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Track and Field community mourns Bill Dellinger, dead at 91

ByDale Bliss|
NCAA National champion in the mile in 1954, Bill Dellinger won a Bronze Medal in the 5000 meters at the Tokoyo Olympics in 1964, coached 108 All-Americans at Oregon.
NCAA National champion in the mile in 1954, Bill Dellinger won a Bronze Medal in the 5000 meters at the Tokoyo Olympics in 1964, coached 108 All-Americans at Oregon. | David Madison/GettyImages

Olympic medalist and two-time NCAA champion, Oregon track and field coach and distance runner Bill Dellinger died Friday. He was 91.

Dellinger won five National Championships as Oregon head coach, four in cross country. In 1984 his Duck outdoor Track and Field squad set an NCAA record with 108 points to win the team title at Hayward Field.

Dellinger mentored Steve Prefontaine, 81 All-Americans. Running for Bill Bowerman he won the 1954 national championship in the mile and in 1956 he captured NCAA gold in the 5000 meters.

His athletes set 18 U.S. records and won a dozen NCAA individual crowns, appearing in the Olympic Games 17 times.

After college he joined the Air Force, training alone outside a radar station on the Olympic Peninsula, twice-daily workouts on the beach, counting his steps to simulate track distances. He made the U.S. Olympic team three times, winning a bronze medal in the 5000 meters at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964.

Born in Grants Pass and raised in Springfield, Dellinger became Bill Bowerman's assistant at Oregon in 1968, succeeding him as head coach in 1973.

He guided the careers of Prefontaine, Alberto Salazar, Rudy Chapa and Matt Centrowitz Sr., named to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2001.

Chapa told Runner Space, "Coach Bill Dellinger was one of the greatest coaches ever. However, for those of us lucky enough to have been coached by him, what we treasured most was the genuine friendship he gave us long after our running days were over."

"He gave us so much more than guidance on the track; he gave us his heart. Bill was deeply loved, and he will be profoundly missed by his athletes, the Eugene-Springfield community, and the entire world of track and field."

As a distance runner Dellinger set five American and World records:



1956 American Record holder: 5000 meters 14:16.2

1958 American Record holder: 1500 meters 3:41.5

1959 World Record holder (indoors): 2 miles 8:49.9

1959 World Record holder (indoors): 3 miles 13:37.0

1960 American record holder: 2 miles 8:43.8

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