Traveling Pastor

To the amazement of 15,000 track fans at Madison Square Garden, the Reverend Gil Dodds* bolted straightaway into the lead. Their Iron Deacon, the greatest miler the U.S. ever produced, usually waits a lap or two before showing his heels. As he sped around the board track, his arms flailing like windmills, Dodds heard a heavy-set man in a tuxedo chanting out the time to him: "Twenty-point-five . . . twenty-two," and he knew he was running well.

It was no longer a race (his nearest foe was some 40 yds. in the rear), but a battle against the stop watch. Dodds passed the three-quarter mark in 3:03.9, just about what he'd planned. Then, instead of running down, 29-year-old Dodds began to go even faster. His time for the Wanamaker Mile--4:05.3--broke his own world's indoor mile record by more than a second. As usual, he took only part of the credit: "I always do my best trusting in the Lord. I feel as if He's with me--I'm not out there completely alone."

*He is a traveling pastor of the First Brethren Church.

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