Bill Dellinger, Runner and Track Coach Who Mentored Stars, Dies at 91

New York Times

19-07-2025

Bill Dellinger, who ran the 5,000 meters for the United States in three Olympics and then became a successful longtime coach at the University of Oregon, his alma mater, nurturing the careers of such standout runners as the Olympians Steve Prefontaine and Joaquim Cruz and the marathon runner Alberto Salazar, died on June 27 in Eugene, Ore. He was 91.
His death, in a care facility, was from cancer, his son Joe said on Friday.
At Oregon, Dellinger coached the track teams for 26 years (1973-98) and the cross- country teams for 30 (1969-98). During that span, Oregon won three N.C.A.A. team championships in cross-country and one in outdoor track. In retirement, he coached Mary Decker (now Mary Slaney), probably the best American female middle-distance runner of all time.
His coaching success followed a productive running career of his own. At Oregon, Dellinger started as a 5-foot-9, 137-pound miler and won the N.C.A.A. title in 1954. He later switched to the 5,000 meters (3.1 miles), which he ran in the 1956, '60 and '64 Olympics. After winning a bronze medal in 1964, he retired as a runner.
As a coach, he was a laid-back philosopher whose athletes called him Bill, not Coach. Many went on to glory. Prefontaine set multiple long-distance records in the early to mid-1970s, won gold in the 1971 Pan American Games and competed in the 1972 Olympics in Munich. He died at 24 in an automobile crash in Eugene in 1975 while preparing for the 1976 Games.
The Cuban-born Salazar won three New York City Marathons in the 1980s and the 1982 Boston Marathon. Cruz took the gold medal in the 800-meter event at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. And another of Dellinger's runners, Matthew Centrowitz Jr., won the gold medal in the 1,500 meters at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
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