Thank you Walt Murphy for bringing this story to my attention. Walt produces an info-rich daily ”This Day in T&F” newsletter. Contact him at waltmurphy44@gmail.com if you’d like to join his distribution list.
Dave Bolen would have turned 99 years old today. Prior to his passing on December 10, he was the 2nd oldest U.S. Olympian in Track & Field (Herb Douglas is 100) – and there’s WAY more to his story
Dave started in sports as a basketball player at a Louisiana high school but was soon recruited to the track team when his speed became evident.
He attended Southern University but dropped out to enlist in the Army in 1943, serving in World War II. He then enrolled at the University of Colorado, graduating with an MBA in 1950.
Dave was the 400m runner-up in the National AAU Championships to the great Herb McKenley in 1946 and 1947. He went on to finish 4th in the 1948 Olympics and was a 2 time 600 Yards U.S. Indoor Champion. Dave was the first University of Colorado athlete to make it the Olympics and had a PR of 46.7. The third race on this brief video shows Dave in full flight:
Pretty impressive stuff, but Dave was just getting started on making his mark in the world.
Role in the Destruction of the Berlin Wall!
Dave had a career in foreign relations. He started as a diplomat in Pakistan and Liberia, was named the U.S. Ambassador to Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, and then was appointed by Jimmy Carter to be the Ambassador to East Germany. He was the first African-American to serve as a ambassador of a nation behind the iron curtain. From his Wiki bio, Dave “….helped lay the groundwork for the destruction of the Berlin Wall. On November 9, 1989, the day the wall came down, Bolen’s daughter Cynthia was photographed handing a long-stemmed rose to an East German border guard standing atop the wall.” (https://www.dailycamera.com/ci_13750899/). Wow.
His daughter shared in a Colorado Buffaloes article a year ago that “As a diplomat he met with the greatest names on the world stage of all times, like Henry Kissinger, Seretse Kama, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter and many more. Most fascinating was his staunch position as an advocate for freedom, democracy, peace and good will for all people of all nations.”
The University Of Colorado has a scholarship named in his honor, the David Bolen Olympic Award and Scholarship.
