45
February, 1945
The Path to Yictory Fame has not come easily. Dodds has worked, and worked hard, for the laurels he has won. As one sports writer commented, “He trains as though everything depends on him self, and prays as though everything depends on God!” After Gil was saved at the age of thirteen, he started to become a run ner. While in Falls City, Nebraska, he became acquainted with Lloyd Hahn, the great miler of 1924-1929, who had starred in two Olympic games and had set five world’s records. Their first meeting was eventful, though un pleasant. “Gallopin’ ” Gil was on his way home from fishing with his pals one day, and tossed a rock at a pass ing car. The car stopped immediately, and Gil Dodds was off over the hill in a hurry. Gil thought he could out run “the farmer,” but “the farmer” was Lloyd Hahn! When Hahn, caught the strong-legged Gil, a lusty kick in the seat of the pants informed the young boy that stones were not made to be thrown at passing automobiles. . Gil came back to his grinning play mates, and said, “Who was that fe l low?” They told him, “ Lloyd Hahn,” and Gil almost cried when he thought that he had made such an impression on the man whom he admired so highly. A year or so later, however, when Gil had run and won a few. races,
signs his autograph, sometimes slip ping a tract into the hand of a youth ful admirer; and why, with continued glory assured for him for years to come, he preferred to say to news paper reporters last November: “I don’t know how long I’ll be racing; I feel that the Lord is calling me to the mission field and I hope to get out there as soon as possible.” This is the man whom the Amateur Athletic Union and its six hundred ex perts chose as the winner of the famed Sullivan award. for 1943—an award made to the athlete who had done the •most to advance the cause of sports manship during the year. Gil’s main claim to the award, in the eyes of the judges, came when he laid aside a well-planned summer of w o r k to c h a s e Gunder Hagg of Sweden around the cinder paths of this coun try in seven races which netted the Army Air Relief Fund over $136,000. The Christian's Athlete Gil Dodds has done much to encour age Christian young people. With the country as sports-minded as it is, and with the high school and college youth eager to idolize and admire their fa vorite heroes, it was cheering to Chris tians around the world to know that the greatest athlete in the United States in 1943 was a genuine believer in Christ, eager to serve his Lord.
on all sides of him. He was facing once more the query: “What shall I do with Jesus?” That afternoon, a God-guided lady who was leading the class explained the way of salvation to young Gil Dodds in such a way that he never washable to get away from it. This teacher knew her Bible well. She knew what passages appealed to boys, and as she talked that day she per haps had in mind particularly a boy who liked athletics and running, above all else. Passage after passage of Scripture came from her lips. Then came Isaiah 40:31, and Gil remembers it clearly to' this very day: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” God used that verse to move Gil Dodds, the world’s greatest miler of the present day, onto the “ bom again” ledger of His Book of Life. From that day on, he has been a Christian. And, from that day on, Gil Dodds has been a runner! Until this time his desire to be an athlete had been frustrated by well- meaning friends who had advised him by saying, “You can’t be an athlete and a Christian at the same time.” The lad had caught those words and nursed them in a troubled mind. But when “ decision day” came in his life, he not only became a Christian, but he also received the peace of mind in his own heart that he could and should run as long as God could be glorified thereby. Th« Rule for Running, To the modest and unassuming seminary student who was scheduled to be graduated from Boston’s School of Theology and Missions in February of 1945, the measuring rod always has been: “ Can I do this and glorify God?” Dodds realized from the beginning that any talents of running which he possessed were Goc(-given, and that to use them in any other way would be robbing God of that which was rightfully His. That is why he has said, “ I’ll hang up my spikes any time the Lord wants me to do so” ; that is why he never has run a race on Sunday (even when experts in the East told him he would get nowhere fast if he insisted on not running on Sun day) ; why he passed up a great track summer in 1944 to tour the country under the auspices of three national soul-saving organizations; and why he never has padded an expense ac count while his fellow athletes in the big time look askance at him when they see and hear about his “ ex penses.” . This is the reason, too, that he adds a Bible verse every time he
„ Lloyd Hahn was prevailed upon by the The Gil Dodds who set the world m- £ cit4 ns of FansPCity to give his ex- record m New York on March 1 , pert attentjon to the “ promising sopho- 1944 by running the mile in 4 : 0 7 . 3 ^ . ^ , , He di from fhen on minutes and who broke that record ^ through Gil>s iour /ears at Ashland seven days later m Chicago by run- college in Ohio, Lloyd Hahn coached nmg the mile in 4:06 4 mmutes-the 2 Mm “ ither & persot/ or by maiL fastest time ever run by a human be- . . ing indoors in the world—is the same^. There was no track team at Ash- Gil Dodds who took time in a crowded land, and no track coach. This did restaurant in a midwest city to askjjjnpt hinder Gil, however/ and the a little fellow, “ You going to Sunday ^ coaching which he received from Hahn school tomorrow, pal?” Hearing the, every week in the mail kept him win- lad say no, Gil soon succeeded in get- ning races. He ran in Madison Square ting an answer, from him that he!2 Garden in the winter of 1939, but his would go the next day. ^ first race there found him being booed off the track when his lungs, unac- 1 customed to the heavy smoke in the . . . . . .
The fame which has come Dodds’ way has not changed him. He admits that as a youth he actually dreamed of sbme day running in Madison Square Garden, but he comes back in the next breath and says that he cannot see why the Lord has been so good to him in allowing that dream to be realized. He acknowledges that on January 1, 1939, when he stood in the Sugar Bowl at New Orleans and saw Don Lash receive the Sullivan award for 1938, that he, too, had dreams of receiving that award; but quickly he tells you that when that same award was presented to him in Madison Square Garden five years later that “ only God made this possi ble for me, and to Him I give all of the credit’'
auditorium, caused him to wobble from side to side on the track and spoil a great race between Greg Rice and Don Lash. Gil fell on the boards just as Lash was passing him and, in falling, threw Lash off stride. The crowd roared its anger on the "mail order miler." But three years later, after Hahn had coaxed Gil to go east to Boston for training under Jack Ryder, and the Lord had opened the way, Gil was back in the Garden, once more as a front runner. He had learned much in those three years. He had learned to depend upon the Lord for strength in every race; he had learned that it al ways pays to keep trying.
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