Former Oregon track and field coach Bill Dellinger proved this past week that even idolized legends aren’t immortal after he suffered a stroke early Thursday morning.
Dellinger suffered the stroke in his sleep and was found by his wife, Marol, in a near-immoblilized state on the right side of his body. He was in New Jersey on a brief vacation visiting friends before heading to the Newport Running Camp in Newport, Rhode Island on Aug. 8-13.
The news of the 66-year-old’s stroke has sent shock waves through the Eugene community, especially since Dellinger has continued to be an active man since retiring as the Oregon men’s track and field coach in the spring of 1998.
“It’s really startling,” Oregon athletic director Bill Moos said. “We’re all thinking of him and wishing him our very best.”
Initially after his stroke, Dellinger was in intensive care before being transferred to a cardiac monitoring floor on Friday afternoon. He was moved due to a potential blood clot or air bubble in his bloodstream, but tests turned out negative.
Dellinger is still located at Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, N.J., and is set to start therapy as early as this week. Geoff Thurner, assistant director of Oregon media services, said that the only improvement made over the weekend was the slight movement of Dellinger’s right leg and him sitting up slowly in his hospital bed. Thurner said that he still hasn’t received the results from the tests to confirm what exactly the cause of the stroke was.
“Bill is still a very young guy so this came as a surprise to everyone,” Moos said. “We’re anxiously hoping that he has a full recovery and are optimistic that we can get him back home.”
Dellinger took over as head coach of the Ducks in 1973 from his former coach Bill Bowerman. Four years later, Tom Heinonen was hired on as the women’s track and field head coach and the two were a dynamic coaching tandem up until Dellinger’s retirement in ’98.
Heinonen didn’t hear of Dellinger’s fate until late Friday night at a restaurant when he spotted a small story on the incident in a newspaper.
“I was gone all week at running camps and had no idea what had happened to him,” he said. “It was a shock to me and everyone else.”
Heinonen mentioned how there was a possibility of a running group, consisting of post-collegiate runners, who were to move to Eugene to train under Dellinger. “Bill has got a lot left to give and I really hope that he has a chance to do it,” Heinonen said.
This is not the first time that Dellinger has had to fight back from health problems. In the summer of 1997, Dellinger learned that he had prostate cancer, which was one of the main factors in his decision to retire that following spring. Dellinger underwent a total of 25 radiation treatments in 1997-98.
Dellinger’s attitude then was to simply deal with the cancer, defeat it and then move on.
“As you get older and older, there are more and more things that can happen to you and most of them are bad, so you just kind of accept them and keep going with it,” he told the Emerald in February of ’98. “It takes a lot of courage to grow old because there are so many things that can go wrong.
“I was going along my way thinking I was invincible and I suddenly found out that I’m not, so it kind of woke me up.”
“The most shocking thing about all of this is that it could happen to anybody,” Heinonen said. “Bill dodged a bullet with the prostate cancer and hopefully he can do the same thing here.”
Dellinger first broke onto the Oregon track scene when he was one of the storied program’s best distance runners. In the years of 1953-56, he was a two-time NCAA champion, three-time All-American and three-time conference champion.
As a 32-year cross country coach, he led the Ducks to a total of 20 top-10 NCAA finishes, as well as NCAA titles in 1971, 1973, 1974 and 1977. In his 26 years as the track and field head coach, he guided the Ducks to 14 top-10 NCAA Outdoor Championships finishes, including the NCAA title in 1984.
Overall, Dellinger’s athletes at Oregon totaled 146 All-American performances and 22 NCAA championships. For Dellinger’s efforts, he was elected into the U.S. Track Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
“Bill Dellinger is a pillar of this program and this community,” Moos said. “His coaching legacy and what he’s done at Hayward Field is outstanding. He had a tremendous career athletically and coaching and has always appeared to be very healthy. Our thoughts are certainly with him and his family this week.”