June 16. Glenn Cunningham. Glenn had the courage and the drive of a lion. On this date in 1934, Glenn set the World Record for the Outdoor Mile. Four years later, he set the World Record for the Indoor Mile. Wait until you hear how he got started.
When tragedy strikes, triumph starts between your ears.
Glenn won races. But he never should have been able to walk.
Inside the old schoolhouse, his brother Floyd stoked the large potbellied stove. Despite the February snow, his sister Letha played outside, and their younger brother Raymond was drawing on the blackboard.
Mr. Schroeder had left the front door locked and kept the key, but anyone could get in through the side door—which only opened from the outside.
“[Brother Floyd] was arranging the coal chunks on top of the wood, then he reached over to get the five-gallon can of kerosene that was kept nearby to get the fire started. He started to pour it into the stove. Then everything blew up!”
Apparently, at a community meeting the night before, someone had left a can of gasoline they had used to refill lanterns before people went home. And Floyd had picked up the gas can.
Flames engulfed Glenn’s legs. Smoke filled his lungs.
Glenn and his siblings stumbled toward home but remembered their mother had spent the night with a neighbor, and their father had gone to fetch her home. Glenn fought fear and agony.
“I remember screaming and not being able to stop, even when my parents and eventually the doctor arrived. [The doctor] held out no hope for Floyd. He was too badly burned.”
But Glenn trusted God. He had nothing else to lean on. “We had attended church revivals and home Bible studies. In fact, I had become a Christian at one of those home meetings. And I remembered… Floyd’s favorite song.
“Several days later, [Floyd] was humming that tune, then he actually said the words to the chorus, the first actual words I had heard since the explosion. He finished the last lines haltingly, ‘Meet… meet… at Jesus’ feet,’ then he took Mother’s hand and pressed it to his face.”
Nine days after the fire, Floyd died.
Tragedy defined Glenn. Pain became his ally.
“The doctor told my parents that I might live unless there was too much infection that set in. ‘If the infection gets too bad,’ he told Mother and Father, ‘we won’t have any choice but to amputate. Regardless, Glenn will never be able to walk again on those legs. They are just too badly burned.’”
Infection spread. Glenn overheard a woman tell his mother to face reality—the boy would be an invalid for life. But Glenn promised his mother he would walk again.
At first he scooted a chair around the kitchen. He ventured outside to hobble along a fence. He did chores until he could work no more. He refused to give up. He thrived on the challenge. Christmas Eve he gave Mother the present he had promised—his first unaided steps.
Glenn kept on keeping on. Kept walking until he could run, kept running until he became a champion—and he set the World Record for the Outdoor Mile.
“Glenn posted a personal best time of 4:04 in the mile—in 1938, 14 years before Roger Bannister broke the four-minute barrier.”
After his running career, at Cunningham Youth Ranch, Glenn taught some 8,000 children to never give up. “‘Each is lovable in his own way,’ Glenn once said of the children sent to him by parents, social workers, or juvenile courts, ‘and all are equally precious. God has granted Ruth and me 8,000 miracles, and we are humbly grateful.’”
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us” (Hebrews 12:1 NLT).
Your loses may seem impossible to overcome; work hard to win the battle in your mind. When tragedy strikes, triumph starts between your ears.
Adams, Jeff. Encouraging Words: Rebuilding Your Dreams. Enumclaw, WA: Redemption Press, 2017.
Interview Spotlights. “GLENN CUNNINGHAM (1909-1988)…Never Quit.” Accessed May 7, 2020.
Do You Want to More About This Man?
Glenn’s hometown—Elkhart, Kansas—named a park after him, and in 1974, he was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.
From the University of Iowa, Glenn earned a master’s degree and from New York University a PhD. He also served as Director of Physical Education at Cornell College in Iowa for four years before he and his wife opened the youth camp.