Lindgren Had No Peer In NCAA

Before Gerry Lindgren ever ran for Washington State varsity, he had set a world record, competed in the Olympics and left more than 50,000 fans roaring him to victory – all as a teenager.

Lindgren followed that with a Cougar career that made him the winningest NCAA athlete with 11 combined NCAA titles between cross country, indoor track & field and outdoor track & field. Today, he ranks No. 3 on that list and the two ahead of him (Edward Cheserek of Oregon and Suleiman Nyambui of UTEP) had four years of eligibility, while Lindgren only had three.

Collegiately, Lindgren had no peer in any sport. His six victories at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships – three straight doubles between 1966 and 1968 comprised of the 3-mile/5000 and 6-mile/10,000 – were by an average margin of more than 10 seconds. Indoors, he lost just once – to Jim Ryun in the 2-mile, relatively short for the long-distance wizard that was Lindgren. In cross country, he had one career loss, to a freshman from Oregon named Steve Prefontaine; he avenged it twice.

His dominance was nothing new.

Track & Field News called Lindgren “the 18-year-old baby of the team” in its report of the 1964 U.S. dual meet against the Soviet Union, held in front of more than 50,000 spectators in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. “He stole the hearts of the sun-drenched spectators.” He won by over a homestretch in just his second attempt at the 10K distance.

The prodigy from Spokane, Washington, was finally able to attend Washington State in the spring of 1965, but rules then did not allow freshmen to compete in the NCAA. His biggest race that year came against Billy Mills – his gold-medal winning teammate at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics – as both set the same world record of 27:11.6 in a thrilling 6-mile race at the AAU national championships (Mills was first to cross the finish line at Balboa Stadium).