Sunday, February 25, 2001
Catching up with Reggie McAfee
Cincinnati miler's record lasted 32 years
By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Reggie McAfee was the first African-American to break the 4-minute mile.
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Reggie McAfee is not surprised his city mile record lasted for 32 years.
“I'm not,” he said. “4:08 is pretty fast.”
It's pretty fast now, but it was blazing in 1968 when McAfee, a Courter Tech senior, ran it to win the 1969 Class AA mile championship. He also won the 880 in 1:52.5 that day. He had won the second of his two state cross country championships in the fall.
The city mile mark stood until June, when Mason Ward of Colerain lowered it to 4:07.5.
No Cincinnati distance runner has challenged McAfee's overall record. By the time McAfee left the now-defunct Courter, he was unquestionably the greatest high school distance runner Cincinnati had produced.
McAfee's greatest triumph came four years later as a runner for the University of North Carolina.
On May 12, 1973, he ran the mile in 3:57.8, thus becoming the first African American to break the four-minute barrier. He also erased a stereotype.
“Most everybody thought African Americans were sprinters,” he said. “I just never bought into that.”
McAfee went under four minutes seven times in all. In the 1972 Olympic Trials, a sore Achilles tendon kept him from running in the finals.
McAfee, 50, lives in Charlotte now. He settled there after graduating from North Carolina. He's an executive at Xerox.
He hasn't run competitively since 1984, but he is still involved in the sport as a youth track coach.
“We've got a nice team,” he said. “We have about 65 kids from a YMCA outreach program. I also coach Carolina Flight, a more elite group.”
McAfee is still running.
“I've run five days a week since I started at Courter Tech in 1967,” he said. “My coaches then always had me run in parks or on trails. I never ran on concrete. That's kept me healthy. I've never had a serious injury.”
McAfee's daughter, 17-year-old Andrea, and son, 16-year-old Reggie Jr., have followed him into the sport. Andrea is headed to UNC on an academic scholarship.
“Andrea runs the 400,” he said. “Reggie Jr. is just getting started. He's going to be a good little runner.”
McAfee broke the four-minute barrier before he ever got out of college. That's rare even these days. McAfee said that's because so few kids these days are willing to put in the time to become good distance runners.
“Kids have too many choices,” he said. “Their time is taken up by a lot of different things. Running is quite demanding. If you tell kids they have to run 5 or 6 miles every day, they might not make that choice.”
This is the first in a series of “Catching up with ...” features. If there's a former star you'd like to see an update on, we'd like to hear from you. E-mail: sports@enquirer.com.
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Catching up with Reggie McAfee
