Sixty years ago, University of Arizona distance runner George Young finished up his senior track season undefeated, picked up his education degree and, as an ROTC graduate, prepared to enter the Army and leave athletics behind.
Then Carl Cooper, the Wildcats' track coach, came up with an idea: “I’d like you to run in the AAU national meet in the steeplechase,” he told Young.
“What’s the steeplechase?” Young asked.
Not only would Young quickly learn about the 3,000-meter steeplechase, but he soon became one of the United States’ best athletes in the event and one of the world’s best distance runners of the 1960s and early 1970s.