner, Norman Reed of New Zealand, but I was proud that I finished in those difficult conditions. So, I can always say that I finished eleventh in the Olympics. The story behind the story is that the heat knocked out some of the more well-known competitors.
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Since you finished in eleventh place and your USA teammate, Leo Sjogren, finished in twelfth place only twenty seconds behind you, did the two of you stay close together along the way or did you just end up close as one of you either faded or picked up the pace?
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Leo was ahead of me most of the way, but he began to hurt the last few miles. He also had suffered an injury before the Games. Leo was a very gutsy guy even with that injury. He was determined to finish as we all were. I passed him during the last two miles after he was ahead of me the whole way.
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Your third USA teammate, Adolf Weinacker, finished in seventh place. Was there a sense of USA team pride since the USA was the only country to have three finishers?
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Yes, we were the only three-man country to finish. Adolf competed nobly and that was one of the best finishing places ever by an American in the 50k racewalk. The British did not finish three athletes. The Russians did not finish three. The Australians started three but one of those guys got a DNF. We took great pride in finishing as a team, which was very nice.
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Did you attend Opening and Closing Ceremonies and what are your memories if you did attend?
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I attended the Opening Ceremonies. At that time, track and field was held during the first week of the Olympic Games rather than the second week like it is now. We arrived early, about a week-and-a-half before the Games started and we got acclimated. We were in the Opening Ceremonies but not in the Closing Ceremonies because the U.S. Olympic organization sent us home after that first week of track and field. We had a dual meet against the British Empire, as they were called then, in Sydney after the Olympic competition and then we flew back. I was home in New York when the Closing Ceremonies were held. They didn’t keep everyone there for the full two weeks.
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Did you attend many other events in athletics and other sports and what are your main recollections of the competition?
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I did not get to see the other sports like I had wished. But, in a break of good fortune, the 50k racewalk was held on the first Tuesday of the Games and that freed me to see the remaining track and field events as a spectator. I was able to watch my wonderful teammates. If my event had been on the last day of track and field, as the marathon was, I would have been training and resting and would have missed a lot of great competition. That was a break of fortune the way the schedule worked out.
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How strong was the 1956 U.S. Olympic team?
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I will summarize the performances of the U.S. team. Very people recognize this, but I consider the 1956 Olympic team to be the greatest USA men’s track and field team based on the numbers. There were twenty-four men’s events, and the United States won fifteen of them. Now, we are fortunate to win four, five, or six men’s events. The USA only won four Gold Medals in 2012 at the London Olympics. In addition to the fifteen Gold Medals in 1956, the USA had four sweeps of Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals. I believe they set one World Record and broke four Olympic Records. It was an amazing achievement. No Olympic team will ever beat that. Of course, the Games were less global back then. The African nations were starting to come of age in track and field. Jamaica was not the power it is now. The Caribbean was not a powerful area like it is now.
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You must have seen some amazing events such as Bob Richards in the pole vault, Milt Campbell in the decathlon, Bobby Morrow in the sprints and so much more.
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I saw Bobby Morrow win both sprints. Being from the east, I took special pride in seeing Charlie Jenkins, who was only a sophomore at Villanova, win the 400 meters. That was a race that Lou Jones was heavily favored to win as he went in as the World Record holder. One thing that was different was that the semifinals and finals were on the same day, and they only had a couple hours of rest. Lou Jones faded in the stretch and Charlie Jenkins, this young sophomore from Villanova, went on to win the race beautifully. In the 800 meters, another guy who went to a New York school like me, Tom Courtney of Fordham University, ran an incredible race to beat Derek Johnson of Great Britain by a stride. Milton Campbell of Plainfield, New Jersey won the decathlon. That was an event that Rafer Johnson was favored to win, but Milt won by a large margin, possibly the largest margin ever in an Olympic decathlon. Greg Bell of Indiana won the long jump. Al Oerter won the first of his four Gold Medals in the discus. He made the team at age nineteen and had his twentieth birthday during the time of the Games. Al was a young lad from Long Island and won the first of his four Golds though he wasn’t favored to win. That was one of the three Gold Medals the USA won in the throwing events. Perry O’Brien, a great Southern Californian, won the shot put. Harold Connolly, from Boston, won the hammer throw and is the last American to win that event. Harold is a great guy. He is an exception like Bob Schul in the 5,000 meters and Billy Mills in the 10,000 meters, both in 1964, and Horace Ashenfelter in the steeplechase in 1952, who are the only Americans to ever win their events in the Olympics. We had Gold Medalists in the hammer throw before Harold Connolly, but none since him. Harold went on to make four Olympic teams as Al Oerter did. One of the 1956 unsung heroes was Albert Hall, from Cornell University, who made the same four Olympic teams as Harold Connolly in the hammer throw. They were the best buddies, but Albert never made the podium though he was right in there. Of course, there was Charlie Dumas, the first man to high jump seven feet, which was an amazing performance. In the hurdles, Lee Calhoun won the first of his two Gold Medals in the 110-meter high hurdles as he won again in 1960 in Rome. Glenn Davis, from Ohio State, was the first to break fifty seconds in the 400-meter hurdles. Bob Richards repeated as Olympic pole vault champion and was the only vaulter to repeat until Mondo Duplantis did this year in Paris after he won in Tokyo. There were so many incredible people.
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When you returned home to the USA after the Olympics, were there any receptions or parties or did you just continue with your normal life?
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In fact, there was one function. Mayor Robert Wagner was the Mayor of New York City, and he had a reception at City Hall in Manhattan. It was a gala but there was no parade. I did not deserve a parade (laughing). Here is an aside – there was a playground close to where I lived, and I would wear my USA uniform some days when I walked laps around there. Nobody even mentioned my singlet or its significance. My joke I told was, ‘They probably thought USA stood for the Uptown Sports Association.’ My buddies that were part of the incredible record of fifteen Gold Medals did deserve parades. Of course, the women only competed in eight events. Women’s track and field in the United States was nothing like it is these days. We only won one women’s event and that was Mildred McDaniel in the high jump. The ladies weren’t the contending factor like they are now, and Title IX probably is the big reason.
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Before competing in the Olympics, in the U.S. an athlete must finish in the top three at the Olympic Trials to make the team. Additionally, the fourth-place finisher is the first alternate and competes if one of the top three is injured or declines the spot. Can you tell us about your race plan at the Olympic Trials, how the race developed as you did the 50k round trip from Patterson Park to Sparrow’s Pont, Maryland and back and how you ended up representing the USA after finishing in fourth place?
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I remember the exact date the 50k Trials were held which was September 16, 1956, in Baltimore. Just like the Olympic race, it was an out-and-back course. It started from Patterson Park, went out about fifteen miles, and came back. Then we went once around the big reservoir. Just like in the Games, it was a brutally hot day of ninety plus degrees. Some of the people who were much better known than I was suffered incredibly through the heat. I just plugged it out. Believe it or not, that was the first 50k of my life. I had never competed over 50k. I had walked 40ks previously. But not 50k. There were no qualifying standards because there were so few races held at that distance. It was an open race, and we just had to pay a two-dollar entry fee and have an AAU card. That is what got me in the Olympic Trials. I walked onward and had no idea what place I was in as people ahead of me were fading out of the picture. When I got to the final area after the finish line, my brother was there with me, and he told me I had placed fourth. I thought that was great and a lot better than I expected to finish. When we took showers afterwards, a gentleman named Jim Hewson, from Buffalo, New York, came up to me to chat. A little background about Jimmy is that he was an older guy who had been a paratrooper in World War II. He had seen a lot of really fierce action and was a very tough guy. He had already won the Olympic Trials 20k race in Pittsburgh three weeks earlier. His preference was to only walk the 20k in the Olympics as he thought that would be his best distance. So, in the shower he spoke the six words that were to change my whole life, ‘Kid, you can have my spot.’ I was ecstatic, flabbergasted, and amazed. I couldn’t react to it immediately. And I wasn’t chosen for the team immediately either. It took approval by the U.S. Olympic Committee for the fourth placer to be elevated and, fortunately, they said, ‘Yes.’ I got that letter about a week later saying that I was chosen. I thought, ‘Wow! My life is going to change.’ And it sure has.
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How exciting was it for your brother, Marty, your parents, and your friends when they knew you were going to the Olympics?
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It was amazingly exciting, amazingly so. They held a little party before I left for the Olympics. Coach Joe Yancy of the New York Pioneer Club was there. It was a modest party at my parent’s home in New York. Then we went to Los Angeles for processing, to receive our uniforms, and for a week of training. That was the first airplane ride of my life going from LaGuardia airport to Los Angeles. Speaking of flights, I had always been a great fan of the sport and, four years earlier, I talked my mom in taking me to Idlewild Airport, as Kennedy Airport was known at the time, to see the 1952 Olympic team off on their trip to Helsinki, Finland. I remember reading in the newspaper which flight they were going to be on, and that the public was welcome to wave to them and wish them good luck. So, I went out there with my mom to Idlewild Airport and cheered for those guys. It was beyond my absolutely wildest dream that four years later I would be on the USA Olympic team myself. To this day, I am amazed how things happened that way.
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You mentioned that, prior to the 1956 Olympic Trials 50-kilometer race, your longest race had been forty kilometers, and it was the first time you had ever gone that distance. What were you doing in training as far as weekly mileage, long walks, speed sessions and preparatory races in advance of the Olympic Trials, and did you change anything in your preparation in advance of the Olympics?
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I built up my mileage gradually over a period of several years. I started competing seriously in 1954 which was my sophomore year at NYU. During the winter we had short races indoors of one mile. Then outdoors we had road races that were usually 10k. I did not do any racing that was longer until the fall of 1954 when I did a 30k in Philadelphia. I finished pretty well and began to think I had some ability at longer distances. My graduation present in 1956 from NYU was a railroad ticket to Cincinnati. I was not on a scholarship. They rewarded me with that round trip to Cincinnati, so I got on a train and went to race the National 40k racewalk championship in Cincinnati. I did well and came in sixth place. That gave me confidence that I could do well at longer distances. Another break of fortune was the scheduling of the Games. Since they were in the southern hemisphere, it was the latest the Olympics were ever held. They were scheduled to start the last week in November and continue into December. The regular track and field trials were held in June at the Los Angeles Coliseum and there was an epic night when Charlie Dumas jumped the first seven-foot high jump and Glenn Davis ran the first sub-fifty 400-meter hurdles. They were both on the same night. I was a long shot to make the team, but I had a few more months to prepare for the Olympic Trials in Baltimore and that worked to my advantage. I was doing my short, faster walking on the track. Then I did long walks and went all over New York City and Westchester County. That gave me the confidence that I could finish 50k.
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ATHLETICS DURING YOUTH, HIGH SCHOOL, AND COLLEGE We’ve discussed highlights of your Olympic experience, but let’s go back to where it all started as a youth and teenager. You didn’t compete in track and field like your older brother, Marty, who was a sprinter, though you did manage the team. Were you athletic and a participant in many sports?
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I actually ran a couple of races under the auspices of the P.A.L., the Police Athletic League, at the playground across the street from where we lived and that was fun. I went on to Taft High School in the Bronx, New York. It’s on the grand concourse, eight blocks from Yankee Stadium. I was the manager of the track and field team and also wrote for the high school newspaper. I ran in one dual meet. The coach tried to have maximum representation in all the meets, and he had eleven guys ready to run the mile relay. He had an ‘A team,’ a ‘B team,’ and three guys to run on the ‘C team’ relay. So, he said, ‘Denman, do you want to run on the C mile relay?’ It was a dual meet against Cardinal Hayes High School. I said, ‘Sure,’ and I changed from being the manager to the anchor man on the C mile relay against Cardinal Hayes. Of course, we finished way back. That was my only race as a high school athlete. I started getting interested in racewalking after high school. Once I joined the full team at NYU, that propelled me and helped me move up gradually one step at a time up the ladder. That is the story of my early days. Another side note is that my high school, Taft High School, finally had another Olympian this year. This fellow, Salif Mane, who was number one for the USA in the triple jump is a graduate of Taft High School which is now called Taft Educational Center. He went to the same high school as me and lived in the same area of the Bronx as I did right off the grand concourse. I am immensely proud of him. He went from Taft to Farley Dickinson and jumped over fifty-seven feet.
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How did it come about that NYU’s Coach Emil Von Elling introduced you to race walking and the New York Pioneers’ Joe Yancey continued your development?
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Coach Von Elling was an older guy. He was already in his seventies and was one of the famous veteran coaches of that day. Track and Field was very big at all the New York City schools. The New York City area had great veteran coaches. There was George Eastment at Manhattan College, Art O’Connor at Fordham, John Gagliardi at St. Johns, and Edgar Mason at Columbia. Coach Von Elling was a man who had seen it all at NYU. He had been the assistant coach of the 1932 Olympic team and five of his NYU athletes competed at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1932. He was the Olympic assistant coach again in 1948, so he knew the sport thoroughly. As a younger guy, he saw the heyday of American racewalking in the 1920s when racewalkers were truly appreciated for what they did. He knew all of those guys. Some were still living in the New York area and would pop up on the NYU campus to say ‘hi’ to Coach Von Elling. That’s how I met some really great people including a guy named George Bonhag who, unbelievably, won the 1,500-meter racewalk Gold Medal at the 1906 Olympics. He was still around. He came up and saw our campus in the Bronx and Coach Von Elling introduced me to him. I met many of the greats of a bygone era thanks to Coach Von Elling. He wasn’t so much of a hands-on guy, but he was encouraging. My other coach was Joe Yancey of the New York Pioneer Club. He was a wonderful guy. Everybody knew the New York Pioneers for our sprinters, but we also had the best racewalking team in the country. We also had great marathoners including Ted Corbitt and Gordon McKenzie. Coach Yancey was incredibly supportive of the racewalking team.
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What was the impact of the great racewalker, Henry Laskau, on your development in the sport?
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The man I owe so much to is Henry Laskau. Henry’s life story, at least the basics, was he was born in Germany and had to flee from Germany and, fortunately, he was able to come to the United States. He was able to serve in the Second World War and did many great things. As a young man he had been a particularly good 1,500-meter runner but, as a young Jewish guy, he was precluded from competing in the Olympics or any of the German Olympic Trials. It was clear to him that life was going to get tougher there, so he was fortunate enough to flee Germany. For so many others, we know the story, and they weren’t able to. Henry came to the United States as a runner, but he met the coach of the 92nd Street YMHA in New York City which had an extraordinarily strong racewalking program over the years. So, Henry got into racewalking and, lo and behold, he made the 1948 Olympic team, the 1952 team and 1956 was his third Olympic team. Being a very gracious guy, he was happy to see a young guy coming along and he took me under his wing. I did training sessions with him indoors, outdoors, and all over the place. He worked on my technique. He was incredibly supportive. I remember many Sunday morning workouts out of their home in Minneola, Long Island, and Mrs. Laskau would dish up some nice pancakes after we came home. Those are great memories. Also, Bruce McDonald, my fellow NYU teammate, was coming along. Bruce went on to make three Olympic teams. Bruce was very supportive also. We did a lot of good workout sessions together. All these guys were tremendously helpful and supportive at the time and that’s what helped me get my own opportunity. I’m forever grateful to all those guys.
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POST-COLLEGIATE ATHLETICS After competing in the Olympics and graduating from NYU, you matriculated into the U.S. Army. Did you compete in any meets or races during this time or was your race-walking on hold until after your military service ended?
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I like that word ‘matriculated.’ I didn’t quite matriculate as my services were requested. Two weeks after I returned from Melbourne, there was a letter waiting in the mail. Uncle Sam told me, ‘I Need You! Please report to the Whitehall Street processing station. The first or second week of January 1957 I was off for two years of army duty. I served most of it at Fort Benning, Georgia. They were kind to me. I had an office job. There were no combat situations in 1957 and 1958. I had a couple hours off every day to train, so I walked around Fort Benning and did interval work on their track. I was on the All-Army team, which was nice. I made trips to the nationals in 1957 and 1958 and some of my Olympic buddies were part of that team. Tom Courtney and Albert Hall were teammates. That was good and I got to see some of the country by being on the All-Army team. I did not contribute much to our national defense at that time (laughing). Of course, I would have if I were needed. The worst thing that happened those years was the Lebanon invasion. There were bad times in that country, just as there have been in recent years.
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In 1959 you were competing for the New York Pioneer Club and won the 3,000 meter and 50k National titles. Do you have any specific memories from these three races as to the courses, foes, and the competition?
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I was determined to make up for lost time when I got out of the army. I trained harder than ever before while working full time. When I came home from work, I would go out to a track or the park or do some road work. My favorite workout was nine or ten miles at ninety percent of race pace. It wasn’t fully race pace and wasn’t enough to knock me out. I did that three or four times a week and that is what got me in really good shape. By the spring of 1959, I was probably in my best shape ever. I won the National 3,000 meters at Boulder, Colorado. Boulder was at altitude and they thought everybody was going to suffer unduly. They offered oxygen to everyone after we crossed the line, but I didn’t suffer unduly. I beat the guy who beat me in the Metropolitan Championships two weeks prior to that, John Humcke, of the New York Athletic Club. I turned the card on John. Two weeks after that was what they called the AAU 50,000 meters back then. Now they call it fifty kilometers. It was held in Pittsburgh on a very warm day on a hilly course. I did quite well there and won. I won the shortest and longest National racewalk titles within a two-week period and I think only two or three people have ever done that in the same year.
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The race at the middle distance was the National 20k in Baltimore where you finished third behind Rudy Haluza and Fred Timco, while you were ahead of Jack Blackburn. Was that another hot day and tough race?
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That was the year that there was going to be the US-Soviet meet in Philadelphia and the race in Baltimore was the tryout for Philadelphia. Two of my buddies from the New York Pioneer Club finished first and second so I was the alternate for that event. I went to the meet as a spectator and it was amazing. It was held in brutal heat in Philadelphia in July. The 10,000 meters was held during the worst heat of the day. Bob Sohn, one of the Americans, collapsed and was carried off. He was in bad shape for a while. To make matters worse, the lap counters were not paying too much attention, and one guy ran an extra lap. Many strange things happened at that US-Soviet meet which was the first one ever held in the U.S. The previous one in 1958 was held in Russia. I got my picture in Sports Illustrated because I was leaning over the side of the stands at Franklin Field just as Bob Sohn was collapsing.
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Since 1960 was another Olympic year, what can you relate from your effort in the 1960 Olympic Trials?
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By then I was working and had a few injuries. It just didn’t work out. I didn’t walk in the 50k Olympic Trials. I walked the 20k and I was pretty far back. I had high hopes of making the team because in April of that year I beat Ron Zenn in a 20k race in Philadelphia. Ron went on to make the team. I wasn’t ready physically.
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In 1961 you won the Maccabiah Games 3,000-meter racewalk in Israel. What are your recollections from that race and visit to Israel? Did you race the Maccabiah Games in any other years?
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I was very, very fortunate because Henry Laskau conveniently and temporarily retired briefly and told the U.S. Maccabiah Games selection committee to name me to the 1961 team. He unretired the next year and went to the Maccabiah Games in 1962. The most important thing in 1961 was that we Gary Gubner competing in both the shot put and weightlifting and Dick Savitt, the 1951 Wimbledon champ, in tennis. The Games also had Dave Segal of Great Britain competing in the sprints. Dave later had a great collegiate career at Furman University. Rafer Johnson and John Thomas accompanied our U.S. team. When they got off the plane the Israelis were surprised, but they were just our special guests of the team. We all had a great time and enjoyed the history. They were our ‘secret weapons’ as special guests.
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After another long four years, how did the 1964 Olympic Trials go for you?
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I walked one more Olympic Trials in 1964 in the 20k and that wasn’t to be either. I had that one Olympic moment in 1956, and I am forever grateful for it.
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JOURNALISM, RACE DIRECTOR, THE SHORE AC TEAM AND COACH How did you transition to being a journalist and what are some of the challenges of reporting on events rather than competing?
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First, the background of my journalism career began when I wrote for the school newspaper at Taft High School. Also, I wrote for the NYU newspaper, the Commerce Bulletin. Those experiences were fun. But I was an accounting major at NYU because my parents urged me to go in that direction and they thought that was going to be my career field in the business world. But that was not to be. After working as an accountant for two years in New York I decided this was not going to be my destination. I didn’t like it, and I wasn’t doing well in that field. I took the most famous U-turn in my life. I took a trip down to an agency in New York, the Headline Agency, which specialized in newspaper jobs. At the time there were so many newspapers, both dailies and weeklies. I first worked at a place that I didn’t like. It was a twice weekly paper, and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to work for a daily newspaper. So, next I went to the second recommendation. It was a newspaper in Long Bridge, New Jersey. I didn’t even know where Long Bridge was as I had only been there once before in my life. I went there, explained my background and they thought I looked like a promising candidate. So, they hired me in the summer of 1960. I packed my bags, moved into a rooming house in Long Bridge, New Jersey and started my career there in January of 1961.
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How was this similar but different from your first journalism post?
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I was a general reporter. I covered several towns including governing bodies, municipal activities, and police activities. I was also ‘The Inquiring Photographer.’ That was a job I liked. The New York Daily News had a column called ‘The Inquiring Photographer.’ My job was patterned after that. I would stand on the street and ask passersby about one of the pressing questions of the day. My job was to get five people every day for this column. I enjoyed that immensely and I met remarkably interesting people and got many interesting answers. That column worked out very well. I was doing general reporting for two and a half years. At that time, the existing Sports Editor was drafted into the army. There was that opening and the Managing Editor, who knew about my own sports background said, ‘Elliott, would you like to be the Sport Editor of the paper.’ I thought about it, mulled it over and said, ‘Yes!’ That is when my life really changed. There were many excellent small newspapers, and it was a thriving time for newspapers.
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How did you end up at your final journalism stint at the Asbury Park Press?
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The much bigger newspaper in the area was the Asbury Park Press and I was recruited away by them. That was another major break in my life. I spent thirty-five years there as a writer and sports columnist for the Asbury Park Press. That is how I went back to the Olympics. I covered twelve Olympics and all sports. It was wonderful. I was at the Final Fours, World Series and All-Star Games as well as many track and field meets. I found a way to do something I liked. I can almost say that I don’t feel like I worked a day in my life. I had a real job, and though I wasn’t paid that much as a sportswriter, I had the opportunity to go around to all these events. I was able to keep the family alive while doing so, which was truly fortunate.
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You must have watched many young athletes who later became stars in their sport. Are there any particular stories that stand out in your memory?
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From my journalism days, my fondest memories were seeing the kids who I knew from the early days of their high school sports go on to much bigger and better things. There were so many occasions where that happened. One was Andrew Valmon, who I knew from his days at Manchester High School in New Jersey. He had a great college career at Seton Hall and competed in two Olympics. He went on to make history as he may have been the best leadoff runner on the four by 400-meter relays. He was on two World Record setting relay teams. Andrew went into college coaching and is now the head coach at the University of Maryland. He is the only U.S. male to be an Olympic Gold Medalist and the head coach of a U.S. men’s Olympic team, which he was in London in 2012. In another sport, a guy who I watched come up through the ranks around here was Tom Wilkens who was a great Olympic swimmer from Middletown, New Jersey. Another Olympic Gold Medal winner was Wendy Boglioli from Monmouth University. It is very thrilling to see athletes do so well, and I knew them when they were starting out in their athletic journey before their great achievements. In 1995 I did a feature on John Moon, the head coach of Seton Hall University. He had two young athletes on his team who were dating. They were getting very serious about each other. One was Kevin Lyles and the other was Keisha Bishop. Coach Moon said, ‘If they get married, their children are going to be very fast runners.’ Lo and behold, we have all seen what Noah Lyles has done. Coach Moon’s quote turned out to be one of the best I ever heard. What people don’t realize is that Kevin Lyles was a world class runner. who ran for the U.S. in the heats of a World Championships where the four by 400-meter relay team won the Gold Medal. Sydney McLaughlin’s father, Willie McLaughlin, was also a terrific 400-meter runner for Manhattan College.
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What was it like to be directing races in the early 1960s when racing was more in its infancy compared to today?
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It may have been a conflict of interest because I was directing races and then writing about them. But no one thought that was an issue. I invited some of my New York friends to compete in events I directed. The first event we did was a relay walk from Long Branch to Asbury Park twice. It was about five miles in each direction. We had teams from my New York Pioneer Club, the New York Athletic Club and from West Point including the great Ronald Zenn. That was great fun, and I wrote about it the next day. It was good for the newspaper
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How exciting was it to revive the Shore Athletic Club to provide camaraderie and a team for aspiring runners?
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I had been putting on races for a couple years and, in 1964, there was enough interest from people supporting these races that we thought it might be a good idea to organize and take the next step to form a club. We had a meeting at the Asbury Park YMCA. There was a truly diverse group of young guys and older guys. We voted to start a club and had to choose a name. The club was based at the shore. There were various names put forward. Striders was a common name in clubs and there was a suggestion to call ourselves the Jersey Striders. Another thought was the Jersey Athletic Club. A few of the older gentlemen at the meeting had competed for the old Shore Athletic Club. In the 1930s, one of the great clubs in America was the old Shore Athletic Club. John Borkin competed for them. He was an incredible athlete and a national decathlon champion. When Eulis Peacock beat Jesse Owens at the 1935 National Track and Field Championships, one of the biggest upsets in history, he was representing the old Shore Athletic Club. Few people know that. In 1938 at the U.S. Nationals in Milwaukee, Blaine Rideout of the Shore AC beat the famous Glenn Cunningham to win the 1,500 meters. So, the old club had a couple devoted gentlemen who loved the sport and would do anything to promote it. They were schoolteachers, but they were also track fans. This is a resort area in the summer and they had a rooming house. They would invite great athletes from around the country to work at the hotel as bellhops, room clerks or other jobs. On weekends, they would hop in cars and drive along the east coast to wherever there was a big meet. They would go to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Toronto – wherever the meets were held. They were among the greatest of all time. John Borkin and Eulis Peacock are in the Hall of Fame. The Rideout brothers came all the way from Illinois to run for the Shore AC. We also had some home-grown guys. One was Dick Dansler who was an NCAA pole vault champion from Colombia. Don Johnson was one of the older gentlemen at the meeting and he suggested, ‘Why don’t we bring back the name of the old Shore AC?’ We hadn’t thought of that. We discussed it and decided that it was a wonderful idea. That is why we adopted the name Shore Athletic Club. We built on that great structure and adopted those athletes as part of our story. Another sidelight to the old Shore Athletic Club is that they had many National champions. The earliest one I could find was when Eulis Peacock won the National pentathlon championship in 1933. To put that in perspective, that was fourteen years before Jackie Robinson emerged as a major league baseball player. The old Shore Athletic Club had people of all different ethnicities. There were many African American guys, and everyone trained together and travelled together. They were doing this before Major Leage Baseball, the NFL and the NBA saw the light. Those were wonderful days, and they were real leaders. In track and field, the richest club was the New York Athletic Club, and it may not have been until 1980 that they saw the light. So, I am proud to be a part of history that goes back to the 1930s.
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While you were working as a journalist, directing races, and helping to revive the Shore Athletic Club, what were highlights of your stint as coach of the Monmouth Cross Country and Track and Field teams in the mid-1960s?
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It was not a full-time position as I continued my newspaper job. The hours were flexible. Monmouth, which is here in West Long Branch, started as a junior college back in 1933. It became a four-year college around 1950. The sporting program had particularly good basketball teams. They were initially in the NAIA and then eventually in NCAA Division III. Mr. Borlin, who was the Athletic Director and the basketball coach, knew about my track and field background. I had interviewed him, we were good friends, and he knew about my history in the sport. He asked me into his office one day and said, ‘Elliott, we want to start a track team.’ And he offered me the job. I said, ‘Yes, of course. That will be fun.’ I started in the fall of 1966, and we had cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field. We had one terrific athlete from the very beginning. Augie Zellincar had competed for Villanova for two years. In high school, he was a champion shot putter in New Jersey in high school. At Villanova he had learned to be a hammer thrower. He finished up his last two years at Monmouth. He won the Penn Relays. At the NCAAs there wasn’t Division II and Division III. There was a College Division which he won. He was a terrific hammer thrower and got to the finals of the Olympic Trials. We built the team around him. He had a fine career at Monmouth College, and I still see him periodically. Over the years, Monmouth moved from NAIA to NCAA Division II to NCAA Division I. They play a tough national schedule in all sports and have had three Olympians. There were Gold Medalists in swimming and soccer. This year, Monmouth had their first track and field Olympian, the young lady, Allie Wilson, in the 800 meters. She won the NCAA indoors at altitude in Albuquerque and placed second at the Olympic Trials.
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RACE VIEWING AND REPORTING HIGHLIGHTS What do you remember most from your first forays into watching track and field as a spectator with your mom way back in 1945?
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I was eleven years old. World War II was fortunately coming to a close. The war in Europe had ended. The war with Japan was still raging. The USA National AAU Championships had been held in New York City for four of the war years and this was the last of that streak. It was held at Triborough Stadium on Randall’s Island. It has been the site of so many epic events over the years including the 1936 Olympic Trials where Jesse Owens earned his opportunity to go on to Berlin and win his four Gold Medals. It was an epic place loaded with history and I was delighted to be there to see these great athletes compete for the U.S National Championship in my backyard. My mom was kind enough to take me there. I saw some old-timers perform and also some newcomers and it was great. I remember seeing Barney Ewell win the 100-meter dash in 10.3 seconds which I believe was a meet record. In the high jump, I saw Dave Albritton from Ohio compete. He was one of the guys who had competed in the 1936 Olympics, and he was still jumping. There was a big upset in the 1,500 meters. Roland Sink from Southern California, who was an unknown runner to me, beat Jimmy Rafferty who had been virtually unbeaten during the indoor seasons of the last two years. Those are some of the highlights I remember. It was a great meet and drew a big crowd.
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Since you are from the New York area, what are some of your fondest memories of reporting on the Millrose Games, since you first attended as a fan in 1948 when you were still in high school? Do any Wanamaker Mile races with strong racers like Don Gehrmann, Eamonn Coghlan and Bernard Lagat stand out for a dominant win or big kick to win at the tape?
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When I go back to my early days, I went to my first Millrose Games when I was in junior high school. There were tickets reserved for junior and senior high school students in New York City. As soon as the gates opened, you had to rush up about ten flights of steps to the top of Madison Square Garden to find a seat right at the rail if you were quick enough. I was and I saw the great Gil Dodds run a 4:05.3 mile which was an indoor World Record that took 2.1 seconds off the old record set by Leslie Mitchell, one of my NYU heroes, and equaled by a few other guys. He won by about half a lap over some very good milers. I said, ‘This guy is wonderful. He is sure to win the Olympic Games.’ And he could of and should of but, like so many others that year, he was injured by the time of the Olympic Trials in June. Harrison Dillard suffered an injury as did Charlie Fonville, the World Record holder in the shot put. One of my early lessons was that nothing is assured in track and field. None of your previous credentials will get you to the line first. You’ve got to do it on the day. That is a lesson I learned from Gil Dodds. He was called ‘The Flying Parson’ and was a vicar and a graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois. That was the great Gil Dodds.
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It is hard to find anyone who was at the next event on my radar, but you were there. What are your recollections of the 1953 National AAU Decathlon battle between Milt Campbell and Bob Richards, who was more known for his pole vaulting, that you watched from the stands at Plainfield, New Jersey High School Stadium?
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It was held in Milton Campbell’s hometown and there was a full house at Plainfield High School Stadium in tribute to Milt. He had won the Silver Medal in the decathlon while still a high school student the year before at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952. I don’t remember too many specifics, but I remember Milton was brilliant and adored by his hometown fans over the two days. A few other times, either before 1953 or after 1953, the national Decathlon Championship was held at the hometown of the defending champion. I thought that was great for the sport because they drew big crowds, and the National Champion was adored by his hometown fans, friends, and neighbors. They got away from that in recent years and I think that is to the detriment of the decathlon. I don’t know why they do that, but it is now held in conjunction with the U.S. Track and Field Championships. It is just an added event. If they put it back in the hometown of the defending champion or a leading star, it would work wonders. It would probably fill a high school stadium with seven or eight thousand people and all ten events would be cheered, but they do not do that now. They held it in other years in Tulary, California for Bob Mathias, and in Kingsford, California for Rafer Johnson. Imagine how great it would have been if they held it in Bend, Oregon for Ashton Eaton. It would have been sensational. But it was held in Eugene, Oregon as just another event that was part of the U.S. Track and Field Championships and nobody paid much attention.
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We are going to leap forward to a story of which most track and field fans are unaware that I found to be amazing that you witnessed. Can you relate the amazing story of Manasquan High School javelin thrower, Barbara Friedrich, whose 198-8 throw in 1967 was an American Record and a prelude to her winning at the Pan Am Games?
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Barbara has not faded away. She is alive and well and living in Spring Lake Heights, New Jersey. We are in touch all the time. We drive to meets together and Barbara helps me get around. She lost her husband, sadly, earlier this year, so she is going through tough times. When we go back to 1967, Barbara was a senior at Manasquan High School, which was also attended by the famous Hollywood star, Jack Nicholson. Girls’ track was in its early days in New Jersey and across the country. They held a girls’ field day. My newspaper at that time, the Asbury Park Press, sponsored a girls’ invitational event at the State track and field meet, which was before the high school track and field association saw the light and did the same thing. Barbara had a coach named Mister George Bauer, who was the boys track coach at Manasquan High School. He saw her potential. She was throwing great distances with the girls’ javelin in the boys’ meets. Of course, she didn’t count in the results. Coach Bauer saw this potential and got her going in the right direction. She was a great all-around athlete. In 1964 as only a freshman in high school she competed in the pentathlon at Randall’s Island and at the Olympic Trials. She finished sixth in the Olympic Trials as a high school freshman. It was hard to believe as she was so young. In 1967, which was her senior year, she was really coming on strongly. There was a meet where I was on the committee. It was an All-Star meet with the best of Monmouth County and the best of Ocean County. We added a couple of girls’ events and one of those was the javelin throw. It was a cool night in Long Branch, New Jersey and Barbara let the javelin fly. Most of the officials were standing around a hundred forty or a hundred and fifty feet away. They saw it fly over their heads. They had to run to find the landing spot and get it officially measured. One of the officials said, ‘I thought that javelin was going to fly forever.’ Barbara did throw it 198-8 and it was the best throw of her life.
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That wasn’t the end of her great achievements. Can you relate a bit more of Barbara’s career highlights?
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She had several other javelin throws in the 190s after that. She won the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, Canada, that summer after her senior year of high school graduation. She did make the Olympic team in 1968 where she would have been a top contender for a medal. But I believe she had an elbow injury, was not at her best and finished in ninth place. She kept competing though there was no collegiate women’s track and field to speak of. She attended Newark College and Kein University. They let her enter open meets for the college though she was not actually representing the college. There were no NCAA Championships for the ladies at that time. In 1972 she missed her second Olympic team by the narrowest of margins. Barbara and Roberta Brown both threw 170-7 to tie for third place. They went to each of their second-best throws and Barbara lost out that way. She was heartbroken as she wanted to go to a second Olympic Games, but that didn’t happen. She competed for many years and even was in the World Masters Championships in Buffalo. She was terrific in other sports – golf and tennis. Her heroine was Babe Didrickson Zaharias who went from a track background to the Olympics and became one of the all-time great golfers. Barbara had a very long teaching career at Tomsur High School South. She retired as a teacher a few years ago and now remains a track and field fan. We go to meets together and she loves being a representative of the Olympic cause. She has an Olympic torch I let her borrow from me and she proudly takes it to events around here where she is an Olympic representative. She is Barbara Parzinski now because she married a man with that name about forty years ago. When they started the National Scholastic Track and Field Hall of Fame, Barbara was a member of the inaugural class.
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The whole nation, including me, turned on our televisions on May 16, 1971 to watch the ‘Dream Mile’ featuring Marty Liquori and Jim Ryun. What are your memories of the excitement of the fans, how the two men raced, and the duel as they came off the last turn as you watched from the press box?
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It was electric. There were supporting events leading up to the mile race. There were over forty thousand people there, basically to see two guys running one mile. Franklin Field is the home of the Penn Relays where there were routinely forty or fifty thousand people in attendance, if not sixty thousand fans. Philadelphia is an exceptionally good track town, and the fans turned out en masse for this race. There was a big build up to it. Two friendly rivals went at it. I remember that Marty made his big move with about 600 meters to go. He surprised Jim who thought, perhaps, the big move would come with three hundred meters to go or less. Marty got the edge at that point and maintained the pace to the end. It was a great race and a great event for track and field. Marty was sensational from his high school days at Essex Catholic in New Jersey to his days at Villanova and thereafter when the 5,000 meters became his best event, and he won the World Cup one year. Marty had a brilliant career. I’m an adopted New Jerseyan but have come to appreciate the luster of so many good runners who have come from this small state. Marty ranks up there with all of them.
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Let’s stick with the mile and talk about the ‘Chairman of the Boards.’ Barriers are meant to be broken and what are your takeaways from Eamonn Coghlan, who was known for racing strong indoors with his short stature, racing 3:49.78 to win the mile at the Vitalis/US Olympic Invitation Meet on February 28, 1983 on the boards over Ray Flynn and Steve Scott as you viewed from the press section?
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In my humble opinion, Eamonn Coghlan was the last great indoor track athlete. Eamonn was so popular that he could sell out Madison Square Garden and the other arenas all over the country. When he retired, it indirectly led to the decline of indoor track. Without Eamonn, there were no sell-outs at Madison Square Garden and that is why the Millrose Games moved to the 68th Street Armory in New York City. It is a faster track, but Eamonn proved a person could run fast races on the shorter tracks. My memory of that World Record race starts about two weeks before when there was a big snow and the Vitalis/US Olympic Invitation Meet was postponed. None of the athletes could get into New York City. The National AAU meet fell on the Friday before this meet was held at the New Jersey Meadowlands on a Sunday. That was a magnificent track, ten laps to the mile and steeply banked, on which Eamonn excelled. He helped design the track when that building was constructed primarily as a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets and Seton Hall University. There was only this one meet each year. Eamonn ran brilliantly to race that 3:49.78 and to beat Ray Flynn, Steve Scott, and others. They all ran fast. I can remember that time forever. That is still the fastest mile ever run in the state of New Jersey, indoors or outdoors. It is also one of the fastest in indoor history. Doina Melinte of Romania ran a 4:19 mile on that track which was a record at the time. (Note – Melinte ran 4:18.86 in 1988 and 4:17.14 in 1990, both World Records)
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What are your thoughts on Carl Lewis doing the ‘Jesse Owens quadruple’ in 1984 which also started his string of the ‘Al Oerter field event four,’ with four straight Olympic long jump titles, and which is the harder feat?
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As far as his performance in Los Angeles, you can’t beat four Gold Medals. I don’t have the details in front of me, but his Olympic Gold Medal total of nine should have been ten because in 1988 there was a baton pass miss in the prelims and Carl never did get to run that final. To this day, he is very bitter about that. The coaches used some substitutes who he thought shouldn’t have run. They thought there was a conflict of interest and that was one nasty moment. In Carl’s final Olympics in 1996 there was this whole turmoil in the media as he barely made the team in the long jump and did not in the 100 meters. All these famous columnists around the country were writing about a sport they didn’t understand and were saying things like, ‘Why isn’t Carl Lewis running in the relay?’ He did not win a spot on the 100-meter team and did not go to relay practice. Canada won the relay Gold Medal, and so, good for them. They got the stick around the track and won it fair and square. Carl was so great that he may have added to that total since he started coming of age in the sport in 1979 when he was just out of high school at Willingboro High School. I remember the first time I met him and talked to him was at the Pan American Games in 1979 and he was just a young athlete who was promising. He was on the brink of being a great international runner but there were no Olympic Games for the USA in 1980. He had the potential then in 1980. Carl was another of those athletes who could fill arenas, probably not as much as Eamonn Coghlan. The long jump was not contested at all the indoor meets, but the Millrose Games added it for him and that is where he set the still standing indoor World Record (note – Carl jumped 28-10 ¼ on January 27, 1984).
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How amazing was the 1991 World Championships long jump where Mike Powell won with a leap of 29-4 ½ while Carl Lewis jumped over 29 feet three times?
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I was fortunate to be in Tokyo for that event. One thing I talk about is to draw a parallel between Tokyo in 1991 and Mexico City in 1968. At both moments, for a short window of time, there was a storm in the distance and there was very light air that was especially lighter than normal. That’s the way it was in Mexico City when Bob Beamon jumped the first twenty-nine foot long jump. That was also the narrow time frame when Lee Evans and Larry James were the first two men to break forty-four seconds in the 400 meters. It was almost the exact situation in Tokyo in 1991 – a storm brewing, light air, and great athletes who were ready. Mike Powell had a superb day, and he beat Carl fair and square. It was the greatest competition ever in the long jump, but I think the light air was a factor.
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Soon you are going to be publishing ‘Ninety Recollections from Ninety Years,’ are there two or three athletes, feats and competitions that are especially memorable from your decades covering track and field?
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I’ll mention a couple of meets. I was fortunate to go to the Weltklasse Track and Field meet in Zurich, Switzerland two times and I was incredibly impressed by the Swiss fans. Until recently, Switzerland didn’t have many of its own stars, but these fans were so intense about the sport. They gave all the athletes their proper due. The meet was so well done. There were about ten invited stars and, before the meet started, there was a parade with them sitting in the back of convertible cars and waving to the fans. There were cheers of ‘Sergei Bubka! Sergei Bubka!’ and ‘Michael Johnson! Michael Johnson!’ The fans were so amazing. That is one of my great memories. I also remember seeing Haile Gebreselassie go well under thirteen minutes for 5,000 meters. I thought, ‘Wow! How can anybody do that?’ He was one of the great stars of the meets in Zurich. I also was able to stay with one of my old New York Pioneer teammates who was living in Zurich, which made it more special. The New York Pioneer Club was coached by the great Joe Yancey who was very outspoken about the issue of discrimination in the sport. He was not a good politician, and he roused some people. He never was coach of the U.S. Olympic team, but he did coach the Jamaica Olympic team for two or three Olympics. The Jamaican team famously won the four by 400-meter relay in the 1952 Olympics, beating the U.S. team and setting a World Record. I knew both George Rhoden and Herb McKenley from that Jamaican relay team. I did not know Arthur Wint and Les Laing. George Rhoden was a familiar figure in New Jersey as he ran for Morgan State. Herb McKenley was one of the stars of the old Shore Athletic Club. Even though the United States didn’t win, I cheered for Jamaica because of Joe Yancey. So many great athletes were New York Pioneers including Bob Beamon, John Carl, Craig Masback, Mike Shine and Reggie Pearman. They were great people, and I was proud to be part of that.
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MISCELLANEOUS AND WRAP UP I’ve raced the New York City Marathon three times. What are your recollections from your thirty-three straight years of walking the New York City Marathon from 1979 to 2011 as to the crowds, weather, and excitement amongst the participants?
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Of course, it started in Central Park before it became a five-borough race. In 1979, they finally announced that walkers were eligible to compete. My friend, Harold Jacobsen, got the New York Road Runners to add an official walking division. When I heard that, I wanted to walk in the race, and I signed up. I was able to do thirty-three in a row through 2011. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit, and the race was cancelled. In 2012, I had not trained enough to finish. Over the thirty-three times. There were lots of memories. Of course, since I was walking, I was in the slow echelon. I had as much fun as any of the runners. Crowds were out in the five boroughs in a city where that doesn’t happen too often. There was great diversity, and it brought the whole city together. We went through many ethnic neighborhoods. In Brooklyn there were many people of Scandinavian heritage waving Norwegian and Swedish flags. There were Italian neighborhoods and Jewish neighborhoods. Everyone was out there yelling and screaming, and it was wonderful. The spectators were out there for the slow people as well as the fast athletes. I was one of the slow people and enjoyed it as much as the fast runners – even more so because I was out there longer. I loved every step of the way.
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Is it both an honor and humbling to be inducted into the NYU Hall of Fame in 2008 and to have the New Jersey International Track and Field Meet at Monmouth University named in your honor?
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I never wanted any of these accolades. I never looked for them. But they happened and I welcome them. Most recently I received the Bob Hersch Award for Lifetime service to the sport of track and field from the Track and Field Writers Association of America and that was very nice. It honors Bob Hersch, who did so much for the sport. It is an honor to be on that list with Bob. Honors have come my way, and I appreciate them, but that was not why I was involved in this sport for so many years. I enjoyed the great people I have met and the opportunities to have these great experiences. It is a great sport with so many lifetime benefits. I’m ninety years old and am trying to get around as well as I can.
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Celebrating your life well-lived must have been extremely exciting at your 85th birthday celebration in 2019 and 90th birthday celebration earlier this year. What can you relate from the amazing attendees, stories, and fellowship from those two wonderful celebrations?
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Five years ago, for my 85th birthday, it was a great celebration with fourteen Olympians in attendance. We had so many shared experiences, we cherish those memories and it was great to look back on those moments. I want to share these moments from the past with young people because I love track and field history and reminding people of some of the great events of the past. I’m looking forward to even better experiences ahead. The sport is evolving with super shoes, pace lights and super tracks so, naturally, athletes are going to get faster. But some from the past may have been better. The pole vault is a prime example. It is a quite different event and there should be records for the different poles used over the years. The high hurdles are another example that I hadn’t heard about until Renaldo Nehemiah told me. He thought his 12.93 time from 1981 should still be listed as a record because now the hurdles have a rubberized material at the top rather than the hard wood in his day. If a hurdler whacked a hurdle back then, they really banged up their knee and usually couldn’t continue if they hit one hurdle. Now they just bounce off the hurdles and keep going without any problem. That is an issue that hasn’t been explored.
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Since you are ninety years old and have had some health challenges in recent years, are you able to do some walking, other cardiovascular exercise, and resistance training to maintain your fitness?
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I do the best I can. Walking is difficult. I walk around the block. There are no more fifty-mile races. I’m not being encouraged to drive by my family. But I will still drive around the block a little bit. I have entered some shot-put competitions. It’s one thing I can still do, not very well and not very far, but I beat a lot of my absent friends. We had the USATF New Jersey State meet a few months ago and I won the shot put, having nobody else in my age division. Where are all those great shot putters of yesteryear? Anyway, it is a way to keep me at the meet.
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When you look back at your life, what are the major lessons you have learned from growing up through the 1930s Depression and 1940s World War II, your collegiate experience and military service, the discipline of athletics, the lessons you have learned from being a sports reporter and adversity you have encountered that sums up the ‘Elliott Denman Philosophy’ of being your best in athletics and life that you would like to share with my readers?
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For the superstars of the sport, a lot of it is good fortune and being healthy to be able to train precisely to reach their peak at the perfect moment of the day of the Olympic finals. In our sport, the Olympic Gold Medals are cherished above anything else, even the World Championship Medals. Outside of our sport, sadly, many people don’t even know the World Championships exist. You have to be at your best on the day. The Olympics only come once every four years and, if you have some good fortune on that day, you will be forever remembered as an Olympic Gold Medalist. Ninety-nine percent of the others don’t have that happen. Think of all the great champions who were not Gold Medalists. So, my philosophy is to be the best you can for the big occasions and good things may happen. If not, get on with life as life goes on.
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Inside Stuff |
| Hobbies/Interests |
I was a Boy Scout and the only one who liked those long hikes. I tried other sports – basketball, and tennis. I played playground basketball in New York. I played tennis a lot with my brother. As a young fan, I went to many Yankees baseball games, Giants football games, college basketball and college football games, and high school football games
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| Nicknames |
Some people shortened my name to ‘Ellie,’ but I didn’t really like that
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| Favorite movies |
My favorite movie has to be ‘Chariots of Fire.’ It is incredibly inspirational, has a track theme and a wonderful soundtrack. The music by Vangelis complements the epic story of the two British runners. It rang home to me on a couple of levels. Number one is that I am a big fan of British track, primarily through my wife being English. One of my great track friends over the years is Mel Watman, the great British Track and field writer. He covered track and field for six decades but sadly passed away a few years ago. Mel was my dear friend, visited us, and stayed with us several times. Mel was raised in a particular area of London where Harold Abrahams was one of his neighbors on his street. After his running days, Harold became a journalist and broadcaster. He even broadcasted from the Berlin Olympics in 1936 which must have been tough since he was Jewish. Harold encouraged Mel to pursue journalism, and he did. Before the hard tracks came into widespread use, there was a French ‘entoucot’ surface that was the last of the great clay tracks. Harold came to the U.S. as a representative of that company and helped design the track at Rutgers University. That localizes my memories. Secondly, I discovered after being a resident of Long Branch, New Jersey for many years, that Chester Bowman, who placed fourth in that Olympic race that is featured in ‘Chariots of Fire,’ had been a resident of this town. Ever since I found that out, I wrote many articles about him, and we now have a Chester Bowman Memorial Award in his name. Chester Bowman had beaten Eric Lydell at the Penn Relays in the spring of 1924. If he had won the Olympics, like many thought he would, after he won the U.S. Olympic Trials, that would have nullified the entire plot line for ‘Chariots of Fire.’ But that didn’t happen. I also loved John Wayne movies
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| Favorite TV shows |
I was always a fan of corny jokes, so I loved Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Fred Allen, and Steve Allen. I couldn’t watch series programs for too long because I didn’t have that attention span. They took a long time to watch, and I was always going to a track meet somewhere
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| Favorite music |
Bruce Springsteen is from our back yard and has a daughter who was an Olympic athlete in equestrian in 2021. Everybody around here loves him. Jon Bon Jovi is also from around here. Both are great artists, but that’s not my particular style of music. I love lyricists like Frank Sinatra and Josh Groban. My favorite that I love particularly is Vera Lynn, the British singer. She sang wonderful songs during the war years and kept British morale up during World War II. We have an Alexa machine. Whenever we need cheering up, we say, ‘Play me some Frank Sinatra music’ or ‘Play me some Vera Lynn music.’ And Alexa comes through immediately
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| Favorite books |
I never was a great reader of fiction. I was very narrow-minded. I liked books on sports. In my junior high school library, there was a book, ‘Great American Athletes of Today,’ that I believe was by John Tunis, with individual chapters on each athlete. I read about Paavo Nurmi and Charlie Paddock and other greats of the 1920s and 1930s. I also read ‘History of the Olympic Games,’ which inspired me. I read another book about the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games which was also inspiring. One thing led to another. I appreciated other genres, but didn’t get into them. Since my wife, Jo, was a librarian, she was always recommending books to people, but I didn’t have time for them
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| First car |
We owned a green Dodge up in the north Bronx. There weren’t the parking problems there are today, so we went around the city in our green Dodge. We took it on vacations. Since I was from New York and the subways and bus systems are so good, that’s how I got around, and I didn’t need to drive. I didn’t get my driver’s license until my early twenties because I didn’t have to. We still had that green Dodge which is the car I used when I learned to drive
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| Other cars |
We had various cars over the years – Volkswagens and Chevys and Toyotas and Fords
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| Current car |
A Toyota wagon. My wife does most of the driving
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| First Jobs |
I worked at a men’s clothing store to help out during the holidays. They were family friends. It only lasted a few days. My first real job was for about eight months for the Ideal Toy Company in their accounting department. Then I worked for the right company in the wrong department as I was with NBC doing accounting for about another eight months. It was not a good fit for me. I should have gone upstairs to the sports department and maybe my life would have been different
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| Family |
Marty and I were the two Denman brothers. Our parents were Jack and Theresa Denman. My dad was a dentist in the north Bronx which was fairly rural in those days. He was a left-handed dentist. It was a big challenge because all the dental instruments were made for right-handed people. He was very busy with his work and the offices. He retired early from dentistry. My mom was busy taking Marty and me around to our activities and sporting events as fans. Marty was a very adventurous guy. He loved track and field and took me to my first meet. He joined the NYU track team. Then he went into the service. When he finished, he switched to LIU, Long Island University, where he finished his college days. When Marty took me to track meets, I saw walking races and thought I might have potential to beat some of these guys. That is how I got into walking as a sport. I was able to see it existed as a sport thanks to my brother, Marty. He showed me the way. He drove all over the country to visit the many National Parks and even drove to Alaska one time. I owe so much to him. My dear brother, Marty, passed away six or seven years ago and we miss him immensely to this day. My wife is Josephine. She has been a nurse and a librarian. We met inadvertently. After I came back from the 1956 Olympics in Australia, I wanted to go back but couldn’t immediately because I served in the army. A good friend of mine from NYU did go back and had a great year in Australia as he worked for the Melbourne Herald. He met this young lady, Josephine Featherstone, on the S.S. Orsova, a ship crossing the Pacific back to the United States. I went on a blind date with Jo to parachute jumping at Coney Island. The jumping scared the heck out of Jo. But we discovered we had common interests, and one thing led to another and here we are all these years later. We have three lovely daughters and eight lovely grandchildren who are doing well. Our marriage has prospered because of Jo’s willingness for each of us to pursue our own interests. She’s been to a few track meets over the years, especially in our early days, but not too many. She basically said ‘Elliott, you do your thing, and I’ll do mine.’ And we get along famously that way. If we had disagreements she would say, ‘Elliott, go for a long walk. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.’ And so, I was happy to comply
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| Pets |
We never had dogs, but we had several cats over the years. I remember my favorite cat that we called ‘Blackie’ because she was a very, very dark black
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| Favorite breakfast |
Cereal, like Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies. Nowadays, I like scrambled eggs, but, when I was growing up, I wasn’t a fan of eating eggs
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| Favorite meal |
I love the basics. I love a good steak dinner, lambchops and good hamburgers. One of my favorite treats when I was young with my brother was to take the subway down a couple of stops, go to the arcade and see a good movie, and then stop at the deli on the way back. We would have a delicious hot dog with coleslaw on it. That was a great treat
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| Favorite beverages |
I was never a beer lover, though I’ve had my share. For soda, I like Coke, root beer, ginger ale, and orange soda. I also love orange juice
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| First athletic memory |
We had a nice playground across the street and would play basketball. We would share the ball around with the other kids and have three on three games. If you won, you would play the next three kids. If you lost, you would wait your turn to play again. There was always a lot of elbowing and rough play. I made my share of baskets and also sat a lot. Then I started liking tennis and played in some junior tennis tournaments which were fun
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| Athletic heroes |
In baseball, it was the war years when I was growing up and the Yankees, like all the teams, were not at full strength. The Yankees had Red Ruffing, Johnny Lindell, and Mike Torborg. There were many fill-in players during the war, and they did the best they could. I saw Pete Gray play for the St. Louis Browns. When he came to town, he was a big attraction. We also went to Giants football games. We would rush over to the Polo Grounds where they played. I think I was even in the stands when the Giants played the Green Bay Packers for the NFL Championship in 1944. The Giants had Frankie Fillchock, and the Packers had Cecil Isbell and Don Hutson, one of the greatest receivers in history. The Polo Grounds were right across the river from Yankee Stadium, so we could walk across a bridge from one to the other. There were many good things happening for a kid growing up in New York in those days and I loved it. I saw many of the early games of the New York Knicks when the NBA was starting. They played at the old 69th Regiment Armory and then at Madison Square Garden. There were Carl Braun and Bud Palmer and Sonny Hersberger in the early days of the Knicks. Hockey was big, but I never was a hockey fan. When I started racewalking, my hero was Henry Laskau. In a million ways, Henry influenced my life. He showed me the racewalking techniques. We went on workouts together and he encouraged me every step of the way. Beyond that, he was such a great personal influence with his own great story of survival. He survived the horrors of Germany and was able to lead a life of decency and normalcy. He was very inspirational to me. Henry knew everyone and, in 1956, during a break in the Olympic action, he invited me to a party with athletes from many nations. Some became very eminent. One guy, Jimmy Wolfenson, a fencer from Australia, went on later to be head of the World Bank. It was a nice party and encouraged me to go back to Australia which I have three other times. I went back for the World Masters Championships in 1987 which, interestingly, was 31 years after I racewalked 31 miles in the Olympics. I did 20k at the same pace as my Olympic 50k and enjoyed that. I was an official at Brisbane in 2001 and a journalist at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. I hope I’m still around for the Adelaide Olympics of 2032
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| Greatest athletic moments |
The Olympics, of course. Winning both of those U.S. National Championships in 1959. Later on, I entered some much longer races. I walked the London to Brighton race in England three times. It’s a distance of fifty-two-and-a-half miles. Not too many Americans had done that race previously so I set an American Record for the distance. For many years, we held a 50-mile track walk right here in my back yard. I won one time and that was terrific. Organizing races was also great. I was the meet director of the National 40k race walk for about fifty years. We also had the fifty-mile track races for many years and, one year, Shaul Ladany, of Israel, set a still-standing World Record for walking fifty miles on the track. One of the events we did at the Shore Athletic Club was a hundred-mile relay with one hundred guys running one mile apiece. We set a record and got into the Guinness Book of World Records. I still see many of the guys around here and we all have fond memories
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| Most disappointing athletic moment |
The only ‘do over’ would have been if I had done better at the 1960 Olympic Trials and made a second Olympic team. That would have been nice, but it didn’t happen. Time was moving on
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| Funny memory number one |
When Mike Powell set the World Record in the long jump in Tokyo in 1991, I did radio at that time for WFAN. They reserved a half hour for me to do an interview with Mike Powell on the phone. But I screwed it up with the time zone difference. I didn’t get the time zone right and called in an hour late. They said, ‘Where were you? We were waiting for you.’ So, my big interview with Mike Powell on WFAN never took place
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| Funny memory number two |
My mom was such a fan of mine, and she was sure I was going to make the 1960 Olympic team. So, she booked herself on a group trip to the Rome Olympics in 1960. My mom was there, and I wasn’t. She had a great time and made a lot of friends
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| Funny memory number three |
One time when someone was compiling favorite meals of athletes, I told them mine was a mayonnaise sandwich as a joke. I didn’t know what I was talking about, but I did have them every so often
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| Funny memory number four |
One of my Olympic teammates back in 1956 was Leo Sjogren. He was a Finnish American guy. He was an excellent cross-country skier. There was a little community of Finnish Americans who would drive up from New York to Maine every weekend in the winter to do cross-country skiing. In the early 1950s, when he heard the Olympics were being held in Helsinki, Finland, he wanted to try and find a way to go back to see his original country. He discovered racewalking at that point, trained extremely hard, and he made his first Olympic team in 1952 to get back to Helsinki. He told me that he would get hassled and hear comments when he was training. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘You’re funny looking!’ He would yell back at them, ‘Every step I take is a deposit in the bank of hell!’
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| Funny memory number five |
We had some races that went the wrong way, took wrong turns, or we walked extra miles. One year the National 50k was a total screwup. Some guys out on the course walked twenty-nine miles. Some guys went thirty-two miles. Miscounted laps happened in races. The most famous one was Joe McCloskey in the 1932 Olympic steeplechase. He should have got the Silver Medal, but they ran an extra lap, and he got the Bronze Medal. In the famous 1959 US-Russia meet, there were miscounted laps in the 10,000 meters in the heat and guys were collapsing
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| Favorite places to travel |
The most beautiful place I’ve ever seen on earth is Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies. That sparkling blue lake is magnificent. I love going to track meets all over the place. Eugene, Oregon is nice, and I have a dear friend there whom I can stay with which makes it nice. There all also so many great places I have watched track meets here in the metropolitan area – Randall’s Island, Madison Square Garden and The Armory. Now we have a new great facility on Staten Island, the Ocean Breeze, where the U.S. Nationals will be held next February. Internationally, there are so many. Any place in England is great. Thanks to my wife’s family, we have a little home in Canterbury, England. It was her family’s ancestral home and is over three hundred years old. She has been able to make an annual trip. I have made many trips there also and, if I am able to, I would love to go back. Our kids are going to get that place eventually and I want them to appreciate it as there own ancestral home. I have been through over eighty different countries, and they are all spectacular. I have a son-in-law who works for the U.S. State Department. His family has been stationed all over the world and we have been able to visit with them in places most people would not get to. He was positioned at Jordan in the middle east, and we visited there. He was also in Oman, next to Saudi Arabia, so we were able to visit Oman. We also visited them when he was stationed in the Dominican Republic. I was also able to visit behind the Iron Curtain when it was in existence. In 1973, I was the manager of the U.S. Junior team. We had three dual meets in Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. That last one was in Odessa, which I realize now is in Ukraine. Some of the great young athletes of the future were on that team. There was Craig Virgin and Terry Albritton, who later broke the World Record in the shot put. Ben Plunknett, who is still the U.S. Record Holder in the discus, was on that team. I went to some interesting places as a racewalking official. One was Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon jungle. The Pan American racewalking cup was held there and we did some exploring in the Amazon jungle after the race. I’ve been to a lot of places and am truly fortunate
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| Final kind comments from Elliott |
I admire your diligence. I’ve seen a lot of interviews in publications and on websites, but nobody goes into the depth that you do to tell the stories behind the stories. I particularly remember your great interview with Horace Ashenfelter. I got to know Horace a little because he lived in New Jersey. He had a Thanksgiving race named in his honor for many years. Before he passed away a few years ago, he would be on his front lawn cheering. Horace was a great guy. You have interviewed so many great people. When you received the 2017 Alan Jacobs Award for Online Journalism from the Track and Field Writers of America, it was well-deserved. I was the President of TAFWA for two years in 1996 and 1997 and have been an active member for many years. Thanks so much for taking an interest in me. That’s very nice of you
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