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Bill Toomey won the Gold Medal in the 1968 Olympic decathlon in Mexico City, earning the unofficial title of ‘The World’s Greatest Athlete.’ In 1969 Bill won an unbelievable ten decathlons, setting the World Record of 8,417 points in the tenth competition, and earning the 1969 Sullivan Award as the top U.S. amateur athlete. He won five straight AAU decathlon Gold Medals from 1965 to 1969 and four of five AAU pentathlon Gold Medals from 1960 to 1964. Toomey won the 1968 Olympic Trials decathlon after narrowly missing the 1964 Olympic team with a fourth place Olympic Trials finish. Bill won Gold Medals in the decathlon at the 1967 Pan Am Games, 1965 World University Games and in international dual meets versus both Germany and Poland. He competed collegiately for the University of Colorado where he won the Big Eight long jump title, was ranked in the top five nationally in the 400-meter hurdles and scored points for the Buffaloes in the high jump, triple jump, 400 meters and relays. At New Canaan (Connecticut) High School, Bill was a member of eight State Championship team in the Small School Division (Indoor Track 1955, 1956 and 1957; Outdoor Track 1955, 1956 and 1957; Basketball 1956 and 1957). His personal bests include: 100m – 10.3 (1966); 200m – 21.2 (1966); 400m – 45.6 (1968); 1,500m – 4:12.7 (1964); 110m Hurdles – 14.2 (1969); 400m Hurdles – 51.7 (1961); High Jump – 6-6¾ (2.00) (1969); Pole Vault – 14-0¼ (4.27) (1969); Long Jump – 26-0¼ (7.93) (1969); Shot Put – 47-2¼ (14.38) (1969); Discus Throw – 154-2 (46.99) 1969); Javelin Throw – 225-8 (68.78) (1969); Decathlon – 8,417 (1969). Bill overcame an accident when he was twelve years old which severed a nerve in his right hand and, after five surgeries, left him with only 75 percent functionality in that hand. Toomey was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 1971, USA Track and Field HOF in 1975, U.S. Olympic HOF in 1984, Colorado University’s Athletic HOF in 2004, and Pac-12 Hall of Honor in 2018. He resides in Lake Tahoe, has two daughters and six grandchildren. Bill was extremely kind to spend two and a half hours on the telephone for this interview in August 2025.
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THE BIG PICTURE Bill, first, thank you so much for granting this in-depth interview. It’s hard to believe that this year marks 57 years since you won the 1968 Olympic Decathlon in Mexico City. With these many years of reflection, what did it mean to you on that day as a culmination of so many years of preparation and training to receive the Gold Medal?
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I started playing sport when I was a young kid of eight or nine years old. I was mainly a basketball player. I went to a Catholic high school that didn’t have track and field. They only had basketball. I think basketball was invented by the Pope. When my folks moved to Connecticut which coincided with my sophomore year of high school, I went to New Canaan High School which was almost like a prep school. We had a Headmaster, and the school was particularly good academically. When I competed, that is all I thought about was attaining the Olympic Gold Medal. I didn’t think about what might be. After winning, I didn’t want to stop competing. So, in 1969 I competed in ten decathlons, and I broke the World Record in the tenth decathlon in my tenth year of competition on December tenth. There are ten letters in my name, and I was born on January tenth. So, you can see that the decathlon was in my future.
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Could you compare what you thought beforehand it would mean to win the Gold Medal versus how it felt that day?
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I tried to remain involved with getting the job done. I wasn’t thinking of what would happen if I won. I love to compete. In my life I competed in thirty-five decathlons and nobody who is World Class comes close to that.
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In the post-World War II era, U.S. athletes won four straight Olympic Decathlon Gold Medals as Bob Matthias won in 1948 and 1952, followed by Milt Campbell in 1956 and Rafer Johnson in 1960. Since Germany’s Willi Holdorf won Decathlon Gold in 1964 and no American was on the podium, was it a driving force for you to secure the Decathlon Olympic Gold Medal and return it to the U.S. especially after just missing making the Olympic team in 1964?
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I had been at Stanford in the summer of 1964 doing my graduate studies and went straight from there to Mt SAC and then to the 1964 Olympic Trials. And I only missed the team by a couple hundred points. I wasn’t in great shape for the Trials because I was serious about my academics. At Stanford graduate school, you can’t screw around. I trained with Bill Gairdner during the early part of 1964 but, when he went home in the summer, I didn’t have anybody to train with, and it is harder training alone. If I had made the team, I think I would have beaten all the guys we sent to Tokyo. My dad came up to me on the way out of the stadium after I missed the team and said, ‘I got you on a tour group going to the Olympics in Tokyo.’ My first thought was, ‘Are you kidding me? A tour group? I came this close, but no cigar.’ At first, I didn’t want to go. But I went with the tour group, and it was great. I had never seen the Olympics. As a young man, I was trying out for the Olympics but didn’t really understand it. But now I saw it and realized that it was an amazing event. I was in Tokyo watching the Opening Ceremonies and getting fuel for my future. In the Opening Ceremonies, the U.S. team was wearing blazer and cowboy hats, and I realized I had just missed this. I knew that, even though I had missed being on the team, I had four years to make a difference. I watched the decathlon and my performance at the Trials would have been competitive. There were guys competing that weren’t scoring as good as I had. Making the team was planted in my head. I went back to my hotel room in the evening, was watching American TV shows in Japanese and did pushups and sit ups. I knew that I was going to continue. I finished my master’s degree and got into teaching because I knew that school was out in the mid-afternoon and I could train. Before that, I had a regular job at Allstate for a while but stood around all day and didn’t get off work until the evening, which wasn’t good for training. Watching the Olympics back then was different than it is now. For example, one day after the track and field competitions, a friend from Colorado and I were able to buy tickets to the evening swimming events. After seeing the Olympics in 1964, it gave me so much more energy to want to be a part of it.
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What were your overall impressions of watching the 1964 Olympics as compared to competing in Mexico City in 1968 and broadcasting Olympics after that?
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The Japanese put on the best Olympics. I’ve been to eleven Olympics as a spectator, competitor, working for ABC in 1972 and 1976 and I produced a TV show for countries in the middle east.
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How exciting was it to put on the USA singlet and what do you recall from your first international competition?
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Nowadays, athletes get paid. Back then, we got two dollars a day for food when we competed in Europe for the American team. But it was an honor. If an athlete was able to compete internationally, we got to compete all over Europe. My first international meet was in Kyiv. We didn’t know it was in Ukraine as it was in the USSR. I finished in second place then against the West Germans. I realized that the Germans knew something.
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THE 1968 OLYMPIC TRIALS AND OLYMPICS Even though you were the favorite to win the 1968 Olympic Trials and to lead the U.S. team, you have to clear a height in the pole vault and to score marks in the two jumps and three throws. You can’t trip over a hurdle. You can’t pull a muscle. What was it like to compete as you did score an impressive win with 8,222 points ahead of Rick Sloan at 7,800 and Tom Waddell at 7,706 as Russ Hodge succumbed to injuries?
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I had competed in Europe before the Trials but got beat as I had the flu and almost passed out. I was beaten by Kurt Bendlin, the World Record Holder. Then I also competed in England. Nobody else competed in two competitions before the Olympic Trials, but I know my event and that is how I train. So, at the Olympic Trials there were ten guys competing which can drive you nuts as there are so many who don’t have a chance to make the team. The Olympic Trials were at Echo Summit in the Lake Tahoe area. Actually, it was the second Olympic Trials that year as there was a previous one in Santa Barbara where they had informed the athletes that the winners in Santa Barbara automatically made the team. But they reneged on that offer. The decathlon event was the first event at the Olympic Trials. I had been winning my competitions except maybe against the Germans. I was winning usually by seven or eight hundred points over the U.S. decathletes, and I was the only eight-thousand-point guy. Making the team was the number one issue for me psychologically. I didn’t take anything for granted that I was going to be on the team. I kept thinking, ‘You’ve got to be careful. You have to warm up well. You can’t pull a muscle.’ I knew I had to protect my body. I had a great 400 meters running 46.4 seconds, but did get beat by one guy, Dave Buck, who ran 46.3 seconds. I was on track but had to be careful on day two in the hurdles.
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In Mexico City, what were the living quarters like, and did you attend many other events?
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They had me assigned to room with twelve guys. I knew that there would be guys who didn’t make their finals and were done competing. They would keep me awake. I knew that wasn’t going to work. I found an unfinished rest room. It wasn’t very big. It was about six feet long and almost my arm width wide. I didn’t go to watch the events at the Olympic Games because, when I watched the other events at the Olympic Trials, it took a lot of energy out of me, both emotionally and physically. I only went to the stadium for the Opening Ceremonies. I ate with the team, got into this tiny unfinished bathroom, and read my books. I was reading books by Stendhal like ‘The Red and the Black’ and ‘The Charterhouse of Parma.’ I first met Howard Cosell at the Mexico City Olympics. One day I was reading my book, looked through the window, and there was Howard Cosell. He was looking for Wade Bell, a great guy who was an Oregon runner and a top 800-meter runner. He was sick and Howard said, ‘Where is Wade Bell?’ He didn’t have a clue who I was. He just saw a guy lying down on a mat on the floor of this small room. I took Howard to the infirmary where Wade was. Then when Howard saw me win the decathlon, he realized I was the guy lying on the floor in that small room. We became great friends.
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You mentioned Kurt Bendlin of West Germany who held the World Record in the decathlon at 8319 points. Also, his German teammate, Hans-Joachim Walde, won the 1964 Olympic Bronze medal. Even though you were aiming to be your best in each event, how much did you monitor their performances?
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The amazing thing is that I didn’t keep track of them during the competition. I did see the points on the scoreboard. I always have a great first day and average around 900 points per event which is an extremely high total.
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At the Mexico City Olympics, on Day 1 you got off to a great start in the 100 meters at 10.4 seconds and in the long jump with a 25 feet, 9 3/4-inch leap as both placed you first of the top five favorites. Then your shot put of 45 feet and high jump of six feet 4 3/4 inches were both fourth of the top five competitors. Finally, you set a Decathlon World Record of 45.6 seconds in the 400 meters to score 4,526 points on day one. What are your main recollections from that day?
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It was raining during the high jump. There was a tunnel where the marathoners entered the stadium to finish the marathon, and I went there to stay a bit dry. There was a guy in a wheelchair named Brian Sternberg who was a World Record pole vaulter for Washington University who became paralyzed from the neck down from a 1963 trampoline accident. Suddenly, I realized what a gift I had. He became my spiritual advisor. When I had negative thoughts about the conditions for the high jump, our conversation uplifted me as I heard such positiveness from Brian who, at one time, was a better athlete than me. He was with me and immediately became my new best friend and advisor. Then my 45.6 in the 400 meters was good for 1,021 points. When I ran that 45.6, I had no idea I could run that fast. I had been doing good in workouts but didn’t have that time in my sights that day. Right away officials grabbed me and took me to the doping control room. So, I had to pee in front of a dozen guys. I was so dehydrated. I looked at these German doctors and had the feeling they wanted me to fail the test. I finally was able to produce a pee after sitting in the doping room for a while and got to my quarters around midnight. By the way, they also took a drug sample the next day and I could hardly pee, but I passed the test. I think I was the only decathlete who was tested.
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Day 2 isn’t as strong for you as Day 1. In the 110-meter hurdles you ran 14.9 seconds to place third of the top five favorites. Your best discus throw of 154 feet, 2 inches was only fourth of the top five athletes. Then you barely got a height in the pole vault on your third attempt before working your way up to 13 feet 9.5 inches, which was third of top five guys. More importantly, what is the story about how you couldn’t find your find your pole, which caused you to miss your warmup and first two attempts?
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On the second day, each competitor brings their pole vault poles from the Olympic Village. The warmup track was half a mile from the Olympic Stadium. We got off the bus at the warmup track and I had my poles. They informed all the competitors that, while we were doing the hurdles and discus, they would bring our poles to the stadium. So, I left my vaulting pole there. We did the hurdles, and I was very conservative. I wanted to run fifteen seconds and did 14.9 seconds. I knew what I was doing and didn’t want to take any chances. Most of the guys that fall in the decathlon do so in the hurdles. I wanted to protect myself. When the officials brought the poles, I figured I would let everybody get their poles and then grab mine. Suddenly, all the poles were gone and there wasn’t one left. I was thinking, ‘I’m not a great pole vaulter but without a pole, I’m even worse.’ I didn’t know who to talk to. There was an official nearby. Was I going to say, ‘Donde esta my pole?’ He wouldn’t know where my pole was. I was the only one who would know. Now, in the middle of the competition, I ran up the 800-meter hill to where I left my pole and there were no poles. There were four doors. I looked in the first door and there were some Mexican folks but no pole. The second and third doors didn’t have any poles, and the fourth door was locked. I said in Spanish to an official, ‘Get the key or I’m kicking the door down.’ They opened the door and there were my poles. Somebody had locked them behind the door. Then I headed down the hill to the Olympic Stadium and heard an announcement, ‘The warmups are over.’ I’m not a great pole vaulter and have had some seriously bad occasions. I had missed the opening height at two National Championships and at the Pan Am Games. I was the first guy pole vaulting because I started at a low height. I didn’t have a chance to make my marks. I took my first attempt and missed. Then I was up again because I was the only guy vaulting at that height. It was eleven feet something and I missed again. On my third try, I stopped halfway down the runway as I realized that, if it hadn’t worked the first two times, it wouldn’t the third time. There were two minutes to vault, and I had thirty seconds left. I thought, ‘What can I change?’ Instead of starting off on my left foot, I started on my right foot, and I made the height. I was in a bad place until I made that vault. Then I did get up to 4.20 meters which, as you said, was 13 feet 9.5 inches.
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All that was left was the javelin throw and your 206 feet 1/2-inch toss was 3rd of top five, nine meters behind Walde, and 12 meters behind Bendin. You maintained the lead going into the 1,500 meters and raced 4:57.1 at altitude to beat Walde at 4:58.5 and Bendin at 5:09.8. Your final score was 8,193, ahead of Hans-Joachim Walde at 8,111, Kurt Bendin at 8,064 and Mykola Avilov at 7,909 as you secured the Gold Medal. What are your recollections of holding your own in the javelin and then holding off Bendin and Walde in the final event?
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There were two types of javelins. I got a mark on my first throw that wasn’t great, about 180 feet, and decided to use the other javelin and threw over 230 feet. The tip obviously landed first but didn’t stick. The official didn’t know the rules and his red flag went up. It looked flat, but it wasn’t. so, on the third attempt, I got that decent throw of 206 feet, and a half inch. By not getting that big throw on my second attempt, it made the score closer as we started the 1,500 meters. Bendin and Walde still had a shot at me. I knew Bendin wasn’t a great 1,500-meter runner, but Walde was unpredictable. Walde was an MD and a great guy. They are both great guys. They wanted to beat me, and I wanted to beat them. There weren’t any greetings before the 1,500 meters. We sort of stared at each other. I was a middle-distance guy and knew that, if I stayed a certain number of seconds behind Walde, I could still win. But I figured, ‘Why let him win?’ It was scary, it was dark, and there was no one in the stands except my parents and a few coaches. As a famous BBC commentator once said to me, ‘Bill, the average audience for the Olympic decathlon is two people and a dog.’ But we didn’t care. It was all about the guys we were competing against. The decathlon is like a puzzle. But because I had done so many, I became good at it.
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What were your feelings when you were on the podium being awarded your Gold Medal and hearing the National Anthem played not for someone else, but for you?
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I had never seen so many people in the stands. Where were they the day before when I needed them? You can’t plan for the Olympic medal ceremony. I’m standing up there, proud to be an American and proud to bring the title back from Willi Holdorf of Germany who won it four years before in Tokyo. I had been on podiums before, and I didn’t think about it too much. My parents were in the stands and had been there through the whole competition and I thought, ‘This one is for them.’ That is what I felt.
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SPORTS AS A YOUTH, IN HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGIATELY What sports activities are most vivid in your memories from your youth?
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When I was a kid, I would build high jump apparatus in my backyard. I loved jumping. I would jump over fences. I would put a chair up and jump over it, then two chairs and then three chairs. If I saw a fence that was about five feet high, I would stare at it, tell myself I could jump over it and then I would make it. I always went over heights I knew I could make. Jumping was innate and I was good at jumping. I didn’t know anything about track and field in grammar school.
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I’ve read that you had a serious injury to your wrist when you were twelve years old that severed the nerves in your right wrist. What can you tell us about this, how it affected you and how you overcame this challenge?
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When I was twelve years old, a kid threw a dish under a cabana door just as I was leaning down to tie my shoe. It ripped through my wrist and cut my median nerve in my hand. That nerve serves the thumb, forefinger and middle finger and half of the ring finger. So, my pinky was my only healthy finger. I heard a man speak when I was doing marketing work and he only had one leg. He said, ‘You could say I got into skiing by accident.’ I was a basketball player, but now I told my parents that I couldn’t feel anything in my hand. They told me that with nerves it can take a while for them to regenerate, and I bought into that explanation. One night when I was a sophomore, I was at my friends’ house. They had a woodburning kit and put my fingertips on the tip of the heated metal and couldn’t feel it. Gradually, I could smell burning because my fingers were on the tip. When I went home, my parents realized how true was the paralysis. We made a mistake in treatment with one surgeon who opened my wrist and cut off a neuroma which, after two operations, only made it worse. My family doctor then told my parents that that other doctor was a butcher and not to go back to him. I was really upset with life. Even though I was playing sports, I still had this problem. My mother was a nurse, and she located a doctor in New York who used to join nerves on the battlefield during World War II. His son was a high school javelin thrower and right away I trusted him. He said that he had to stretch my nerve. His plan was to tie it to the palma fascia, and, over time, I would have to slowly stretch it out. I spent all summer working on that. When I got to Worcester Academy, the only way I could do a pushup was with that hand in a fist and the other hand flat on the ground. The main thing was that sports saved me, psychologically, physically, and physiologically because it is something I kept going back to. I loved competition more than anything.
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What can you relate about being introduced to track and field events during your high school years?
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I was introduced to the sport of track and field which got me started toward the decathlon by a man named Joe Sakorski. Our school was so small that Joe Sakorski was the basketball coach, the football coach and the track and field coach. I credit him because, in the gym we had these two big posts, and they decided to use them in P.E. class for the high jump. They weren’t high jump standards like they use today – just big posts. We jumped and landed on wrestling mats. There wasn’t any real track and field equipment. I was the only guy that could jump five feet. By the way, I was jumping with a scissors technique. Coach Sakorski came up to me and said, ‘We have a State meet for small schools on the Yale campus. I went to bed the night before and we drove in the morning to Yale. I didn’t understand the rules and I thought I only had three total jumps. I was figuring out what height to start at, then to take my second and third jumps. But I found out I had three jumps allowed at every height. The track was a dirt track but there was an area of wooden timbers to run up and execute the high jump takeoff. It was a good takeoff area. As I got higher, I was doing a variation of what would be known a decade later as the ‘Fosbury Flop.’ I was landing on my back in sawdust. As you get higher using the scissors technique, you have to lean backward more and more until it became like a flop. I was fourteen years old and scissored five feet, eight inches. Our cheerleaders were there at the State meet and I won the State title. All that training in my backyard paid off.
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How did you progress in the high jump and long jump at New Canaan High School and Worcester Academy?
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As a senior, I turned seventeen years old in January, and I jumped around five feet, nine inches. I made five feet, ten inches once, but mostly jumped five feet eight or five feet nine inches. I was the CIAC, Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, State Champion in the long jump for small schools my sophomore, junior and senior years. I went to train for the long jump in practice, and it was hard. I couldn’t even jump fifteen feet. But, when I got my spikes on as a junior, I jumped twenty feet which is still good these days for small school athletes. After that, I went to a prep school, Worcester Academy, in Massachusetts because I was young to finish high school as most kids were eighteen when they graduated. So, I wanted to become more academically prepared for college. How I got to Worcester Academy started when I was reading in the New York Times about prep schools and somehow whatever they said about Worcester Academy encouraged me to have my mom drive me there and enroll me in the school. That year I played football and basketball; we did a lot of training for both sports. In the spring, when I went out for track, in the first meet I long jumped twenty-two feet, six inches. At the New England Championships in Amherst, I took one jump, and it was twenty-three feet. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I had a short run up. The coaches didn’t know much about track, so I learned by watching somebody and then I could do it.
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At New Canaan and Worcester, were you also running the 100-yard dash, 220-yard dash, quarter mile and relays?
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I didn’t really run the sprints or quarter mile but, at the New England Championships, my brother told me, ‘Hey, I entered you in the 440.’ He told the meet officials that his brother forgot to enter, so they added me to the entrants. In those days there was not a stagger at the start. We lined straight across. Because I was the late entry, I was outside in lane eight. In a way it did me good because my brother, who was now my best coach said, ‘Listen, you’ve got to get out of trouble fast. If I were you, I would run like heck to the first corner.’ In my limited experience, I would usually jog and then sprint at the end. We were cowards. Anyway, I ran like blazes and there was one guy ahead of me. But I was right on him. I followed this guy around the track. My best time before that was about fifty-five seconds. I ended up in second place at the New England Championships in fifty-one seconds. I was lying down on the ground afterward because I had never run a quarter mile all out. That was the first one in my life.
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I also noted that your New Canaan boys’ basketball team won the State Championship in both your junior and senior years. What can you relate about being a part of these teams?
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That is true. Also, when I went to Worcester Academy, we became New England Champions. I played guard.
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How did you choose to attend the University of Colorado?
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My folks moved out to California around Palo Alto and there were many all-comers track meets. If they hadn’t moved, I would have been playing basketball at Rhode Island where I had a scholarship. Since we were in California, I enrolled in Menlo College. When the year progressed to December, it happened that one of my New Canaan teammates, Gene Wild, was throwing the shot put and discus for Colorado University. Evidently, he told his coach about me. Gene and I were good friends back in high school and he told his coach to talk to me. I got a letter from Frank Potts, and he offered me a plane ride to visit the Colorado campus. I hadn’t been on a plane in my life. From a large hill you could see the entire campus. There was plenty of Italian Renaissance architecture. I was thinking, ‘I like this place.’ We visited the University Memorial Center, and I saw a bunch of very good-looking young women. I thought, ‘Where do I sign?’ (laughing) Coach Potts had me go back to his office and my thoughts were that I just wanted to get into the school. I wasn’t great, though I had long jumped twenty-three feet. Coach Potts said, ‘Well, I can give you all your books.’ I was ready to shake his hand because that would save me a few dollars. Then he said, ‘I can give you your tuition.’ I was thinking, ‘Holy cow! I should keep my mouth shut.’ Next, he said, ‘I can also give you room and board.’ That was everything that was allowable under NCAA rules. On my second plane ride, I was headed home. I was playing basketball at Menlo and was one of their stars. If I competed in the upcoming first basketball game, I would lose a year of eligibility at Colorado. So, I had to tell my basketball coach, and he was terribly upset. But I had a full ride for four years which was a confidence builder for me.
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What effect did Coach Frank Potts and others have on you in training and mental preparation?
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When I got to Colorado, the coach tried to coach me in the long jump, and I realized he knew less than I did. We went up to their grass track because I told Coach Potts that I seemed to jump better when I did more running. That is when I became a quarter miler. I was on the relay team in the mile relay. That’s what I did for the first couple years. I also started running the low hurdles. I had a rough college career. I wasn’t great. I didn’t realize the mechanics of the long jump, but every time I got a new pair of shoes, I could jump over twenty-four feet. As the spikes wore down, I would be in the twenty-three feet zone. Then I met Darrell Horn, who was a great long jumper at Oregon State. He could jump twenty-six feet. Later in life he told me that he placed an insertion inside the front of his shoe, and he could jump a foot further than normal. What I did was to long jump in my high jump shoes to go further. After I graduated from Colorado, it took me a while to get where I wanted to go in the quarter.
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Were there any key moments with Coach Potts, your teammates, or other factors that propelled you forward competitively?
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I’m pretty uninhibited, so I would train some with the half milers. I loved leading off the relay and running the quarter. Very few people watched the long jump, but everyone watched the relay at the end of the meet. So, I decided I liked running the quarter. If you want to be a good quarter miler, you have to run fast in practice, and I was training with the half milers up at the grass track. So, my senior year I had a ‘Come to Jesus’ experience at the conference meet. It ended up being a turning point in my career. The night before, we took a train ride to Manhattan, Kansas on a train that didn’t have sleeper cars, so we had to sit up all night. All the blood pooled in our legs from sitting in a train all night and getting off the next morning. The next morning, I was down in the blocks and was so upset with myself that I started crying. I wanted to be good, and, for some reason, it wasn’t happening. The gun went off for the six hundred and there were about six heats. I was in the last heat, and I broke the fieldhouse record in 1:11.1. Then I ran the shuttle relay and the high hurdles and did very well. That point when I was down in the blocks in the six hundred, apparently emotions can fuel your running, and it certainly did for me. It woke me up.
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College results weren’t easy to find for you. However, I did note that at Colorado you won the Big Eight long jump, were fifth in the Big Eight 220 low hurdles, finished second at the Kansas Relays in your first ever triple jump competition and ran 51.7 at the 1961 Texas Relays in the 400 intermediate hurdles. Was that a big step when you raced so fast over the 400 hurdles?
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It was big then as the intermediate hurdles hadn’t been introduced into the collegiate program. And nobody was more surprised than me. Because it wasn’t run very often, I was listed as one of the top five in the U.S. for much of the year. They ran it in only a few meets but did at the Texas Relays and Kansas Relays. I was only running in the 49s for the quarter mile, so 51.7 was fast. Later on, when I ran 45.6 for 400 meters, one thought that ate away at me was that I should run the intermediate hurdles when I was in 45.6 shape, and I never did. I think I would have broken fifty seconds.
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MAJOR U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONS From 1960 to 1964 you won four of five AAU pentathlon championships, competing in the long jump, javelin, 200 meters, discus, and 1500 meters winning in 1960 in Bakersfield, California, in 1961 in New York City, in 1963 in St. Louis, Missouri and in 1964 in Rutgers Stadium, New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 1962 at Mt. SAC Paul Herman won. Did you like the pentathlon and was it a good segue into decathlon competitions?
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| BT |
When I was in Palo Alto, I built on the pentathlon each summer as I learned additional events and that helped me build my decathlon point total from the 6000s into the 7000s. Even though I did many events while I was at Colorado University, I didn’t really have knowledge of the decathlon. At Colorado’s indoor facility for both basketball and track and field, there was a board with track and field records. Down at the bottom, was listed the decathlon, I was a pentathlon guy and asked Coach Frank Potts what he thought about the decathlon. He reached into his bookshelf and pulled out a scoring table and a metric conversion table. I took the book home and scored myself in the decathlon based on what I thought I could do in each event. I had been doing the pentathlon and was aware of a guy named John T. Core from Richmond, Virginia who held an event called the ‘Five Star Event.’ He had athletes score themselves in five events including the 100 meters, shot put, 800 meters and two other events. So, I sent away my results to him. I received a long letter back from him. He said, ‘Compared to Dave Edstrom, Phil Mulkey and some other well-known decathletes, you are potentially as good as any of them.’ (note – Edstrom and Mulkey were Gold and Silver medalists in the decathlon at the 1959 Pan Am Games) Now I had an authority who researched the decathlon who was saying I could be a star. All these factors started coming into place. Positive people always look for ways to imagine themselves being better. One of my philosophies was to never put a lid on what you can achieve. If you want to achieve a certain goal, that is your ceiling. Don’t put a cap on your goals.
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| GCR: |
Just as you were improving rapidly, in 1966 you caught hepatitis while in West Germany, spent six months in hospital, contracted mononucleosis, and were in a car accident in which you sustained a shattered kneecap. How crazy was this misfortune and how tough was the comeback?
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| BT |
When I was in Europe, I was visiting my girlfriend at the time in Stockholm, Sweden. As an aside, she finished second in the Miss Sweden pageant – I knew exactly what I was doing. When I was in Sweden in December of 1965, I got sick and went to a local hospital. I had no energy at all. I travelled back to where I was training and living in Germany. I was jaundiced. I was in a hospital room for five days with several patients and the guy in the bed next to me died. I didn’t know what was going on because the medical staff was speaking in German. Finally, a doctor who spoke heavily accented English told me that I had mononucleosis which was affecting my liver with hepatitis and an inflammation level of four, which was the highest. When I was released, I went home to the U.S. where my mom had me check into another hospital. The staff ensured that I had adequate nutrition. When I went outside to try limited exercise, I went down a hill and could barely make it back up the hill. I was in tears. How could I defend my AAU championship which I truly revered when I was feeling like this. The only thing that helped me was watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He got me back in a good mood. In April, I got in my car, and I drove to Santa Barbara. My folks were upset because they thought I should be laying down in my room. I got an apartment in Santa Barbara, took a nap, and my first workout was going to the track and walking a single lap. Then I had to take another nap.
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| GCR: |
You must have made amazing progress in the next few months because at the 1966 AAU Championships in early July in New York City at Randalls Island you won in a World Record of 8,234 as Russ Hodge was also strong at 8,130. At the 1966 L.A. Times International Games on July 24, Russ Hodge won narrowly in 8,230 with you only eleven points behind at 8,219. Was it good to be back and to have Russ Hodge pushing you?
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| BT |
Pete Petersen was an assistant coach for the S.C. Striders and the distance coach at UCSB. We became friends and he helped me with my comeback. We did staircases that started with walking and built up. I went to an all-comers meet and ran the quarter mile in forty-seven seconds and knew I was back. I may have had a new definition of muscle memory because it was surprising how fast I came back. It may have had to do with the fact that I took it easy for so many months. I thought I was starting over, but I wasn’t. I will never understand the physiology. It was always good to have competition. Russ competed well that year, but the poor guy was frequently an injury factory. But he did make an Olympic team. Russ and Dick Engberger and Paul Herman were nice guys. Paul could have been a medalist with any luck in 1964. Paul didn’t have great speed, which a decathlete needs because both days begin and end with a running event.
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| GCR: |
In 1967 you won the AAU Championships in Bakersfield, California as your 7,880 score was over 300 points ahead of Dave Thoreson. At the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada your 8,044-point total was nearly 700 points ahead of Venezuela’s Hector Thomas. In two meets versus West Germany, in July Hans-Joachim Walde scored 7,992 to beat your 7,779 score while in August in Dusseldorf vs. Germany you totaled 7,938 to top Hans Nerlich at 7,636. Was that an exciting year?
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| BT |
In 1967, I was in better shape than I was in 1968, but I pulled a muscle in a workout. The Pan Am Games was the first time that I wore the USA singlet. It got stolen, but I do have my 1968 Olympic singlet hanging in the closet.
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| GCR: |
In 1969 you competed in ten decathlons, winning them all as five were in Los Angeles, you won internationally against Germany and Poland, and you set a World Record of 8,417 point in your tenth decathlon of the year. What can you say about competing in so many decathlons in one year, beating Kurt Bendlin of Germany and breaking the World Record?
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| BT |
When I was in shape for the decathlon, I could do one every two weeks. I owned the event at the time except for the Germans. That is why I went to Germany to train with Coach Friedel Schirmer. The trouble with training in Germany was that there were no indoor facilities where I trained in Cologne. It was by the Rhine River and was damp and cold. I remember one night going down to get the Euro Tribune to get the track results. I was looking at the track times and got motivated. I had bought a Mercedes, so I went down to the soccer stadium. It was nighttime and snowing. I drove a track in the snow with my car. The snow stopped, the moon was bright, my car was parked in the middle of the field with the lights on, and I was running the equivalent of 400 meters because I read in the papers that some of my buddies were running fast times. It was about eleven o’clock at night but, when you’re motivated, you’re motivated.
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| GCR: |
In addition to the decathlon World Record, in 1969 you broke the World Record by scoring 4,123 points for the pentathlon. What were your emotions of not being able to compete in 1970 though you were in great shape because the AAU said you were professional by doing Nutriment commercials, but you were going out on top?
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| BT |
They had those rules but later changed them. I probably would have kept competing, but there is also a time to stop. People don’t understand that, in order to do events like the long jump and high jump, you truly have to be prepared and in shape. To be at that level and to hold it is the secret. That is why some guys are great while others are good from time to time but not consistently.
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| GCR: |
Does anything stand out from your decathlon competitions in specific individual events?
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| BT |
In the high jump, when I was using the straddle method and jumped six feet, six and three-quarter inches, that was one of the most incredible feelings in my life.
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| GCR: |
Did you have any decathlon competitions that you did not finish?
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| BT |
One time I didn’t finish was when I ripped my calf open in 1965 during competition and had to be taken to the hospital to get stitches. The other time was one year at the Mt. SAC Relays when I felt a twinge in my hamstring. I knew that it was an Olympic year, and I needed to stop competing that day and get healthy. If I had kept competing, I never would have finished the season.
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| GCR: |
TRAINING In the decathlon, as you noted, an athlete has to be fast for all the events. Also, there has to be attention to technique for the hurdles, the two jumps and the pole vault, and to get across the ring in the shot put and discus. Then the javelin is totally different. What did you do in training to balance and get ready for sprints, hurdles, jumps and throwing events?
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| BT |
There may be books and literature now, but we didn’t know if what we were doing was correct or the best approach. Basically, athletes would stick to what they were good at and try to get better in the remaining events. In my first decathlon, the marks aren’t posted anywhere but, from my memory these are pretty close. On Day One, I ran 11.4 for 100 meters, twenty-one feet, six inches in the long jump, thirty-three feet in the shot put, a five foot, six-inch high jump, 400 meters in fifty-one seconds. The second day, the hurdles were sixteen seconds, the discus was seventy-five feet, the pole vault was nine feet, the javelin was a hundred eighty feet, and I finished with a 4:20 for 1,500 meters. Since I lived in New England in high school, the javelin was an event.
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| GCR: |
What can you tell us about training with Canadian Olympian Bill Gairdner?
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| BT |
Bill Gairdner was from Thornhill, Ontario and was the Canadian decathlon champion. We became friends and then he came out to live with me and train. He realized that I didn’t know what I was doing. There were no coaches for the decathlon, so Bill became my coach. We started running faster in workouts and it dawned on me that all of the decathlon events rely on speed. That is why I almost made the 1964 Olympic team. I went from scoring in the 6,000s and being fifth at the 1963 AAU Championships. But, when he left to go home in the summer of 1964, I couldn’t sustain the same level of training and that’s why I didn’t make the 1964 Olympic team.
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| GCR: |
Did you do much weight training as it is so important these days?
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| BT |
There weren’t many people coaching weight training for track and field events. My big break happened after I drove down to train with C.K. Yang in early 1966. Then when I came back to UCLA, Jim Bush coached me. Jim knew more about coaching 400 meters than anyone on the planet. Jim knew how to train guys, and he got me back into good shape. I was living in Marina del Rey and started weightlifting. When I started, my best bench press was 150 or 160 pounds. I ended up getting up to 330 pounds in the bench press. That was when I started running fast times, especially in the 100 meters. It is a power event and not a glide. There are different stride patterns in the 400 meters and 100 meters. I look like a runaway beer truck in the 100 meters and a gazelle in the 400 meters. The one lap race is powerful but controlled. Half the job in races of various distances is knowing how to stride.
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| GCR: |
I noticed at the 1968 Mt. SAC Relays when you won with 7,800 points, followed by Rick Sloan at 7,615 and Russ Hodge at 7,557, that all three of you represented the SC Striders. Did you train together or just compete for the same team?
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| BT |
I trained by myself. I ran the mile relay for the SC Striders, both indoors and outdoors. Russ didn’t compete indoors. There were times when Russ didn’t get off to a start in the decathlon with a strong one hundred meters, and he didn’t finish the decathlon.
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| GCR: |
How did the many years of decathlon training and competitions pay off as you were in the sport for many years?
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| BT |
I knew my body and knew how to train well. Training is a mystery to some people. As we get older and more experienced, we get smarter. I was twenty-nine years old when I broke the World Record. That was older than was common at the time. I was a late bloomer. Even though I was twenty-nine, I may have been more like a twenty-five-year-old.
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| GCR: |
Since the Mexico City Olympics were at altitude, how much did your training in Boulder, Colorado help even though it was only at about five thousand feet in altitude? Also how helpful was it that the 1968 Olympic Trials were at altitude at Echo Summit?
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| BT |
It was physiological and psychological. I always competed better at high altitude than at low altitude because it never bothered me. There is and isn’t a difference in competing at five thousand feet in Colorado and 7,300 feet at both Echo Summit and Mexico City. When I had bloodwork conducted at Colorado, my hemoglobin was very high, and the doctors said that it was exceptionally good since it carries oxygen. Training at altitude in Colorado created altitude physiology for me. Even though it was a couple of years since I had trained at altitude, the psychological effects were still there for me. For many athletes, they are psychologically deterred when they are competing at 7,300 feet compared to low altitude. When walking, the effects are noticeable, and you can feel tired.
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| GCR: |
Is there anything you did in particular to improve your pole vaulting since it was often your weakest of the ten events?
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| BT |
The pole vault was more than my Achilles heel. In 1968 at Echo Summit, we watched a famous hypnotist named Arthur Ellen. Afterward, I wanted to talk to him about the pole vault. I went up and introduced myself and he asked me to see him the next day. I went with my buddies and then had them clear out of the room so that only Arthur and I remained. He had me put my arms in the pole vault position. He told me the reason I missed was because I wanted to show them I could lose. People expected that no one else could beat me. After speaking with Arthur, I started liking the pole vault and practicing it. He was a great hypnotist.
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| GCR: |
MISCELLANEOUS AND WRAP UP After 1969 you spent four years working for the Peace Corps, conducted track and field plus general physical education clinics in several African nations, and even worked with astronaut Neil Armstrong. What can you relate about that time period and your work with youth and others to help them reach their potential?
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| BT |
It was hard for a guy like me to stop competing. I was nominated for the Peace Corps by President Nixon, whom I never did meet. I met President Ford on many occasions and so Gerry and I became good friends. The Peace Corps was an extension of competing. I was in my sweatsuit while I was coaching. There are hundreds of pictures on my Facebook page. Joe Bradford was the head of the Peace Corps. When we had our first meeting, there was Neil Armstrong. We went out to lunch together and hung out together. Neil was one of my biggest heroes, but he also looked up to me. My life continued to be exciting. That’s the way I wanted to live. I didn’t care about money. When a person isn’t poor, and my dad was a good provider, the things that were important for me were competing and being involved in causes. I loved the Peace Corps concept. I went to Venezuela and met the President of the country. I gave him a javelin and there was a picture in their newspaper the next day of him throwing it backwards. Everywhere I went, I was a diplomat. I used to refer to myself as a ‘jockstrap diplomat’ since I went to so many countries on behalf of the Peace Corps. That organization kept me busy, and I did a lot of work. It was like carrying on with my competing. I did travel from Ghana to attend the 1972 Olympics.
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| GCR: |
How rewarding was it to also be involved in the Olympics as a broadcaster in 1972 and 1976? How was the excitement of competing compared with broadcasting?
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| BT |
I didn’t care that much that I was on television. I worked for CBS for six years broadcasting a track series and Sports Spectacular. I also commented on wrestling. It took me away from home since most competitions were in Europe. I did become great friends with Howard Cosell. Later I visited him at his home in Pound Ridge, New York and also his summer home on Long Island at Westhampton Beach. We were friends for a very long time until he passed away. When I was working for CBS, there was a policy at ABC that they would never hire a broadcaster from another network to help during the Olympics. I was talking to Howard and told him I wanted to go to the Olympics with ABC. He grabbed me and took me up the elevator to Roone Arledge’s office where he said, ‘Roone, I want you to hire Toomey for the Olympics.’ Howard did this with his bombastic style and got me the job at the 1972 Olympics. He was an amazing person. He introduced me to Joe Namath. One time I was with Howard, and I saw Vince Lombardi coming my way. I had never met him, but he was so recognizable it was amazing. He came up to me and said, ‘Bill, my wife would kill me if I didn’t get your autograph.’ I was thinking, ‘What a great life.’
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| GCR: |
In the early 1970s, you were head track and field coach at the University of California-Irvine. How was it to switch from motivating yourself to motivating athletes with various degrees of talent and desire?
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| BT |
It was good, but it’s not the same. When I trained, there was no nonsense. A challenge Coach Bo Roberson faced was that Irvine was a very academic school and many of the athletes he recruited flunked out. What happened is that Coach Bo, who was a 1960 Olympic long jumper, didn’t show up one day. The athletes were gone, and he left. I was brought in and there was nobody on the team. The best thing I did was to hire a guy named Len Miller and he ended up recruiting Steve Scott after I left. He became one of the best coaches in the NCAA. I bought the team a pole vault pit and Universal gym to help out. But I got tired of coaching and had some differences with the administration. Plus, I had the job offer from CBS and that was good timing. I worked at UC-Santa Barbara later and shouldn’t have left there. I had a great place by the ocean, the weather was perfect, and I could still train. I wish I had stayed teaching there because I love teaching.
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| GCR: |
When you had that great year winning ten decathlons in 1969 and setting the World Record, you received the 1969 Sullivan Award as the nation's outstanding amateur athlete. Additionally, other accolades included the 1971 Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, 1975 USA Track and Field HOF, 1984 U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, 2004 Colorado University’s Athletic HOF, and a 2018 Pac-12 Hall of Honor inductee. Were these humbling, did they bring you some smiles and was it nice to see old friends?
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| BT |
I took my kids. They never saw me compete. How could they? So, it was fun for their dad to share in Oregon or Los Vegas or other places. One award I was surprised to receive was the 1968 ABC Athlete of the Year. Bob Beamon had long jumped over twenty-nine feet, and I somehow beat him out. That is a sculpture from Tiffanys.
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| GCR: |
One interesting story I read about is that, when you won the 1967 Pan Am Games Gold Medal in the decathlon, your brother, Taylor, pitched for the U.S. Gold Medal winning baseball team at those same Pan Am Games and beat the great Cuban team. How amazing was it for the Toomey brothers to both bring home Pan Am Games Gold Medals?
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| BT |
Taylor did pitch and win the final game against the Cubans. He was drafted to play major league baseball, but he blew his arm out. Nobody made a big deal about there being two brothers in two different sports earning two Gold Medals. My brother pitched for Colorado and was a flamethrower which is why he was named to the U.S. team.
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| GCR: |
What are some highlights and memories from your work with Special Olympics?
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| BT |
In the early 1970s, the International Special Olympics Games were in Chicago. Dave Thoreson, my Olympic teammate, and I worked with Special Olympics in Santa Barbara. Eunice Shriver found out an Olympic Gold Medalist was helping with these kids, and I was invited to Chicago. In an interview, I mentioned that what truly struck me was that, for the first time, the parents of these kids had pride. Eunice Kennedy came up to me and asked me to go to the Kennedy family compound in Hyannisport. I thought, ‘I’m a Republican, but who cares?’ I spent a week with the Kennedys. We were watching a movie in their theater, and I was sitting next to Joan Kennedy – and she was a babe. In the middle of the movie, the female actresses took their tops off. Everyone left the theater except Joan and me. She said, ‘What do you think? Should we stay?’ I said, ‘What do you think? Let’s watch the rest of this.’ Then at dinner, someone asked me about my political party affiliation. I should have said that I was an independent, but I said, ‘I’m a Republican.’ How stupid of me. Sometimes honesty and stupidity are the same thing.
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| GCR: |
Bill, at age eighty-six you still sound very youthful. How is your health, and what do you do regularly to keep fit?
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| BT |
I eat well and I’m active. For instance, one of my grandsons is a great high school football player and averages over thirty points in basketball. I’m active in following his sports. Another grandkid is a top tennis player. Of course, their grandmother, my first wife, Mary Rand, won three Gold Medals in the Olympics. We are still friends. She lives in Reno, Nevada and is a genuinely nice lady.
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| GCR: |
What are some of your goals for the future in terms of personal development, continuing to help and mentor others, setting an example, travel and do you see yourself slowing down or doing as much as you can?
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| BT |
Since I’m right-handed and my right hand got injured and paralyzed when I was twelve, people don’t realize I had challenges. They just think that someone like me won an Olympic Gold Medal and that I am simply good. That’s not the case. I am very intrigued by how my life developed and think that my story can be in a book and would be better than many people realize. It is a story for kids and adults who face challenges in their lives and sometimes they are overwhelmed by these challenges. I had big challenges, and they were overwhelming me, but there is always a pathway we can find. We hear people talk about the importance of your mental attitude. It is extremely important. It is a part of everything. It’s how you train. It’s how you compete. It’s such an amazing journey to make it to the Olympics when the odds are against you from the get-go. The title of my book would be, ‘Go first class if you only last a minute.’ I belong to Rotary and go to those meetings here. I speak to every Rotary club from here to Lake Tahoe.
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| GCR: |
Bill, that feeds into my final wrap-up question. Based on what you have learned from the discipline of athletics, facing challenges and overcoming obstacles, and working with people of many countries and cultures, what advice do you give to youth and adults so that they can be their best and reach their potential as athletes and human beings with the gifts they have been given that all comes together in the ‘Bill Toomey philosophy?’
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| BT |
You have to believe in yourself and, if you want to be great at something, you have to love it. And when it happens, you think, ‘Wow! How did I pull that off?’ Nobody ever bet on me when I first started in decathlon. I don’t care if you’re Picasso – when you decide to become world class, that is a big appointment to keep.
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Inside Stuff |
| Hobbies/Interests |
I’m a coin collector. When I was in Jordan, there weren’t stores and I wanted to buy interesting items. One gentleman told me there was a guy who sold stuff from his house. So, I went to this guy’s house and, when I got in there, he had many silver coins from the U.S. Everything else was covered in dirt. He asked me, ‘Are you interested in my coins?’ When I said I was, he said, ‘Which ones?’ I responded, ‘All of them.’ I bought them all and have been going through them today. I have Cleopatra on a coin. I have coins going back to ancient times. I have hundreds of coins. Another hobby (laughing) is chasing women since I’m single
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| Nicknames |
They called me ‘Toomer’ because of my name and my wrist since a neuroma is basically a tumor
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| Favorite movies |
I loved the James Bond movies with Sean Connery. I acted in a Disney movie called ‘The World’s Greatest Athlete.’ I brought in about forty athletes so that we could have a big competition for Disney. I was the advisor and assistant director for that movie. I acted in ‘Blackbeard’s Ghost’ and was afraid I might lose my amateur status. That is where I met Peter Ustinov and got to know him well
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| Favorite TV shows |
I loved ‘Perry Mason.’ I acted in several television shows. I met Don Adams from ‘Get Smart’ and have a picture with him
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| Favorite music |
One of my favorite songs is Jack Jones singing the James Bond theme ‘From Russia with Love.’ I used to play the guitar and sing in college. I started with a four-string guitar. I have a Martin six-string, but I don’t play anymore
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| Favorite books |
In a book by Frank Zarnovsky, it traces the history of multi events going back to the pentathlon in ancient Greece. These competitions started before 700 B.C. It is my favorite book to read. It lists all the competitors in the ancient Games and would make a great television documentary. There was only one event in the first Olympics in 776 B.C. It was called the Stade. It was basically a 200-meter race. Stendhal is my favorite author. I mentioned earlier about reading ‘The Red and the Black’ and ‘The Charterhouse of Parma’ during the 1968 Olympics. I love ‘Hawaii’ and have read all the books by James Michener. I used to fly often from Los Angeles to Rio de Janeiro, and it was a long flight. No one spoke English there, so I would bring Michener’s books that could be eight hundred pages for the flight and when I was in Rio. When you are by yourself and have no one to talk to, have a good book. So, I became an avid reader when I was in Brazil
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| First car |
I bought a Chevy for forty-five dollars from a guy at my high school. I got it because a tree had fallen on the top and there was a crease on the roof. I got a radio from a junk place. It didn’t fit in the dash, so it was on the floor. But I had wheels, and I had music for the first time in my life
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| Current car |
I have no car. I had a BMW and ran it until it couldn’t run anymore. I am thinking about getting a car, especially because I visited my brother in Tucson up until a few years ago
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| First Jobs |
My first job was in a plant nursery, and it was a horrible job. We started in the morning when it was still dark, and we were tired all day. My favorite job was working at Suleman’s Hardware Store during Christmas vacation. I made deliveries for them. One time I had to deliver a trampoline and almost got a hernia
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| Family |
I have two daughters. Sarah and her husband, Mike, have my middle grandson and, as I mentioned, he was the star of the football and basketball team and that was fun to watch. My other daughter, Samantha, has a kid who is six feet, five inches and he plans to do the decathlon. He is only a junior in high school and has already done one decathlon. He runs the 400 meters, the 100 meters and the relays. Samantha’s husband is Barth. I have six total grandkids. My dad was one of the key guys in the California wine industry with Italian Swiss Colony, Petry and several other brands. He was the boss and ran the company. I heard he was a tough boss, but he was taciturn at home. Dad was my biggest supporter. Towards the end of my career, he never missed a decathlon. My brother, Taylor, is a lot younger than me. My other brother, is Cornelius Richard ‘C.R.’ Toomey but he goes by ‘Dick.’ He was a captain in the Air Force and a pilot. We had no sisters. The ‘Sisters’ were at the Catholic school where I went along with fellow Olympian Tommy Farrell. When we get together, we talk about Mother Mendelsohn
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| Pets |
We had a cocker spaniel when I was young. Then my mother got into showing dogs at Madison Square Garden. She raised Schnauzers. I always have had dogs. Towards the end of my time at Colorado University, I got a dog at a pet store. It was an Irish Setter named ‘Heather.’ When I was married, I got a Great Pyrenees. It was huge. When I got up here, I got a Husky. He was great, but he ran away. He was fifteen and I had had him for seven years. Everybody thinks he ran off to die, but I don’t believe that. I still miss him today. I live alone, so now my daughter has brought me a cat. It doesn’t have a name because cats don’t need names
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| Favorite breakfast |
Every day I have three eggs. I don’t worry about cholesterol and never have
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| Favorite meal |
I love pasta. I usually get microwave dinners at the supermarket that I heat up. I’m ‘Mr. Microwave’
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| Favorite beverages |
A long time ago, it was root beer
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| First athletic memories |
I was on an official basketball team including uniforms when I was eight years old. Then I went to school at Our Lady, Queen of Martyrs Catholic School and there weren’t sports there. I walked after school to the Community House where I worked out and played basketball. I had my own locker. So, I started playing sports when I was very young in grammar school
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| Athletic heroes |
Bob Matthias was a hero because there was a book I read in the school library. Later in life, I became friends and neighbors with Bob. He was a great guy. He was the real deal and one of the nicest humans you could ever meet
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| Greatest athletic moments |
My greatest athletic moment happened in the Olympics on the first day at 11:00 p.m. in the evening and that was running 45.6 seconds for the 400 meters
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| Most disappointing athletic moment |
My most disappointing moment is hard to discern because I loved every moment of what I was doing
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| Childhood dreams |
I wanted to play basketball. I never heard of track and field or the Olympics. The first time I heard of the Olympics wasn’t until I was at the University of Colorado and saw an issue of Track and Field News. I started getting that publication and still have all of them
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| Funny memory number one |
Dave Thoreson pretended that race walker Larry Young was me for a Canadian press interview. What made it even worse was that Larry was last in line to get his USA uniform and all they had left was uniforms for big guys. So, Larry had a rope around his waist to tie his pants. When Dave introduced Larry as Bill Toomey and he was standing there with this rope around his waist, he looked comical. They must have thought that he, or me, was a loser. Larry was another great guy
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| Funny memory number two |
Jon Cole was a discus thrower, and George Frenn was a hammer thrower. They used to do weightlifting contests on grass, and they would set their unofficial world records lifting on grass. They would pretend to rob banks. In Warsaw, Poland we were on ridiculously small food per diem. They were trying to get John Pennel and my care packages with food and were pretending to hold us up with a rubber gun. Somebody grabbed the rubber gun and threw it out of the window. It landed on the sidewalk. Nobody in Poland had guns or had seen a gun unless they were in the military. There was a guy on the street who saw the gun. He walked away from it, walked back, crossed the street, picked up the gun and ran like there was no tomorrow. It was a water gun
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| Funny memory number three |
I didn’t receive the 1969 Sullivan Award for two years because I was on the way to compete in Europe and wasn’t about to lug this big trophy with me. I gave the trophy to an official and we could never find it. First, they tried to pawn off a little bowling trophy and that wasn’t going to happen. Finally, someone knew where it was, and I got it. There was some damage, but it is right in front of me now as we are speaking
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| Funny memory number four |
I received a call from Gale Terry with an advertising agency. He wanted me to be in a beer ad. I thought it was too soon after the 1972 Olympics to do alcoholic beverage commercials, plus I didn’t drink that much, maybe wine with dinner. I also told him, ‘By the way, the ad stinks.’ Now this conversation was no longer civil. He said, ‘Oh yeah? Do you think you have better ideas?’ I told him I thought I could come up with a few. I’m a creative guy, so I told him, ‘Oceans and continents, since in four years of training a swimmer swims enough to cross the Unites States and a distance runner runs enough to run around the earth.’ He liked it and asked me if I had any more. They asked me to meet them at Chasen’s in Hollywood, which was the famous restaurant where Elizabeth Taylor ate chili. I met them at Chasen’s and negotiated my contract. Unfortunately, I only asked for twenty-five grand, and they made a fortune. I ended up doing twelve commercials for Schlitz beer. I created the entire account. Before the commercials aired, I ran into the head of the brewery who said, ‘That will never work. They’re too good!’ Years later at another ad agency, a guy randomly said that the Schlitz beer Olympic ads were the best he had ever seen. I wanted to tell him I had created them, but I didn’t
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| Embarrassing moment |
One time in Germany when I was doing the high jump, I was taking my sweat off and my shorts came off with them. So, I mooned the entire audience, though I didn’t want to
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| Favorite places to travel |
That’s a tough question because it is the people you meet. I enjoyed being in Africa, especially Ghana. There were some of the most wonderful people you could ever want to meet. I also like Kenya, though Kenyans are a bit stiffer. In Ghana, over one hundred people came to the airport to see me off when I left. In Kenya, I went to Thompson Falls. It was important for the Kenyans in training as every morning they ran up Agony Hill from 8,000 feet to 9,000 feet of altitude. That was their morning workout
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| Choose a Superhero – Batman, Superman, or Spiderman? |
Superman. He was the early hero in the 1950s on black and whit television played by George Reeves
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| Choose a theme park – Disneyland or Universal? |
Disneyland
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| Choose your favorite ‘Big Four’ spectator sport – Baseball, Basketball, Football or Hockey? |
Football
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| Choose a Sylvester Stallone character - Rocky or Rambo? |
I like both equally. Stallone is kind of me in that he came from nowhere
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| Choose the beach or mountains? |
I get skin cancer, so probably the mountains. Plus, I am living at six thousand feet altitude
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| Choose one Decathlon event to win the Gold Medal? |
The 400 meters
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| Final comments from Bill |
I will congratulate you on doing your homework. Not many people do. Nobody has asked me so much of this in fifty years and my story has many unusual aspects. Thank you so much for a great interview
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