Bill Dellinger, runner and track coach who mentored stars, dies at 91
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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.
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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 Mr. 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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Mr. Dellinger preached moderation in training. He told Runner's World magazine in 1980: 'Most runners have the false impression that the more miles they can run, the better they're going to be. Mileage is beneficial only to a certain point, and once that's reached, it becomes damaging. I do think holding a runner back is what the true art of coaching is about.'
William Solon Dellinger was born March 23, 1934, in Grants Pass, in southwest Oregon, to Shirley and Avril (Swacker) Dellinger. His father worked for Shell Global delivering heating oil.
Mr. Dellinger's introduction to track came as a high school freshman when the track coach asked the physical education teacher to have the class run three laps around the track.
'I can still remember the coach waving his arms at me as we came around the first lap, yelling for me to slow down,' he recalled. 'I came around again on the second lap and had a big lead on everyone else, and he's screaming at me to slow down again. I guess he figured I must've been pretty good, because my time for the three laps was faster than any of the guys on the track team.'
Mr. Dellinger joined the team, and a few weeks later he placed high in the state mile championship. Before graduating, he won it.
During college and after, he won three national and two NCAA titles as well as the 5,000 meters at the 1959 Pan American Games. He broke the world indoor records for 2 and 3 miles. And he set American records outdoors, once for 1,500 meters and three times for the 5,000.
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At Oregon, Mr. Dellinger earned a bachelor's degree in 1956 and a master's in 1962, both in education. After college, he spent three years in the Air Force and then taught and coached in high school and briefly coached in junior college. From 1967 to 1973, he was assistant track coach at Oregon under his former college coach, Bill Bowerman, a co-founder of the Nike footwear brand, with Phil Knight.
Mr. Dellinger coached the United States men's distance runners in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. He was elected to several track and field halls of fame.
His wife, Marol, died in 2014. In addition to his son Joe, he is survived by another son, David, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Mr. Dellinger was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1998, had a stroke in 2000, and underwent surgery in 2012 to have a malignant tumor removed from his stomach.
He retired at 64, but he continued to work out every other day on the Oregon track for a time, preferring it to running on the campus grounds or in the streets of Eugene.
'I go to the track in the evening when no one's around,' he told the running magazine The Harrier in 1998. 'I don't like to jog.'
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