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Gerry Lindgren - super distance runner from past profiled on ESPN Sports Center Sun 1/15/06

Amazing Runner of 60's and 70's!!

January 11th, 2006

Gerry Lindgren battles Pre!!

SPORTSCENTER PROFILES GERRY LINDGREN SUNDAY Each Sunday, SportsCenter debuts a special piece focusing on a sports-related personality whose unique experience lends itself to long-form story telling. This week’s piece, produced by SportsCenter’s award-winning Features Unit, will focus on Gerry Lindgren, now 59 years old and head coach of the University of Hawaii women’s cross country team, who made America proud during the “Cold War,” then left his life and family behind for more than two decades. In July 1964, a skinny 18-year old from Spokane, Wash. competed in the 10,000 meters at the USA-USSR track meet in Los Angeles, beating spme of the world’s best by more than 100 yards, causing many American fans, including Bobby Kennedy, brother of the late President John Kennedy, to cry. Reporter Chris Connelly tells how in the winter of 1980, Lindgren left his Tacoma, Wash. home, dropping completely out of site until being discovered in Hawaii in 2001. After denying his own identity, he has since returned to reality, writing a memoir exploring his track exploits and painful youth. However, he has yet to speak to his family, even after his wife confronted him last September.

“I don't want to talk about personal things. If you want to talk sports - I'm with you. But I don't want to talk about personal things.” – Lindgren, when asked about his family

“Afterwards, I met him (Kennedy), and he had tears in his eyes, and people were saying he was crying his eyes out as I was running. He said that it was what America needed. That I didn't know it myself - but I had just given a jolt to America that would be heard around the world.” -- Lindgren

Thanks,
dq
ESPN Communications Dept.
(860) 766-2234