Team USATF's 1988 Olympic Games men's head manager Al Buehler, who served as Duke's track and field and cross country coach for 45 years, died January 5 in Durham, North Carolina. He was 92. Buehler served on three Olympic staffs for Team USATF, twice as an assistant men's manager in 1972 and 1984 before being named head men's manager for the Seoul Games in 1988 and was a meet director for several major international events held in the United States. He was the head men's manager for the 1971 Pan American Games and the 2001 World Indoor Championships. A past president of the collegiate track and field coaches association, Buehler was also chairman of the NCAA Track & Field Committee and produced five Olympians as a coach, two of whom won Olympic medals. His cross country teams won six Atlantic Coast Conference titles and he guided 10 Duke athletes to All-America status. Buehler joined the Duke staff in 1955 as head cross country coach after graduating from the University of Maryland, and in 1964 he assumed the role of head track and field coach. Inducted into the Duke Athletics Hall of Fame in 2000, Buehler was also a full-time instructor in the school's Health, Physical Education and Recreation department, serving as department chair. He holds the record as Duke's longest tenured professor, retiring from teaching in 2015 after six decades. The Al Buehler Cross Country Trail at Duke is named in his honor, and he was portrayed in a book and film called Starting at the Finish Line, produced by Amy Unell and Grant Hill. Buehler was a member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, as well as the USTFCCCA Hall of Fame. Buehler is survived by his wife of 64 years, Delaina, along with a son and a daughter and three grandchildren. A memorial service for Coach Buehler will be held at Duke Memorial United Methodist Church on Saturday, January 28, 2023, at 2pm in the sanctuary.
Jerry Siebert, a two-time Olympian who finished sixth in the men's 800m at the 1964 Games in Tokyo, died December 30 in Golden, Colorado, at age 84. Siebert twice ran on world record-setting two mile relays and was the runner-up in the 1960 NCAA Championships 800 for California. After a second place finish in the 800m at the 1960 Olympic Trials, Siebert made it to the semifinals at the Rome Olympics. In 1964, he placed third at the final Olympic Trials and then raced to a 1:47.0 to take sixth in Tokyo. Siebert won AAU outdoor titles in 1962 and 1964 while representing the Santa Clara Valley Youth Village club. Three times a winner in dual meets with the Soviet Union, Siebert also claimed victory against Poland in 1961. After retiring from competition, Siebert put his doctorate to use in the aerospace industry and had more than 50 years of experience as a solid-state physicist with specialties in material science, cryogenically cooled instrumentation, and thin-film technology. In 1984 he founded UniFilm Technology, which manufactured physical vapor deposition systems. Photo Credit: Chuck Liddy (Left), Cal Athletics (Right).