Issue date: 8/28/08 Section: Sports

It was the last day he would compete in a track meet on Truman's Kenneth L. Gardner Track, and Bulldog sprinter Brian Dzingai wasn't interested in running.

Temperatures were quite cold on that spring 2002 day, and Dzingai was an international student from Harare, Zimbabwe, and therefore not fond of cold temperatures. In addition, the track's timing system was broken, meaning no matter how fast Dzingai ran, this race could not qualify him for nationals because no accurate time could be recorded.

So Dzingai - who was scheduled to transfer to Div. I Florida State University before the 2003 season - planned on sitting out the 200-meter dash, said John Cochrane, current Bulldog track head coach. Cochrane coached the women's team during the 2002 season, but still knew Dzingai quite well.

"He comes up to me, and he goes, 'Coach, I don't know if I can really get in to running this,'" Cochrane said. "And I go, 'You know Brian, you're telling me that you're going to [transfer]. This is going to be the last time that you're going to get to run here.' I said, 'If you really are going to make something out of your life, you got to be able to make things happen when you don't feel good, when the weather is not great and stuff like that.' And I said, 'I don't think I'd let [this opportunity] slip by.'"

Dzingai listened to Cochrane's advice. He ran the race and won by a wide margin, sending his fellow Truman international students into an excited frenzy.

"All the international students are down by the finish line - I didn't realize we had that many international students - and they're all [chanting], 'Brian, Brian, Brian!'" Cochrane said. "And he got all done, and I said, 'See, it was worth it.'"

Last week, more than six years after that 2002 track meet in Kirksville, Dzingai needed the same perseverance he showcased at the Truman Open.

This time, Dzingai was set to compete in the 200-meter finals of the Olympics in Beijing against the world's greatest sprinters.

Cochrane, who still stays in contact with Dzingai, said that before the finals he received an e-mail from Dzingai. The sprinter said he was fatigued from working so hard to make it through the quarterfinals and semifinals to qualify for the final heat.

Still, Dzingai gathered the energy he had left to muster a time of 20.22 and a fourth-place finish. Dzingai's race not only was a good showing for Zimbabwe, but also for Truman, the school that gave Dzingai his first chance to compete at the collegiate level.

Continued...

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