Dr.Tom Osler Photo Elizabeth Robertson Philadelphia Inquirer
Tom Osler often called Browning Ross the George
Washington of American Distance Running for Browning's efforts in founding the
Road Runners Club of America, and the resulting explosion in the popularity of
distance running in America.
If Ross was the American running's George Washington,
then Tom Osler who passed away on March 26, at the age of 82, was the sports
Ben Franklin.
The RRCA is credited by running historians for
igniting the distance running boom in the United States and around the world.
Like Franklin, Osler was also an author, an inventor,
and a great thinker.
As a longtime friend of Tom's, I believe his life's
arc mirrored Franklin's in one other important aspect—Tom's thoughts turned
from the pragmatic to the spiritual as he got older.
I first met and because friends with Tom in 1974 when
I was 15 years old. My track coach, Browning Ross took us to Cooper River in
Pennsauken, NJ to practice, and Tom was there.
I asked Tom how far he was running, and he answered
"Oh, about 20."
I asked him if that was minutes, and he answered,
"No, miles. 20 miles each way from my house in Glassboro and back."
Suddenly, 3.7 miles around Cooper River didn't seem as far.
Tom had grown up close to Cooper River in nearby
Camden, NJ. Camden was also the home of his favorite poet, Walt Whitman.
Whitman spent the last portion of his life in Camden.
When I think of Tom, I think of Whitman's poem "Song of Myself."
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| Camden's Walt Whitman |
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the
door-slab.
Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with
his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?
Tom contained multitudes.
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| Tom and Kathy Osler |
Tom proposed to his wife Kathy on their second date and he remained a loving husband to Kathy for 48 years. He was also a proud and loving father to Eric and Billy and his grandchildren and great-granddaughter.
Tom was a writer. He published close to 150
Mathematical research papers and 3 influential running books: "The
Conditioning of Distance Runners,", "The Serious Runners
Handbook", and co-authored "Ultra Marathoning" with his close
friend Ed Dodd.
I think Tom and George Sheehan influenced more runners
through their books than any other runners who did not coach.
Tom was an artist. He was a runner who won three National
Championships, and the 1965 Philadelphia Marathon. He even took a turn as race
director of the Philadelphia Marathon.
Tom won National Championships wearing hush puppy
dress shoes because there were so few good running shoes available.
Tom said, “I remember picking up Browning Ross-style
prizes for the race including ashtrays to be given out as prizes. None of the
runners smoked but some of their family members did.”
Tom ran for over 62 years and competed in over 2000
races. He ran everything from the mile to ultramarathons.
Tom was one of Running’s Founding Fathers and pioneers
and was present along with Hal Higdon and Harry Berkowitz when his mentor
Browning Ross founded the Road Runners Club of America in 1958.
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| The ultimate competitorTom Osler |
A Few of Tom’s Essential Contributions to Running
Dr. Timothy Noakes, author of the bestselling book" The
Lore of Running” said "The latest
scientific testing in South Africa bears out the training principles of
"Conditioning." What are these principles?
Easy, steady running for long periods of time year-round.
This running should be comfortable -- but is not jogging. Then, faster, harder
training; half-mile repeats, for example, six weeks before your championship
race. If done right this peak should last about four weeks. If you dig too
deeply into your reserves, you will have a much shorter peak, and run yourself
into a slump."
When I interviewed Olympian and author Jeff Galloway,
he gave credit to Tom for originating his pre-planned walking breaks to run
further. Galloway utilized the breaks in his training plans to help runners run
further and complete long-distance races without a lot of training that might
lead to injury.
In the mid-1970s Tom also wrote about adding sugar to
drinks to more easily cover long distances. He was also one of the first to
recommend not adding salt to your food to acclimate to hot weather runs
in an age when some coaches were still handing out salt tablets.
Tom was the first person as far as I know to come up
with the rule of thumb that one day of recovery is needed for each mile of a
race. His formula seemed to work for me and most runners I’ve talked to as a
way to recover without over-racing.
A few years ago, Tom was contacted by a Japanese
publishing house that wanted to translate and publish “Conditioning of Distance
Running” in Japanese. Tom agreed and refused all profits just like he had in
the 1960s when he earmarked the book to help pay expenses of Browning Ross’s
Long Distance Log publication.
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| Tom Osler's influential running books |
Runners World founder Bob Anderson credited Tom with helping Runners World survive its early years. “I founded Runners World in 1966, influenced by Browning Ross’s Long Distance Log. Runners started sending in their $1.00 for a one-year subscription and some people like Tom Osler sent in another $5.00 to help me out.”
Tom remembered, “I sent
him a check and a note along the lines of I know there aren’t enough runners to
make it profitable but here’s a check. Of course, I was wrong, in time Runners
World had a subscription of close to a million subscribers.”
Tom mentioned to me that he had been contacted by Runners World’s publishing house about his
book “Serious Runners Handbook a few years after its publication when
sales had tapered off.” They called me out of the blue and asked me if I
wanted to buy the remaining 500 copies or so of the book that they had on
hand. The stipulation was I had to come up with the money in a week or they
would destroy the books by dumping them in the ocean or something similar.
I said no, it was awfully short notice. Looking back, I wish I had said
yes and purchased them all.”
Tom is a member of a
number of Running Hall of Fame including the National Road Runners Hall of
Fame. Tom said,” I am probably most proud of my induction to the Gloucester
County (NJ) Hall of Fame. Browning put forward my nomination and it is one of
the last things he did before he passed away.”
Tom also won many
National Mathematics awards during his teaching career.
Tom was one of the
first people I know to own a home computer.
I stopped at Tom’s house in the early 1980s and he showed me his Mac
computer and asked me the times I had run in (Rowan) track and cross-country.
He had written a program that converted times to equivalent times at other
distances. Those equivalency tables are commonplace now, but he had written the
program from scratch with his mathematical knowledge. It seemed like magic to
me at the time.
Tom told me his identity was a teacher. “I love to get
in front of the class and perform.” Tom taught mathematics for over 50 years to
thousands of college students, mainly at Rowan University where he also founded
a Rowan Math-Physics called the Mathematics Colloquium.
He was instrumental in influencing other colleagues including runners Seth Bergman and Sky Waterpeace to join the Rowan faculty as Math Professors.
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| Erin Donohue Livvichi, Jack and Tom |
Tom was also a loyal friend. Here are some of my
favorite memories of Tom's friendship:
Tom wasn't afraid to share his emotions. My wife,
Maryanne said he is one of the few men that would freely share his emotions. He
cared about his friends.
He also liked to assign nicknames to his closest
friends. He tagged me with "Very Famous" after I published a book
about his friend and mentor Browning Ross. I changed my nickname to
"Almost Famous." He changed it back to "Very, Very Famous."
I went to college at Rowan and ran track. During my
first semester, I asked some of the upperclassmen on the team for course
recommendations. "Don't take Dr. Osler was the surprising answer from a
few. "He's too hard, no one from the track team has ever passed his
courses." "Yeah, I don't think he likes runners, they all wind up at
Drop and Add!" emphatically answered another runner. (False!)
Meanwhile, Tom showed up at a cross-country practice
as "Tom the runner". The practice was a 5-mile time trial to pick the
8-12th runners on the traveling team.
I had a good vantage point as the pack of 25-30
college runners circled the track at the start in a close pack while Tom was
still on the straightaway on the track.
The pack was out of sight as Tom exited the track. A
little over twenty minutes later, a solitary runner approached the track for
the finish. It was 39-year-old Tom Osler. The second runner was nowhere in sight.
He had caught the pack of college runners and finished comfortably ahead.
I thought my best strategy to change the narrative of
runners struggling in his class was to work hard and keep a low profile. I was
surprised when I heard the always businesslike Dr. Osler mention my name:
"I have a wager for the class. There is a student in the back, Mr. Jack
Heath. I would like to arm-wrestle Mr. Heath. Should he pin me, I would like to
add 10 points to everyone's test score." A rousing cheer went up in the
class, along with words of encouragement. Dr. Osler continued, "However,
should I pin Mr. Heath, I will deduct 10 points from everyone's test
score."
Immediately the cries turned to "Wait, don't do
it!' Someone suggested he instead challenge a sleepy-looking student who looked
like a football player instead. "No, it's got to be Mr. Heath."
Another programming class taught by Dr. Osler featured a student with a cowboy hat (CH) sitting up front who frequently interrupted the class. He seemed to want to share as a co-teacher in the class. I wondered how Dr. Osler would handle the distraction of his finely tuned instruction as he prepared to hand out the first exam.
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| Dr. Osler teaching |
"Dr. Osler" (CH) asked, "Did anyone
else besides me get a 100?" Without
missing a beat, Tom said "I will now proceed to hand out the exams in
ascending order, lowest score first."Mr. (CH) "Your exam first."
That seemed to quiet his cohost for the rest of the semester.
Saturdays with Tommy
Like Mitch Albom’s book “Tuesdays With Morrie” about
Albom’s weekly meetings with his Sociology Professor Morrie Schwartz, I met
with Tom at least once a week for decades until the pandemic.
The meetings started with a salutation including
greeting each other with our nicknames. Next,
“Awesome Tom” would put me on notice not to be boring or he would leave.
We would always discuss how much we missed Browning Ross. Then Tom would ask me
about my family by name. “You really have a wonderful family,” he would say.
He would update me on his sons and tell me how much he missed his dear wife Kathy.
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| Saturdays with Tommy |
Each of our meetings featured an eclectic conversation. Tom might ask me what I thought about Irish poets like William Butler Yeats, or the hymn “Jerusalem.” He would sometimes ask questions in a Socratic style: “What is your favorite version of Jerusalem and why?” I mentioned Emerson Lake and Palmer’s version of the hymn. Tom looked up the ELP version on YouTube and agreed it was very good on our next visit.
Tom was also an enthusiastic astronomist, a lover of
music, especially opera, and a film buff. One of his favorite directors was
Franco Zeffirelli. Tom especially loved the 1972 Zeffirelli film "Brother
Sun, Sister Moon" about Saint Francis of Assisi. I also like the original
“Hunchback of Notre Dame”, “Inherit the Wind”, and a film of the 1960 Rome
Olympics that featured barefoot Abebe Bikila winning the marathon.
Tom always discussed how much he still loved teaching.
“Students today have a whole world of knowledge at their fingertips with cell
phones and the ability to Google information. There has never been a time like
this in history.”
He did wonder if some cultural literacy was being lost and
about cell phones being a distraction. “Sometimes when I start a class half a
dozen students are still looking at their cell phones when I start to teach. I
started doing a dance in front of the class. That gets their attention really
fast. Then I tell them “All the excitement is up here, look at me, not your
phone! It works for a while.” And, “One of my older, long-time colleagues in
the Math Department stopped to see me near the end of the class. When he left,
I told the class, ‘That man fought in the Civil War!’ Most of the class said ‘Really?’ They actually
believed me.”
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| Tom and Jack |
We also talked more about running in our meetings for
the articles about Tom I wrote for
Runners Gazette. Tom said, “When I google myself those articles you wrote
always come up.”
I injured both my knees in 2008 and appreciated Tom's encouragement
and continued visits home once a week or more while I recovered. It was at this
time that he also started encouraging me to write a book about Browning that we
had talked about.
He mentioned it every time we met. On one visit I showed Tom the volumes of scrapbooks and clippings of research material I was going through.
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| Tom Osler holds the finish line for his hero Browning Ross. |
"Don't look at all that information!" he
urged. "Research can be a black hole that will suck you in when you have
that much stuff and you will never get through all of it!" I told him I had to read everything I had
about Browning's accomplishments no matter how long it took or I might miss
something.
Tom once gave me a piece of art he created out of
fractal images. He combined his artistry with his mathematical prowess to
create a one-of-a-kind piece of art that I proudly hung on my wall. On one of
his visits, Tom gently let me know that I had hung the piece upside down. Oops!
Tom always mentioned his three mentors" Jack
Barry, a runner and training partner from the 1950s and 1950s, Ted Corbitt, and
Browning Ross.
Tom’s personality also had elements of Henry Thoreau.
When I asked him about traveling, he said “Why would I travel to other places
when I haven’t seen everything in Glassboro yet?”
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| Professor Tom Osler |
Health issues
He had a stroke. He checked himself into the emergency
room after not feeling well but not knowing the cause. A doctor reporting to
duty happened to walk by him and looked Tom in the eye and said “You’ve had a
stroke!” Tom said, “I answered I don’t have strokes which was a crazy thing to
say and the doctor luckily made me go to the stroke unit to get treated.”
Tom’s heart stopped after a race and he was
immediately resuscitated by a nurse and paramedics.
Walt Pierson a runner and friend of Tom’s remembered,
“Tom got a pacemaker and I saw him at a race about a month later. I asked Tom
what did his doctor say about racing. He responded that he didn’t ask. And
added that he was 64 years old and didn’t care.”
Tom ran continued to run daily with a defibrillator
and a pacemaker. One year he returned to the starting line bloody a few minutes
after the start of a race I was directing. He went out very fast in the race
and his defibrillator fired knocking him to the ground. I took that as a sign to stop holding the
race.
I thought Tom’s running during his sixties and seventies was one of his most impressive athletic feats. He ran two races almost every weekend, often totaling over 100 for the year and every race was consistent. He ran the same in high heat and humidity, or cold and wind as he did in moderate weather. When I mentioned this to Tom, he pooh-poohed it. “I’m not running that fast, just fast for my age group.
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| Tom at one of his thousands of races, the Browning Ross Bob Kupcha 5k |
Tom supplemented his running with daily swimming and
walking. He often walked around the Deptford Mall in the morning when it opened
and on one walk fractured his hip.
I called Tom right before his hip surgery to find out
when it was scheduled and planned to meet him a few hours after his surgery in
his room.
When I got to the hospital a few hours later I saw a
man briskly walking around the hospital grounds with a cane. It was Tom! He was
up and about and walking immediately after his surgery.
The hip replacement was what ended Tom’s running
career and he missed running terribly.
He went to one or two races to watch and help out but
stopped after deciding he missed running in the race too much to attend.
His vision was also starting to fade. He used a
computer to read when it became difficult to read printed words on paper.
I thought of something Tom had once told me:
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| Running Legends: Harry Berkowitz, Tom Osler, Browning Ross and Herb Lorenz |
Remembering Tom
Tom was a proud member of the South Jersey AC, and
Woodbury Road Runners Clubs and gave encouragement to all of the members of
both clubs over the years.
Walt Pierson is also a member of both clubs and shared
some of his favorite memories of Tom:
“Tom was a sharp dresser— handmade clothing from
overseas, leather pants with zippers.
(Tom was a fashion model for an online Jeans Company).
Tom was a changeable competitor—- I remember one race
he would seem overweight; the next you could count his ribs he was so thin. On
one of his diets, he used children’s size toy dishes to keep the portions
small.
Tom was always experimenting with his running shoes. To
reduce the weight of his running shoes one time he cut the heels narrower and
cut off all the trim such as the Nike swoosh. He was a true pioneer of the
sport. Sadly, we won’t see the likes of Tom and Browning Ross again.”
Ed Donohue: “We all wish Tom had lived to 102 instead
of 82 but he lived a full life and impacted so many people in a positive way.
What a great life.”
Tom said that both Corbitt and Ross had "many
saintlike qualities." Tom had those qualities as well. It is some
consolation that all three men are possibly together now looking out for us as
saints are said to do.
Tom was fond of the African proverb “When an old man
dies a library burns to the ground.” Meaning the person takes a life of
accumulated knowledge with them. In Tom’s case, it isn’t quite true. We have
his books and his mathematical publications and the memories of Tom with us
always.
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| Tom Osler and Ed Dodd |
Ed Dodd, Tom’s lifelong friend, and co-author: “I first met Tom in the summer of ’62, that began a friendship of more than 60 years. We took hundreds of long runs together and race many times.
"I only beat Tom one time in a race under 24 hours, and that inspired him to develop the famous “Oslerian pickups” in training that he wrote about where he would accelerate in training. (Note: Amby Burfoot credited the Oslerian pickups and reading about Toms’s training as a factor in his winning the Boston Marathon in 1968.)
Tom was responsible for my Ph.D. in Mathematics and my career as a teacher, and
my interest in ultra marathons.”
I remember some of our long runs together when Tom
would sing (the Woody Guthrie and later Grateful Dead) song “Going Down the
Road Feeling Bad.” “I’m going down the road feeling bad, don’t want to be
treated this way.”
I’ll think of Tom every day. I hope we all have found
or will find those to love, like Tom
did with his wife Kathy, his sons, Eric and Bill, and his grandsons Gabe
and Zack, and his great-granddaughter, Zoey.
I also hope we all have or will find a way of life
that fills us with joy and happiness,
like Tom did with running and teaching.
I also hope that that way of life will make this world just a tad bit better
off
for us having been here for our short time.
I know the world has been made better by the life of
Tom Osler."
Hopefully, this gives the reader a small sense of Tom Osler’s accomplishments and influence on me and others that were lucky enough to meet and know him. Sadly, the article cannot capture Tom’s voice or his laugh, his unwavering friendship, his constant encouragement, and his kindness. When I think of Tom now, I think of the Greek storyteller Aesop. His name might have come up during our visits together.
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” –Aesop
This article was written by Jack Heath for Runners Gazette.
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