Wallace Williams

Biographical information

RolesCompeted in Olympic Games
SexMale
Full nameWallace•Williams
Used nameWallace•Williams
Born23 October 1946 in Campbellsville, Kentucky (USA)
Measurements185 cm / 68 kg
AffiliationsVirgin Islands Pace Runners, (ISV)
NOC United States Virgin Islands

Biography

Only a few weeks shy of his 42nd birthday, Wallace Williams was the oldest marathoner at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He started running cross-country at Bellarmine College in Louisville, Kentucky, where he also played freshman basketball. Williams joined the US Air Force during the Vietnam War in 1966, and later returned to Northeastern Illinois University, graduating in 1973, where he was the leading scorer on the basketball team as a senior. In 1975 he earned a masters’ degree from Rosary College (now Dominican University) and was the school’s first athletic coordinator.

Williams started a library career in 1974 at the Legler Branch of the Chicago Public Library, but in 1977 returned to St. Croix, where he began a 30-year career as a librarian in the Virgin Islands. He became head librarian and then librarian/coordinator for the public libraries in St. Croix and eventually territorial librarian director for the Virgin Islands. He became president of the St. Croix Library Association, and co-president of the Virgin Islands Library Association, and taught library skills at the University of the Virgin Islands.

Williams founded the Virgin Islands Pace Runners. He ran the marathon at the 1979 Pan American Games and at the 1982 Central American and Caribbean Games. He later ran in the 1984 World Cross-Country Championships. Williams was inducted into The University of the Virgin Islands Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001.

Personal Best: Mar – 2-32:12 (1979).

Results

Games Discipline (Sport) / Event NOC / Team Pos Medal As
1988 Summer Olympics Athletics ISV Wallace Williams
Marathon, Men (Olympic) 81