My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon
* * *
Celebrating a Race, and Life, Well Run
An old Irish proverb came to mind last Sunday afternoon in a ballroom at the Hyatt Westlake Plaza:
’Tis better to buy a small bouquet / And give to your friend this very day,
Than a bushel of roses white and red / To lay on his coffin after he’s dead.
My son, Greg, with his beloved USC distance track coach, Laszlo Tabori, at the 60th anniversary party of his sub-4-minute mile.
Nearly 200 people traveled near and far, not with bushels of roses but rather to give small bouquets, in a manner, to their friend, Laszlo Tabori, who at age 83 is very much alive and well.
Specifically, they came to celebrate with him the 60th anniversary of the very day – May 28, 1955 – when the Hungarian-born Tabori became the world’s third person to run a sub-4-minute mile.
His official time was 3 minutes 59 seconds flat, four-tenths faster than Roger Bannister’s historic first the previous May. Tabori’s feat is proudly recorded on his personalized license plates: 359IN55.
In ’56, at the Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Tabori – then the world-record holder at 1,500 meters (3:40.8) – finished fourth in the 1,500 and sixth in the 5,000 despite losing training time because of the tumultuous Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Directly after the Closing Ceremonies, Tabori defected to America and settled in Southern California. He remained a star on the world running stage, yet could not compete in the 1960 Rome Olympics because he was a man without a country as his U.S. citizenship had not yet come through.
Tabori unlaced his racing spikes in 1962 and quickly became a world-renowned coach, employing his diabolical interval workouts to train a handful of Olympians, two Boston Marathon champions, and myriad collegians at L.A. Valley College and USC. Too, the longtime Oak Park resident created the San Fernando Valley Track Club where he still coaches men and women runners of non-elite abilities.
Now. Tabori is on his 84th trip around the sun, but it was those four orbits around a cinder track 60 Mays ago that put him in the history books and gave reason for this anniversary party.
And so one by one some of his protégés took the microphone and shared stories about how their lives were impacted by this demanding old-school coach with an accent thicker than his new autobiography, “Laszlo Tabori: The Legendary Story of the Great Hungarian Runner.”
They talked about his legendary toughness, but also his tenderness. Through laughter they teased him and through tears they called him their hero, cheerleader, mentor and friend.
Laszlo breaking the tape and the 4-minute mile barrier.
Midway through the celebration, the ballroom lights went down and a video went up on a big screen. Instantly it was 1955 again, May 28 again, and Laszlo Tabori was 23 again. He did not need a cane due to a hip replacement and his now-white hair was dark and thick and curly. His face was chiseled, his legs sinewy and powerful, and in the grainy black-and-white film footage he was flying around the chalk-lined oval inside London’s White City Stadium.
His stride was as graceful as poetry as he roared through the backstretch of the fourth-and-final lap in third place on the outside shoulders of Britons Chris Chataway and Brian Hewson.
Suddenly, Tabori did precisely what he would tell my son and all the other runners he has coached over the past half-century to do during workouts and races – “Put the guts to it!” – and the kid with No. 9 pinned to his racing singlet overtook Chataway, and then Hewson, too, and pulled away to win by five meters. 359IN55.
The ballroom erupted in cheers as if the feat just happened live.
“That race was a lifetime ago, but I still remember it like yesterday,” Tabori later told me in a private moment as I thanked him for the important role he has played in my son’s life. He added with a twinkle: “I’m happy I’m still around.”
After the video ended and the lights came back on and it was 2015 again, the former fastest man in the world slowly made his way to the front of the room and emotionally thanked everyone for showing up.
Truth is everyone was there to thank Laszlo Tabori for showing up in their lives.
* * *
Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.
Check out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”
- Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
- Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon