I was surprised to see that, even after a couple of hours after the announcement on this site, there were still fewer than twenty posts on this message thread. But that seemed to be the nature of his legacy over the years. Despite dominating the 5000m in that big Olympic year, he seemed to remain virtually unknown to later generations. Overlooked to the end.
Gary Cohen is an enthusiast for the sport of running. This enthusiasm has branched out to include magazine/essay writing, interviews, coaching and public speaking. In addition to those activities, Gary also leads trail runs i...
Be careful on the above link: My computer says "not secure" so whatever that means to you..
Towards the end of the interview, there's a funny story about Schul, Dellinger, George Young, and 16 year old Jim Ryun training for the 1964 Olympics together. They were supposed to do 5 sets of 4 x 400 in 60, 60, 60, and 58 with each runner taking the lead on one of the 400s in the set. You can read how the workout went.
When Robert “Bob” Schul was born in 1937, he was diagnosed with asthma, a condition that worsened in the summer due to the pollen on his family’s farm in West Milton.
Schul was overlooked by my generation (high school 93) in part because we just did not have much access to information about running. You couldn't just find videos of old Olympic finals on Youtube. If you were sitting at home on June 17, 1994 and wanted to know who won the 1964 Olympic 5k, you would have to go to the library or an encyclopedia or ask someone. And there was absolutely no way you could watch the race. . . So the only old time runners we knew about were: (1) Prefontaine because of the documentary and movies and Nike association; (2) Billy Mills--but I only knew about him because they did a profile of him during the 1992 Olympics on NBC ("half white and half Sioux, he grew up in full-blooded poverty . . . ") and because they made a Disney movie about him; (3) Frank Shorter because he was more recent and ran the marathon; and (4) Jim Ryun because broke 4 in high school and ran the mile. . . . Guys like George Young, Horace Ashenfelter, Mal Whitfield, Bob Schul, Louis Zamperini (until the movie in the 2000s). and Wes Santee were totally unknown.
Somehow I found him on the internet in the 1999 or 2000 and ordered his memoir/autobiography and his 1960s training log/guide. Same thing as others have said: signed copy with a kind note and his phone number! It was an eye opener for a young kid getting into distance training to see what appeared to be such a radically different system from Lydiard's that had been almost totally forgotten by all the coaches and runners in my area. In the way Schul explained it in his story, it totally made sense that it worked well for him, especially when he got to Igloi's group, but even before when he started training with asthma. For me it was a good initial lesson that there are many different ways to train and practice and that there isn't one 'right' way. I'd never seen the video of his Olympic race until today. Would love to hear what you think he would have run that last 300 in on a mondo track with super shoes. Jazy certainly made him work for it.
Haha, yes. I would sit for hours listening to Bob tell stories about his workouts and how he did them. He was insane. We would always sit together at the HS Hall of fame banquet dinner and every year he would look right at me and say "You still doing those silly long runs?"
In 1964 he was undefeaded in all distances, trained himself without his coach and he told me the longest continuos run he did was 800 meters and that was the warm up and cool down.
I had lunch with Dr. Jack Daniels one day and he told me that Bob would run on a tradmill at 4:15 mile pace and his heart rate was only 150-160. Daniels said his left ventricle was much bigger then the normal persons.
As a Miami grad we got to run on the same cinder track until the 80's. Known as the Cradle of Coaches, my fellow XC grads are trying to raise funds for a statue of Bob to go along side of the others in Oxfor, OH.
Thanks for the story and now I know who Bob Schul is - amazing he was overlooked after winning gold medal. It was quite a race too. We all know Billy Mills, and now I won't forget Bob Schul.
What a beautiful and well-researched tribute, Jonathan. Thank you. Especially the reference to his parents being in the stands. Who isn’t touched by that?
Another story Bob told me about the 68 trials and eventual olympics, if he didnt get sick and miss the Olympic team, he surely would have repeated and won it again. He should have been put on the US team after the trials.