A pioneer in girls and women's track and field, the late Fred Thompson spent more than 50 years as founder and director of the Atoms TC and the Colgate Women's Games. At a time when girls were overlooked and often had few or no options to train and compete in New York City, Thompson established a club that allowed them to not only develop athletically, but more importantly as people.
Thompson started the Atoms TC in 1963 and over the years he produced a slew of top-flight athletes, including Diane Dixon, who won 11 U.S. Indoor titles in the 400m/440y and Olympic gold in '84 on the U.S. 4x400m relay. Cheryl Toussaint won silver on the 4x400 at Munich in ‘72, and Jamaican Grace Jackson earned silver in the 200m at the Seoul Games, where Thompson was an assistant coach on the Team USATF staff. He also coached Barbadian Lorna Forde to back-to-back American indoor 440y golds in 1976-77.
Thompson was a lawyer by trade and served as Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York from 1967-69. He gave up his law career in 1974 when he founded and became the Meet Director of the Colgate Women's Games, which has become the nation’s largest amateur track series for girls and women. Now in their 46th year, the Games have helped thousands of girls get into and pay for higher education, and produced thousands of age division champions and an astonishing 26 Olympians; but Thompson said he was prouder of the countless individual lives positively affected by their participation.
Like his Atoms TC, Thompson founded the Games to provide an athletic competition that helps participating young girls and women develop a strong sense of personal achievement, self-esteem, and instill the importance of education. Pratt Institute still hosts the Games at their indoor track in Brooklyn, where early on his Atoms TC athletes practiced.
“The Atoms doesn’t really stand for track,” he told The New York Times in 1978. “The Atoms stands for excellence in education, trying to better yourself in this society, and one way to do that is to go to college and get that piece of paper.” Both the club and the Colgate Women’s Games produced countless successful participants who went on to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses and entrepreneurs.
As an athlete, Thompson was a star at Boys High School and City College of New York. He was most proud of the accomplishments of his club members off the track. Thompson died January 22, 2019 at the age of 85 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. He will be represented by his dear friend and former athlete Lynette Diaz Miller at USATF Night of Legends.