How | Became Gary Fanelli

And got myself to the 1988 Olympic Marathon. Part 4 of 4.

in the Olympic Games. But more than a decade of training and racing had

gone by, and although I had several times made the US Olympic Marathon Trials, I had not made the team. Now past my mid-30s, there suddenly loomed on the horizon—the far horizon, the horizon over the Pacific Ocean—one last chance to walk into the Olympic Games at the Opening Ceremonies as an official Olympic marathoner.

Isaw my chances of being in the Olympic Games slipping away in 1984 after I failed to make the U.S. Team in the marathon. I ended up going into a church to pray on my fate. I asked God if this was all a bad joke on me. I became very calm and my inner voice told me to just go on ahead with my current life.

I continued to run and race and gave thanks to God that I could still do that.

I had two nice children, Celeste Nicole and Laura Elizabeth. I had a home and was paying a mortgage on it. I was having marital difficulties, however. I had tried my best in my marriage but could see it was not working out as well as Thad hoped it would. I loved my children, and they were innocent and terrific. It was my wife and I having the problems, which is how it usually is. At the same time, it was a good time in my life, and also a difficult one. Perhaps one would balance out the other.

in a 1:03:53 at the Philadelphia Distance Classic. I felt relatively recovered from the foot surgery and to record a PR buoyed my self-confidence.

In reviewing my running log, it appears that I simply ran out of time to train before the Trials. I had a string of good races and fast times in the wake of the Trials—a top 19 finish at Bix 7, a 48:48 10-miler at Bobby Crim. I was running the mile in under 4:20 and setting many course records at five miles in races around the Philadelphia area.

Sm Iwas 17,1 had that feeling, an intuitive feeling, the dream of competing

leven managed a fairly fast marathon dressed as Elwood Blues: I did Toronto in 2:30:50.

During 1985 I continued to receive many invitations to races in both the United States and the rest of the world, some as myself and some as a costumed character.

It would take several pages to tell you stories of some of the “fun” experiences Thad running as Elwood Blues and other characters.

But having “fun” in that arena did not hide the fact that I continued to have marital difficulties, which weighed heavily on my mind most of that year.

I raced in Cancun, Puerto Rico, Melbourne, and New Zealand, having fun, making some money.

Then 1986 pretty much copied 1985 except for the fact that my wife and I separated. I felt really shattered about being separated from my daughters and watching them go through those trying times.

In 1987 we divorced. In spite of that, I was still running and racing well and was making money.

lexpanded my character inventory and ran as “the graduate” in the Stockholm Marathon, wearing a cap and gown. I donned the same outfit for the Springfield 5-Miler in Agawam, Massachusetts, and ran 24:13, complete with cap and gown.

On July 19, 1987, at the San Francisco Marathon, I met Connie Comiso, who would become my second wife. I was there to run the marathon dressed, in full US Marine dress uniform, as Lt. Col. Oliver North. My brother, Mike, was one of the race directors and they invited me to entertain the folks.

Connie and I really hit it off and she invited me to visit her in Hawaii.

A few weeks later, after I raced the Bix 7 in Davenport, Iowa, I took off for Honolulu to visit Connie. I spent time with Connie and some of her friends and I did a lot of running and racing there. As I soon learned, running in Hawaii is swell.

Some folks from the running community in American Samoa were in Honolulu. Word was that they were trying to find someone to come to American Samoa to help start a track and field program, because in 1988 American Samoa would be allowed to compete in the Olympic Games for the first time.

I met with Marty Yerrick, an attorney who was assistant to the lieutenant governor of American Samoa, and Marty’s wife, Georgi Tomisato. They explained what they were looking for. Given my extensive coaching background, I was encouraged to, and did, submit a resume.

Aside from coaching and setting up the track and field program, there was an outside chance that I would be able to use one of their “allocated slots” provided by the International Olympic Committee for Track and Field.

Yet another move

In September I decided to move from Pennsylvania to Hawaii.

I moved in with Connie, but it was not too long before things weren’t going well between us. But while things between us were not going so well, I learned that my application for the American Samoan coaching position had been approved. With less than a year to go before the 1988 Olympics, I became the American Samoa national track and field coach. Had my relationship with Connie been going well, I would have stayed in Hawaii. I arrived on Tuesday, February 16, 1988. They put me up in the Tradewinds Hotel in downtown Pago Pago.

Although this little country is called American Samoa, besides seeing the American flag around town, there isn’t much that is American about it.

One incident: I went to a restaurant for breakfast. On the menu they listed hotcakes with real maple syrup for $4.95 and pancakes with regular syrup for $3.95. I asked them for pancakes with real maple syrup and the waiter told me I could only order hotcakes with real maple syrup. I tried to find out what the difference was between hotcakes and pancakes, but we got nowhere. It was exactly like that Jack Nicholson scene from Five Easy Pieces where he tries to order what he wants at the restaurant and becomes, shall we say, frustrated?

On the up side, the people are very friendly. When you walk down the street, everyone you meet says “Hello” or “Talofa,” which means “Hello.” I found this very refreshing.

Icould catch the local bus— called an “Aiga Bus,” “aiga” meaning “family”—and get dropped off anywhere I wanted. The buses were available to anyone who needed a ride.

On my second day on the island, I had the opportunity to meet many of the people behind the American Samoa track and field efforts. They were putting on an Olympic Solidarity Coaching Clinic. It was being

<4 Welcome to American Samoa! This sign makes me ponder my running fate.

Go ‘6 a &

put on by the International Olympic Committee as a step in welcoming American Samoa to the Olympic family.

My job would be to put together programs for any athletes who aspired to be part of the Olympic Games. Roughly a dozen athletes showed up to take part in the program. Samoans are gifted athletes, with very good speed and explosiveness. The Samoans are Polynesian and are among the largest people on Earth. Their forte is in the throwing events—shot put, discus, and javelin.

I started the program by putting on a series of all-comers’ meets on Saturdays, followed by a series of clinics at Samoan High School in downtown Pago Pago. The high school featured an old ragged 300-meter track and an adequate field.

We usually had a half-dozen athletes show up on any given Saturday.

The Olympic Games has standards that an athlete must meet in order to compete. There are “A” and “B” standards. Based on the small size of American Samoa, the Olympic Committee determined that local athletes who could meet the “B” standards would be allowed to compete.

Besides putting on meets and helping train the Samoan athletes, I had to keep myself fit, also, since it was quite possible that there would be a spot for me on the team.

American Samoa is extremely hot and humid. My shoes would start to squeak 20 minutes into a run from sweat running down into them.

New housing arrangements

T established legal residencey when I moved to American Samoa to coach. My housing arrangements began to come together. I was to stay with an American teacher named Phil Grant; he was from Santa Barbara, California. He was also a runner. He lived in a section of the city known as the Pilagi Housing District; “pilagi” means foreigner. Phil taught at American Samoa Community College. Whenever we could, Phil and I would run together. He was a good runner, with a 2:38 marathon PR. Phil did much to teach me about Samoan culture and helped me learn how to fit in—at least to fit in as well as I was able to fit in. The Pilagi Housing District was near the airport and was bordered by the Pacific Ocean. The name of our village was Tafuna; I became known as “Tafuna Slim.” Reviewing the log book that I kept while I was in American Samoa, I note that I regularly ran twice a day. I was 37 years old and in very good condition and had just come off the US road racing circuit, where I was considered a professional runner. Although it was extremely hot in Samoa, I trained diligently and worked hard at it. Several times after I arrived, I found I was passing blood in my urine. Naturally, this frightened me. Phil assured me that it was not uncommon. He said it was caused by the heat and humidity. He recommended I stay extra hydrated. I did

Courtesy of Gary Fanelli

<4 In the Village of Tafuna, | was known as “Tafuna Slim,’ aka Gary Fanelli.

as he advised and the problem disappeared.

Iremember the whole time I was in American Samoa, I felt insecure about my position there. [had no guarantee that I would be allowed to compete in the Olympic Games. Just my atrival there was controversial among many people.

The local newspaper didn’t help. The editor, a pilagi named Lewis Wolman, was a bit skeptical about the Samoan Olympic Committee’s decision to bring me in to start the program and coach with the outside possibility that I would have a slot on the team.

Some of the athletes felt insecure that I might take their place by filling one of the spots on the team. Some didn’t understand how the whole Olympic team thing worked. I got some attitude from the very fact that I was an outsider. It was amusing at times, and at other times it was downright annoying.

One thing I remember from that period was that I had a temporary memory loss brought on from too often running distances in the extremely hot and humid conditions.

It was not major. I knew my name and all. But to give you an example of what I was dealing with, I would take a bus to downtown Pago Pago in the afternoon to pick up my mail and to shop. Sometimes I would have a letter in my bag that I wanted to mail while I was downtown, so I’d go to the post office and pick up my mail but completely forget to send the letter I had carried all the way there. I would get all the way home and open my bag and find the letter there that I had forgotten to mail. Constant heat will do that to you. When I returned to Honolulu, my memory returned to 100 percent.

It should be recognized that the Samoans love team sports. They are very social. They are really into rugby, which is played with passion. Same with team canoe racing.

They weren’t so much into individual sports. Although they were talented in the shot put and the discus, those events didn’t hold much appeal for them.

A lack of focus

Also, many Samoans saw no real value in the Olympic Games. As an example: after instructing an Olympic hopeful shot-putter, I had him go over to an adjacent practice field to continue putting the shot while I worked on the track with several runners. When I went to look for him, he was asleep under a coconut tree, using the shot as a pillow. I tried to explain to him that without practice, he would never meet the B standard, much less the A. He really didn’t care all that much.

It could be frustrating at times, and it made me look somewhat incompetent, once again threatening my already tenuous position there. And it wasn’t like I was being royally paid. I was receiving a stipend that just about covered small things like groceries.

Then one day my roommate, Phil Grant, dropped a real bomb on me. He informed me that a friend of his who was a good runner from Santa Barbara was coming to American Samoa, with the idea of making its Olympic team.

That sure made me feel threatened. I didn’t know this guy. What if the Olympic Committee liked him better than me? What if he ran better in the heat here in Samoa? All of the insecure what ifs tortured me. So Ryan Lamppa arrived. He stayed with us. We did runs together with Phil. I think Ryan had some very good credentials, like around 31 minutes for the 10K. I just felt threatened. And then a guy from New Zealand showed up, too. He heard that if he established residency here that maybe he, too, could have my slot. Man, this burned me up and every day made me feel more insecure. I was a stranger in a strange land, and now it was looking to be mucked up and Id never realize my 20-year dream of being at the Olympics—after two Olympic Marathon Trials, foot surgery, great victories, and other injuries.

Now we had a foursome when it came time to train. Often it got mental, too, like instead of training, it got into macho realms with posturing like, “I’m a better runner than you, and it is me who should be given the slot into the Olympics.” At times, it got downright nutty. Personally, I felt I was the best athlete there, the one who had the fastest and most consistent times and the deepest credentials, but I was still feeling insecure on a regular basis.

Then there was the Banner Fanene situation. He was a Samoan and had expressed an interest in competing in the decathlon at the Games. I had a duty to coach him, so I started to do that. He was a decent decathlete and I respected him.

I could see, though, that he needed a lot of work if he was going to reach the B standards for the event. I made sure to be at every Saturday all-comers’ meets that I had advertised in the local newspaper’s sports section. Banner regularly showed up for the meets to compete in the 100 meters, 200 meters, and/or shot put and discus. Very often he was the only person to show up for these meets. So it turned into a sort of time trial. I timed him and reported his marks to the newspaper. After a while I could see he resented me. Then he vocalized it. At times he got testy with me. I never backed down and never let him intimidate me. At one Saturday all-comers’ meet we degenerated into a fight. I forget what triggered it, but somehow we started taking swings at each other and cursing each other out. Marty Yerrick, the man who brought me to American Samoa, who was a runner and who worked with the lieutenant governor, heard about it and I got a letter of reprimand, and I was told if this happened again, I would get tossed from Samoa.

It seems as if Banner’s plan to undermine me was working. He clearly resented the fact that I was here. I think he even wrote a letter to the newspaper to the effect of asking what I was doing here in this country, trying to take away his spot on the Olympic team. The Olympic Committee was kind enough to point out to him that he wasn’t currently nearly qualified to make the Games and he should stop fighting and put some of that energy into working hard to get better if he hoped to make the team. He basically quit.

About a Popsicle stick

On Flag Day, there was a race set up that was supposed to run across the porch of the lieutenant governor’s residence, where he was to hand each runner a Popsicle stick to prove that you had made it that far. I was leading the race, ran across the porch, but there was no lieutenant governor on the porch to hand me a Popsicle stick, which I personally thought was a stupid idea anyway. It was the middle of a race, and I was focused, so I just kept going. Well, lo and behold, Marty Yerrick’s wife, Georgi Tomisato, took grand exception to my not stopping in the middle of a race to wait for the lieutenant governor to come out to hand me a Popsicle stick. She saw it as an insult to the lieutenant governor. She went out of her way to threaten me and make like I was going to be bounced out of American Samoa because of the slight to the lieutenant governor. She got nasty with me. Once again, I began to feel very insecure. It seemed I always had at least one person dogging me with the threat of knocking me out of the way of my Olympic dream.

I devised a plan to get Georgi off my back. Enter Dr. Jack Rockett of Memphis, Tennessee, a doctor of nuclear medicine. Several years before, he had started— I’m not making this up—the Gary Fanelli Fan Club because, as he said, he liked my style of running, racing, and making people laugh. I related my tale of woe

about how Georgi was trying to get me thrown out of Samoa because she was angry with me and happened to have a bit of power.

I happened to know that the American Samoa Olympic Committee was in some financial need. Jack Rockett said he wanted to come visit me. When he arrived, I had him meet the Olympic Committee and he somehow got them to get Georgi off my back. I was very relieved.

I very much enjoyed Dr. Rockett’s visit, and not just because he removed a threat to me. We visited the nation of Western Samoa and generally had a lot of fun throughout his visit.

As the Olympic Games rolled closer, it looked as though the American Samoa Olympic Committee was going to give me the “marathon slot” allotted to it under the track and field category. Eventually that decision was confirmed. I was astonished and relieved and quite excited. To me, this whole thing had been very much a spiritual journey, which made it a little easier to put up with the crap I had to deal with along the way.

I was given my American Samoa Olympic uniforms and credentials.

On Saturday, September 10, we were given a farewell at the American Samoa Airport by family, friends, the governor, and many other well-wishers.

We stopped off in Hawaii for several days, and then it was on to Seoul.

Being in Seoul was exciting. I enjoyed the Olympic Village. I saw many of my American friends there, as well as many of the runners I had completed against from all over the world. The Olympic Village was a cross between Disneyland and amaximum security prison. It had a lot of —_— – security precautions and ail | 2 oOo high barbed-wire fences. 0 x 3 A [20 t It also had fabulous, ‘ AMERICAN SAMOF wonderful facilities, and great food and amenities. It was wonderful being there. I had arrived to see about completing my Olympic dream.

Gathering before the
Opening Ceremonies of
the 1988 Olympic Games.
Left to right: American
Samoa Olympic official,
me, Olympic volunteer, Al
Lolotai, and Albert Mailo.

SG ‘6 a &

Thad always enjoyed traveling, as you would conclude from reading what has gone before. I had already been around the world while in the Merchant Marines, had hitchhiked through every state except South Dakota, and had traveled to many of the world’s tourist spots as a professional runner. In its way, American Samoa possessed a special beauty all its own, a beauty I should comment on before leaving it behind.

Reflections on American Samoa

American Samoa was fabulous, spiritual, and inspiring. I would go for some runs near the beaches where there were impossibly beautiful rock formations, all of it very clean and pristine. There were mountains that shot up at stark angles. And the sky was a special kind of blue. In remote areas, it was totally quiet and peaceful.

But there was also a downside, especially when we went on long runs through small villages (called fales). Every village had its own pack of dogs on the loose. They were smart, resourceful dogs. They knew immediately if you were a resident of the village, and if you weren’t, good luck. They harassed us in packs and tried to get a choice piece of meat out of our legs. I took to carrying a stick when I knew I was going to run through or past a village. I soon learned the Samoan word “Halu,” which means “back off.” I learned to use it a lot . . . and to use the stick to ward them off.

On my Sunday long runs, I would often run to a point at the end of the island, where the farther along you went, the fewer villages you encountered. I used to carry money along with me so I could improvise my own Coke aid station when I encountered a grocery store. They didn’t carry Gatorade.

Talso carried an old mustard squeeze bottle, which I filled with ammonia to ward off the packs of dogs that tried to attack me. They tended to not like getting asnoot full of ammonia. There were also great flocks of chickens in most villages, but they scattered when you ran toward them.

Avoiding getting hit by cars was its own kind of art form. There was really no shoulder to the roads, so we learned to run in proximity to cars that were using the roads. I was the new white kid on the block, and some of the drivers wanted to make sure I was welcomed on the island so they drove especially close to me, which earned them a fist bonk on the roof of their car or tap from my halu stick. I think I amused them. Why would a skinny white kid be running through their village on a hot day (and in Samoa, every day was a hot day)?

Eventually word got out about who I was and what I was doing there, and some of the attempted murders on the road turned to smiles and waves.

We also managed to have quite a few road races. A guy named John Wasko especially liked putting on road races. And since I was coaching the island’s distance runners, it was expected that any time there was a road race, I would be running it. People turned up to see how fit I was.

I managed to win all of the road races I ran in American Samoa, including a 5K in 15:03, which was an island record. We also had a 10K race on Flag Day; the race was sort of our Olympic Trials for distance runners. I ran 32:29; second place came in at 38 minutes.

We had a bingo night on weekends to help raise money to send the Samoa team to the Olympics. I worked the bingo games, selling sandwiches in the cafeteria.

The Olympic Committee had pretty much figured out who was going to the Games. There were two boxers and two wrestlers who had qualified, as well as a weightlifter and two Olympic officials. And, of course, me, their marathoner.

And that brings us back to Seoul.

Seoul man

We had to stay fit while we were at the Games, since the marathon is run on the last full day of the Games. Most of the long runs had to be done outside the Olympic Village. One of the runs I fashioned led me up into some gentle hills and farmland not too far from the Olympic Village. It was quiet. The villagers saw me as a curiosity, but they knew what I was doing there and they were as respectful to me as I was to them.

One time running in the hills I came upon a military encampment. I found it really fascinating and wondered why it was there. Coming upon it while quietly running, I watched for a few minutes from behind some bushes. I eventually continued on my way, never having been seen.

Other times I would go over to one of the practice tracks just outside the Olympic Stadium. Going to an Olympic Games practice track is always a good show. I had gone before to watch athletes practice in Montreal. It was amazing watching Lasse Viren, Rod Dixon, John Walker, and others doing superfast repeats with ease.

At the practice track in Seoul, I had to do my own workouts but also got to watch other runners. The Kenyans were in amazing form, making it look easy.

I remember Nixon Kiprotich of Kenya running 400-meter repeats. He was hitting times of 51 seconds with about a 200-meter interval between reps. Astounding, and he looked so smooth.

Finally, on Sunday, October 2, 1988, the Olympic Marathon was underway.

We started, as the Olympic marathons usually do, on the Olympic track. We circled a lap and a half and then left the stadium for the roads around Seoul.

It was a hot and humid day, which was expected. I knew to go out cautiously, as I felt I hadn’t had a great block of marathon training in American Samoa. I had been running twice a day, but it was hard to run high mileage there due to the extreme heat and humidity.

I would try my best. I had already met many of the runners who were predicted to medal. I had met Gelindo Bordin and Gianni Polli and Orlando Pizzolato at