1500 trivia

malmo, you are correct. Dean was still at Maryland when I finished grad school which was 1979 and I think stayed after that.

Funny that you mentioned Wheeler's Puma spikes. He may have been the only distance runner on the US team to wear Puma. While in Munich he met with the Puma shoe designers and gave input on a new training flat. In return, Puma gave Bob an hour in their Village warehouse to select whatever he wanted in shoes, sweats, etc. Little did they know that one of Bob's HS friends was stationed in the army in Germany. The two of them arranged to have a truck in the Village parking garage and hauled 10-15 huge boxes full of gear to the truck and shipped them back to Durham on the army's nickle.

With the Games in Sept., Bob took a leave of absence from school and stayed over a couple of weeks to travel and run in some meets. When he got back to Duke he opened up shop with all of his gear. Within days, every jock on campus was wearing sweats, t's and shoes and most of them were garish colors. Ridiculously funny.

while looking for George Pullen, Grossmont, I came across your story. I ran one season for Coach Wheeler at SDSU.

I just found out last week at the Footlocker XC Nationals that Bob Wheeler died in November, just a month ago. Don't have any details. I believe he was only 58 years old.