More rare than a white sprinter in America is the Black distance runner. Equally rare is the college coach who will encourage an athlete to pursue an individual goal instead of forcing them to “Do-it-for-the-team.” – Ken Davis
Chapter Ten
CECIL MEDLEY
Cecil Medley was the fifth Cecil Medley on his family tree. His father, Virgil Medley, was the fifth Virgil in the family. Every first son was named for his grandfather, Virgil or Cecil. Alternating first names since 1820 in the free city of Cincinnati, Ohio, the Medleys had never believed themselves inferior to anyone.
Cecil Five Medley had been told from childhood that his life was the easiest of any Cecil. Bigoted classmates and their parents, shopkeepers, and policemen sometimes made Cecil wonder how difficult it had been for his grandfather or the Medleys of the 1800s.
“You must never use your race as an excuse for anything,” his father repeated at the dinner table, a hundred meals in a hundred different ways. “We Medleys are too strong to be humbled by anyone or anything – except our own shortcomings.
“Life is a constant struggle, even for our white brothers and sisters. Look for the goodness in every person. God lives inside everybody.”
Cecil, his brother Curtis, and sister Bobbie, grew up in the Cincinnati suburb of Milford. Virgil Five Medley worked in the research and development laboratory at the huge General Motors plant in Lorraine. GM downsized in July 1992, and Virgil was laid off one Friday afternoon.
The next morning, the Medley family gathered around the breakfast nook over hot biscuits, butter, and rhubarb jam. Bobbie was tearful. She was only ten and wondered what her father had done wrong. Curtis, thirteen, impatiently waited for a quick resolution; his buddies were playing baseball at the school diamond. Cecil sat beside his smiling father and knew the next half-hour could be life-changing.
“We have some money saved, kids,” Virgil began.
“Thank you, Darlin’,” he smiled to his wife, Irena, who served up a second pan of hot, yeasty biscuits to her family.
“We can either sit tight for a few months or seize this opportunity to try something new. Since our Black Hills vacation last summer, your mother and I have talked about moving from Cincinnati. We’re going to see what’s available in Iowa and Nebraska. Your Uncle Grant moved to Lincoln ten years ago and loves it.”
Within a month, Virgil purchased a medical supply business in Omaha. For years, he had tinkered in his basement workshop with metals and synthetics and could now apply his engineering skills to inventing. He had already sold dozens of magnesium/titanium splints to the Canadian Provincial Park Service – young musk oxen had a habit of shattering their forelegs and lame calves often lost their lives to wolves.
Irena, a pediatric nurse, found a position immediately at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Back at Milford High, Cecil was a sprinter and high jumper. His PRs of 21.80 in the 200 and 6’5″ were solid. Moving to Nebraska was daunting for the entire Medley family, but particularly for Cecil. Milford was a comfortable niche. He was an honor student, a successful athlete, and a student senator. Now, with his junior year approaching, he was being transplanted to the Cornhusker state.
Nebraska wasn’t prepared for Cecil. Urged by his new track coach to train with the cross-country team at Omaha Eastside, Cecil discovered a knack for endurance running he never suspected. By mid-season, Cecil was the best on his team. He won the Omaha Metro Championship and placed third at State, the only black runner in the meet. The Eastside boys called him ‘our Kenyan’.
“My people were from West Africa,” he smiled. “West Africans can’t run distance!”
Cecil moved from the sprints to the distances that spring, winning silver medals in both the 1600m and 3200m at State. His senior year, sleet pelted the 140 runners at the State cross-country meet in Kearney. He won the 5,000-meter race in heavy mud – his time, a State Record 15:02. In May, Cecil won the All-Class gold medal for 3200 meters at the State Meet.
Coach Iggy Frost recruited Cecil to Nebraska State; the first black distance man in the school’s history. Coach Frost guided him toward longer distances; his junior year, Cecil won the Drake Relays 10K in 28:45 under a broiling late April sun.
During his senior cross-country season, Cecil raced only six times. He won four meets, placed third in his NCAA regional, and snared 10th place at Nationals.
* * * * *
THIS VIEW OF SPORT
By Ken Davis
More rare than a white sprinter in America is the Black distance runner.
Equally rare is the college coach who will encourage an athlete to pursue an individual goal instead of forcing them to “Do-it-for-the-team.”
Cecil Medley of Nebraska State University, the runner, and Iggy Frost, the coach, manifest these qualities.
At Monday’s Boston Marathon, Medley reeled off a 2:14:17 to place fifth overall, the first American finisher. South Korean champion Kiti Son won the Patriots’ Day classic in 2:12:02, the slowest winning time in twenty years. The field of 7,450 men and 4,505 women battled a stiff headwind and 34-degree drizzle the entire route.
Cecil Medley’s race was huge in many ways.
First, Medley is physically enormous for a distance runner. At 6’5″ and 180 pounds, he towered above the other men in the top ten.
Second, his time was the fastest ever recorded by a U.S. collegian.
At age 21, Medley became the youngest marathon qualifier for the Olympic Trials to be held thirteen months hence in Jackson, Mississippi.
Third, Medley turned down the $7,500 prize for fifth place. “I want to help NSU on the track this spring,” he said. Accepting prize money would abruptly end his eligibility under NCAA rules.
Medley has enjoyed a successful running career at Nebraska State in Beatrice, surrounded by fertile farmland. Coach Frost, now in his 47th year at the college, modified Medley’s training in November to prepare him for Boston.
“First, he had to qualify,” Frost explained, “so I sent him to Jacksonville, Florida, over Christmas Break to get a marathon under him.” Medley’s unspectacular 2:28:56 debut in Florida earned him third place but was too slow to garner a seeded spot on the starting line in Hopkinton.
Medley described his Boston race to me over breakfast Tuesday.
“I wormed my way toward the start line as best I could but was still about thirty rows back. The cannon boomed and runners were casting their sweatshirts and trash bags into the air – it was raining clothing! I almost went down when something got tangled in my feet.
“I found running room within two miles and stuck to Coach Frost’s plan of negative splits. The course rolls downhill the first ten miles, so I was really holding back.
“Coach taped a band to my wrist with my goal for each mile. I hit 52:50 for ten miles and 1:44 flat for twenty. The final 10k, including Heartbreak Hill, was my fastest – 30:17.”
Sporting a white singlet with bold blue NSU lettering, Medley was 63rd at Natick, 35th at Wellesley, and 20th at the crest of Heartbreak.
“The commentators never mentioned Cecil until Fenway Park,” related Coach Frost, who watched the race on TV at a tavern near the finish line.
Medley looked strong as he passed one internationalist after another over the final miles. The velocity with which he overtook them visibly startled some of his opponents.
“He got a little ahead of pace there at the end,” Coach Frost admitted, grinning.
The goal time on the wristband was 2:18:00.
“Cecil was somewhat reluctant to miss the indoor track season to train for this race,” Frost said afterwards.
“But we agreed that qualifying for the Olympic Trials is more important than the college’s indoor meets.”
Frost returned to his teaching duties after the awards ceremony but Medley stayed in Beantown an extra day to appear on a local TV show and to be a tourist.
“I’m going to teach high school history,” he explained. “Boston is the cradle of liberty and I couldn’t sightsee before the marathon.”
The Medley family knows about freedom, having fled from slavery in 1820 to Cincinnati.
“We love our country,” Cecil told me, “and we are proud to be Black Americans.
Maybe someday a black man from the U.S. will win here at Boston.”
Medley could be the athlete to do just that. But first, there is the matter of next year’s Olympic Trials.
His performance early this week proves that one can be young, big, and black, and run a heck of a marathon.
