Al Buehler, the "Coach Cool Cat"

Al Buehler

Al Buehler coached at Duke from 1955, he was  an assistant for the track team, when he took job as head coach for the  cross-country  team . He was head coach from 1964 until 2000...

1971 Duke Cross Country Team

Early in his career at Duke, Buehler violated racist norms in the 1950s by allowing athletes from the nearby historically black college, North Carolina Central, to train with his all-white Duke squad. It was the start of a lifelong friendship with Dr. LeRoy Walker, the Central coach, who went on to head the U.S. track team and the U.S. Olympic Committee. 

“LeRoy had a miserable track; he didn’t have a full set of hurdles,” Buehler says. “We weren’t sneaky about it,” he says. “We just did it.” 

Dr. LeRoy Walker talks with longtime Duke track coach Al Buehler

Lee Calhoun 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games
 

This arrangement was paramount in the U.S. win Olympic medals at the 1956 Melbourne Games. North Carolina Central’s Lee Calhoun won the 110-meter hurdles, and Duke’s Joel Shankle took the bronze as part of a U.S. sweep.

Tommie Smith Wins the Gold Medal in the 200m Final at the 1968 Mexico Olympics

Tommie Smith

In the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, Buehler had recently coached a U.S. team that included Tommie Smith and John Carlos on a European tour. 
The two athletes were thrown off the U.S. team after their demonstration during the 200-meter medal ceremony. On the second day of the Games, Smith and Carlos took their stand. Smith set a world record, winning the 200-meter gold, and Carlos captured the bronze. Smith then took out the black gloves. The silver medalist, a runner from Australia named Peter Norman, attached an Olympic Project for Human Rights patch onto his chest to show his solidarity on the medal stand.

The "Salute"

As the stars and stripes ran up the flagpole and the national anthem played, Smith and Carlos bowed their heads and raised their fists in what was described across the globe as a “Black Power salute,” creating a moment that would define the rest of their lives. But there was far more to their actions on the medal stand than just the gloves. The two men wore no shoes, to protest black poverty as well as beads and scarves to protest lynching.

 Olympic Project for Human Rights Patch

The fallout was immediate for Smith and Carlos, who were sent home in disgrace. Peter Norman was never given the chance to go a step closer. He was never picked to run in the Olympics again. “I would have dearly loved to go to Munich (but) I’d earned the frowning eyes of the powers that be in track and field,” said Norman “I’d qualified for the 200 meters 13 times and 100 meters five times (but) they’d rather leave me home than have me over there (in Munich).” Shunned in his own country Norman retired from athletics immediately after hearing he’d been cut from the Munich team. He would never return to the track. Neither would his achievements count for much 28 years later when Sydney hosted the 2000 Olympics. “At the Sydney Olympics he wasn’t invited in any capacity,” says Matthew Norman. “There was no outcry. He was the greatest Olympic sprinter in our history.” In his own country Peter Norman remained the forgotten man.

 Peter Norman(2000) with the Silver Medal He Won at the 1968 Mexico Olympics
 

Peter Norman, John Carlos and Tommie Smith

Peter Norman died of a heart attack on October 9, 2006. 
At the funeral both Smith and Carlos gave the eulogy, where they announced that the U.S. Track and Field association had declared the day of his death to be “Peter Norman Day” — the first time in the organization’s history that such an honor had been bestowed on a foreign athlete. Both men helped carry his coffin before it was lowered into the ground. For them, Norman was a hero — “A lone soldier,” according to Carlos — for his small but determined stand against racism. “He paid the price. This was Peter Norman’s stand for human rights, not Peter Norman helping Tommie Smith and John Carlos out,” Smith told CNN.
 

Tommie Smith And John Carlos  Pallbearers at Norman's Funeral

"THE Salute"

Within hours after the medal ceremony, the International Olympic Committee spread a rumor that Smith and Carlos had been stripped of their medals (although this was not in fact true) and expelled from the Games and The Olympic Village.

The two men were in definite danger of being attacked and possibly killed once they left the Olympic village. They knew Buehler and trusted him and without a second thought he helped them get home. 
“They needed a ride,” he says, “and I was the logical choice.”

In the car on the way to the airport Coach Buehler commended them for their actions. He told them that in the future the world would see them as courageous men and the incident would be considered a noble moment in history.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos nicknamed him “Coach Cool Cat” that day and have referred to him as such from that moment on.

Coach Al Buehler

Al Buehler has not only enriched the lives of thousands of athletes including Olympians Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Carl Lewis, but also the lives of thousands more who never owned a pair of track shoes. 

Buehler’s career spanned four Olympics and he never let his success get in the way of his deep desire to help athletes become better people. “There are a lot of great men and there are a lot of great coaches, but there are not a lot of great coaches that are great men. And Coach Buehler was definitely one of those," said Carl Lewis, 9-time Olympic Gold Medalist.
 
I watched a documentary about Coach Buehler a few weeks ago and was inspired by this man's integrity and his love for humanity. He is a shinning example of the virtues of being in service to the greater good. 

 

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