Al Oerter memorial service

[dj]

Re: Al Oerter memorial service

I was confusing him with Metcalf.

Whoever it was, I'm sure it wasn't Ralph Metcalfe, who died in 1978.

Ahh, the mystery of the dignified old black man. Who was he?

Might have been Herb Douglas, '48 OG LJ bronze, and now 85 years old. Or perhaps Mal Whitfield? Not that I know that either was there.

You didn't happen to take a photo, or notice how tall the gentleman was, did you?

[jeremyp]

Re: Al Oerter memorial service

Might have been Herb Douglas, '48 OG LJ bronze, and now 85 years old. Or perhaps Mal Whitfield? Not that I know that either was there.

You didn't happen to take a photo, or notice how tall the gentleman was, did you?

Pretty sure it wasn't Whitfield, as I checked the signatures on the memorial book (hey inquisitve minds want to know!). He was about 6'. There were a bunch of cameras in the back, but don't know who they were. When I Tivo'd all the local news that night only one channel covered it and they had no film of the service. The local sports guy announced that "Al Oerter won 4 Gold medals in the Olympics and broke the World Record every time he won." He seemed so proud of this latter piece of misinformation that I couldn't get myself to call in a correction. Let's just add it to the Oerter Legend!

[KDFINE]

The last post pointed out the error of the local sports guy. He probably picked it up from Tony Kornheiser on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption. When he broadcasted that the session didn't have its usual "errors" segment. I e-mailed them but of course did not get any response nor did they correct themselves the next two broadcasts.