Willie May | 1936-2012

Updated: March 30, 2012 7:09PM

Willie May was a star high school athlete who won seven Big Ten championships in hurdles at Indiana University and a silver medal in the 110-meter hurdles at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.

He then went on to ground-breaking career as a high school track coach, teacher and athletic director, including more than three decades at Evanston Township High School.

Mr. May died Wednesday from a rare blood disease, amyloidosis. He was 75.

“You don’t know the true measure of someone’s life until, unfortunately, they are gone,” said Evanston athletic director Chris Livatino, who Mr. May once hired to be boys volleyball coach. “He was not only a great coach, a great teacher, but a great human being. He made the effort to impact everybody’s lives.”

Born in 1936 in Alabama, Mr. May moved to Chicago’s South Side and went to high school in south suburban Blue Island, where he played football, basketball and baseball and ran track.

He told the SouthtownStar in 2009 that it was an errant curveball that led him to step off the diamond and onto the track.

“Our coach was always getting on me to hang in there against the curveball, because I would bail out of the box every time I saw the ball starting out near my head and then breaking over the plate for a strike,” Mr. May said. “So I figured I’d prove to him I could hit it one day. Sure enough, that ball started out coming toward my head, but this time, I hung in there.

“Problem was, this time, it didn’t break, and it got me right in the head. And that was before hitters wore helmets.

“So I kind of figured then that maybe I should give track a try.”

He quickly developed into one of the state’s most dominant sprinters, winning state titles in both the 120-yard hurdles and 180-yard low hurdles during his senior year in 1955. He also joined teammates Paul Fuller, Ron Helberg and Robert Rechord in a championship effort in the 880-yard relay. Blue Island, renamed Eisenhower High School in 1962, won the team title that year, too, despite qualifying just four athletes for the meet.

After graduation, Mr. May accepted a track scholarship to Indiana University, where he also played two years of football. He won seven Big Ten championships during his years there, and was an All-American in his senior year.

At the 1960 Rome Olympics, Mr. May won all three of his preliminary heats in the 110-meter high hurdles to set up one of the most dramatic finals in Olympic history.

In the final, he squared off against his friend, longtime rival and 1956 gold medalist Lee Calhoun. Thanks to a strong start, Mr. May led Calhoun for much of the race, but the savvy Calhoun eventually outleaned the younger Mr. May at the tape in a finish that was so close it required a press box review.

After the review, it was determined Calhoun had nipped Mr. May by just 0.01 seconds.

“I thought for sure I’d won,” Mr. May said in 2009. “They had all the place-winners up on the board except for first and second. When they finally had Lee (No.) 1 and me (No.) 2, I couldn’t believe it. I thought for sure it was wrong.”

After falling short in his attempt to make the 1964 Olympic squad, Mr. May hung up his spikes. After a brief stint in the National Guard, he began a 45-year coaching career at Richards High School in Oak Lawn and then Evanston. Mr. May took over as head coach of the Evanston track program in 1975 and led the Wildkits to 26 conference championships and five state trophies, including the state title in 1979.

“He was my football coach my sophomore year and my track coach all four years,” said Fenton Gunter, a 1974 graduate who competed under Mr. May and is now the girls track coach. “He was another role model to follow as a young man. He was an extension of home, like another parent away from the house. You knew what he said went. He knew how to get a message across to you.”

Mr. May made history in 1983 when he became Evanston’s first African-American athletic director, a position he held for 16 years until he retired in 2000.

“He was capable of communicating with all the coaches and kids,” said Vernard Harris, a 1968 graduate. “The kids saw him bringing in more coaches they could identify with.

Livatino, a 1991 Evanston graduate, said Mr. May was a transcendental figure at the school.

“Here was someone, a complete outsider, who came to a tight-knit community, a closed community that doesn’t always embrace outsiders, and he was instrumental in our evolution,” Livatino said.

“It’s a tremendous loss, but it was a heck of a time when he was here,” Gunter said.

Services for Mr. May are planned for Saturday, Livatino said, but further information was unavailable early Friday.

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