INDIANAPOLIS — Four-time Olympian and National Track & Field Hall of Fame member George Young, the bronze medalist in the men's 3,000m steeplechase at the 1968 Games in Mexico City, died November 8 in Arizona. He was 85. At the 1960 Games, Young ran in the heats of the steeplechase, and in 1964 he improved to fifth. At Mexico City in 1968 Young raced to bronze and also finished 16th in the marathon. He qualified for the Munich Olympics in 1972 in the 5,000m, running in the heats. Young, born on July 24, 1937, in Roswell, New Mexico, made his first international appearance for the U.S. in 1959 with a fifth-place finish at the Pan American Games and was one of the top U.S. distance runners through the 1960s. Young won three U.S. Olympic Trials titles in the steeplechase from 1960-68 and added the marathon crown in 1968. He ended his career with seven additional AAU national titles and set an American record of 8:30.6 in the steeplechase on June 21, 1968, in Sacramento. In 1969, he set an indoor world best of 13:09.8 for three miles and tied the indoor two mile WB with an 8:27.2. Young cracked the 4:00 barrier for the mile in 1972 with a 3:59.6. Following his retirement from competition, Young became a school teacher and coach, serving as cross country and track and field coach at Central Arizona College for 25 years before moving up to the athletic director position. He was honored by the school with the naming of its campus event center as the George Young Activity Center in 1977. He was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 1981. “Through his decades as an elite athlete, coach, and athletic director, George Young made an immeasurable and invaluable impact on our sport and will truly be missed,” said Max Siegel, USATF CEO.
Despite competing during the era of shot put legend Parry O'Brien, Bill Nieder managed to rise to the top of the international ranks when he won gold at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome to lead a U.S. sweep of the medals. Nieder, who died in California in October at age 89, finished second to O'Brien at Melbourne in the 1956 Games to earn silver, but had his best season four years later and set three world records, topped by a 20.06m/65-10 at Walnut, California, that made him the first man to surpass 20m. He was fortunate to even be on the 1960 Rome team after placing fourth at the Trials and being selected after an injury sidelined third-placer Dave Davis. The first high schooler to break 60-feet with the 12-pound implement, Nieder was a star football player before a serious knee injury as a sophomore at Kansas in 1953 ended his hopes of a professional career. Nieder returned to full health and won the NCAA shot put title for the Jayhawks in 1955 and followed up with an AAU gold in 1957. In 1956 he became only the second man to throw farther than 60 feet with the 16-pound international shot, a feat first achieved by O'Brien in 1954. A very brief professional boxing experiment that saw him knocked out in his first and only fight was followed by a lengthy career as a business executive that included stints with Marathon Engineering and 3M. While at 3M, Nieder was instrumental in developing artificial athletic turf, and he sold the first-ever synthetic track surface for an Olympic Games to the 1968 Mexico City organizers. He was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 2006. Photo Credits: Arizona Athletics (Young), Getty Images (Nieder)