Tom Farrell, a world record holder, is one of the most decorated athletes in St. John's history. While enjoying his retirement from the Xerox Company, where he worked for 31 years, Farrell has served as the volunteer assistant coach for the Red Storm for the past nine years. He arrived at St. John's in 1961 as a graduate of Archbishop Molloy High School. He made his mark early as the individual champion at the 1961 Freshman Metropolitan Cross Country Championships, helping his team win as well. As a sophomore, he ran in the record-setting two-mile relay team of Paul Stelmaszyk, Bob Buckley and Tom Bauer, who ran the relay in 7:41.1 at February's Millrose Games. In late March of that year, he ran the second leg of the mile-relay team which broke the Canadian record (3:20.8) at the Eastern Canadian Track & Field Championships in Hamilton, Ontario. As a junior, Farrell represented the United States at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, as the first American in the 800-meter run, after becoming St. John's first NCAA Champion at the NCAA Finals in Eugene, Ore. Farrell qualified for the Olympic Trials at Randall's Island in New York City, where he finished fourth, then went on to finish second at the Olympic Finals in Los Angeles. He finished fifth in the 800-meter run in Tokyo. In mid-February of 1965, after his Olympic run, Farrell defeated Canada's Bill Crothers at Madison Square Garden's NYAC Games to set a new indoor World Record in the 880-yard run of 1:49.8. In the spring, he defended his NCAA 800-meter title. Farrell also won the British AAA 800-meter title in that same year. In the spring of 1966, he won the AAU title. After graduating from St. John's in 1966, Farrell went on to take the bronze medal in the 800-meters at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City with a career-best time of 1:45.4. He finished behind gold-medalist Ralph Doubell of Australia and Kenya's Wilson Kiprugut, who won silver. In between training for the 1968 Olympic trials, Farrell joined the U.S. Army and served in the military until 1968. An inaugural member of the St. John's Athletic Hall of Fame in 1984-85, Farrell currently resides in Los Angeles, Calif., with his wife, Chris, also a St. John's graduate. The couple has two children, Shawn, an alumnus of UCLA, and Jennifer, who graduated from Cal-State Northridge, and four grandchildren, Jordan 7, James 5, Zoe 4, and Haley 2.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
