Blast from T&FN past: My interview with Al Oerter in July 1978

Prized T&FN byline in July 1978 issue.

Track & Field News has an archive of interviews going back to December 1973 (Q&A with Brian Oldfield). In the summer of 1978, when I was only two years out of Kansas, I had the honor of quizzing Al Oerter in a Los Angeles hotel room the day before a UCLA meet. He had decided to train for the 1980 Olympics. Didn’t make it, of course. No American did. (See “Boycott, Carter.”) But he was only a couple years away from setting an M40 world record (and PR) of 69.48 (227-11) that lasted for 32 years (until Virgiljus Alekna threw 70.28, or 230-6 3/4, in 2012). Anyhoo, see my Q&A with Al in the July 1978 issue — which I think may be the only T&FN interview done by a nonstaff writer. I’m still proud of it.