From Interview with Dick Brown...............
And then I'm coaching a man, 34 years old, Jonathan Gill, I don't know if you've heard of him.
FW: Yes, I read the article in Outside magazine.
DB: So we're hoping that he has a shot at getting to the Trials.
FW: Sort of off the topic, but how are things going with him?
DB: Good. He's not drinking at all, which is the best thing. He had a little trouble making the adjustment to the outside of prison world, because the one thing we thought we had to look out for, we did. He established a relationship with a woman, which, 35 years old, that's natural, but it just took away so much of his focus. We said, 'Jon, when you got out, you said that you were going to not establish any long-term relationships and you have to make up your mind, because you can't do both.' ...So that's been resolved. But other than that, he's still living with Marlene (Wellborn) and I, and he's a very nice young man. His growth was stunted when he went to prison, like everybody else's, and then he was an alcoholic for five or six years and that stunts your growth, so he's a 35-year-old man with about a 25-year-old body and a 22-year-old mind.
FW: The articles we've seen have pegged him as someone who's shooting for the Olympic team. Do you still think that's a realistic goal?
DB: Yes, I still think that's realistic.
FW: Will he be racing at all in the near future?
DB: No. He won't race until probably the end of April. What we have to do is save up all of our ammunition, really get the gun loaded well, don't expend any of that ammunition, and see if we can do it, more or less, in a one shot type of thing.
FW: What did you see in him that made you decide to coach him?
DB: Well, first of all, his uncle is Randy Huntington, who coached Mike Powell in the long jump and is a very, very good coach. He said, 'Dick, this guy has the genes to do it and has the ability to do it, but he's an alcoholic. Will you help?' That was the first thing. And then I saw him run when he was here for seven months and going in and out of drunken stupors. While he was under the influence of alcohol, he ran a 2:00 800 like he was jogging. And he has, you know, a good background in track in high school. He beat Todd Williams once, he was second or third to (Bob) Kennedy in some regional cross country meet. So he has the ability, it's just whether it's too late to bring it out or not. We've had little nagging injuries. You try to train like you have to and his body has some weak spots that we've been continually trying to build up and overcome.