Fred Wilt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frederick L. Wilt (born December 14, 1920 in Pendleton , Indiana , † September 5, 1994 in Anderson , Indiana) was an American long-distance runner , coach and FBI agent .

Life

Wilt was a long-distance runner in the US when long-distance was not popular there. In 1941 he was American student champion ( NCAA ) over 2 miles and in cross country . Between 1949 and 1954 he was eight times American champion in cross-country or one of the long distances. At the 1948 Summer Olympics he was 11th over 10,000 m, at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki he was 21st over the same distance. In 1950 he was awarded the James E. Sullivan Award as the best American amateur athlete, and in 1981 he was admitted to the Athletics Hall of Fame recorded. As a student he started for Indiana University and later for the New York Athletic Club .

After graduating, he joined the FBI , which gave him enough time to train as a federal civil servant . After retiring from the FBI in 1978, he was an athletics and cross-country coach at Purdue University from 1978 to 1989 . Here he had international success, especially with the long-distance runners.

Exercise scientist

Wilt was irritated that all of Europe and especially the long-distance runners of the USSR were running faster than the Americans. He researched this all his life by interviewing coaches and athletes and recording and systematizing their training. Overall, this led to significantly more training in the USA than before. What Toni Nett was working on in Germany at that time , Fred Wilt did in the USA. The terminologies he introduced have influenced training science thinking in the United States. So he has z. B. coined the term plyometry . The Library of Congress holds 135 publications from him.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Many roads lead to Olympia. The Changes in Training Systems for Middle and Long Distance Runners (1850-1997). In: N. Gissel (Hrsg.): Sporting performance in change . Czwalina, Hamburg 1998, pp. 41-56.
  2. ↑ http://www.loc.gov/search/?q=Fred+Wilt&all=true
personal data
SURNAME Wilt, Fred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilt, Frederick L.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American athlete and athletics trainer, FBI agent
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Pendleton , Indiana
DATE OF DEATH 5th September 1994
Place of death Anderson , Indiana