He knew his uncle had been an athlete, but little else.
He knew his uncle had died in World War II, but little else. A good 15 years later, Keith Murlyn Dunkel – named for his uncle – was at the grandparents’ farm in Mongo when he found Uncle Murlyn’s Purple Heart. The hurt was too much for years, for decades. Return To Sender, the unopened envelope says.ĭeceased, it says. People living in the meantime, and sometimes dying. Letters coming and going across the Atlantic, delayed by bullets and bombs, delayed for months. But that was America during World War II. This story has more than one voice from the grave. Hayes came as an almost unbelievable shock to the campus and city.” “America’s foremost track coach,” read the IndyStar obituary on Dec. By early December he was in the hospital, on oxygen, with more than a dozen IU athletes trying to donate blood but being told it was too late. He’d caught a cold in November, then influenza. Murlyn Wilson, training in Northern Africa and making two combat jumps in Italy, didn’t receive it until late December 1943.īy then, Coach Hayes had been dead nearly two weeks. I know there are times after a hard day’s work when you would love to have a good shower in the gym and a long night sleep, but the courage and determination shown here will always come to your rescue elsewhere.īilly Hayes wrote on IU letterhead, flowing black cursive on white paper. All of you are in military service and I am proud of you. All seven left IU to fight in World War II.Īs cross country begins without a veteran returning from last year’s championship team, I think of you boys who were on another championship team. No – because they denied him that dynasty. That’s Murlyn.Ĭoach Hayes was so proud of those young men, even if they did deny him a dynasty. Look at the young man, second from the right.
For years there was a photo in the Assembly Hall lobby of that team, seven young men running up a hill, some of them smiling for the staged photo. He added Murlyn Wilson to a stable of world-class runners, and that team won the 1940 Big Ten and NCAA championships. Hayes, the legendary track coach at IU since 1924, was building a dynasty in Bloomington. “One-man team,” sports writers were calling him in 1939. This is where Murlyn Wilson nearly won a sectional track meet by himself. They tore down Mongo High decades ago, a small, red-brick building in an oak grove. I wish I could tell you what part of England I am in, but due to censorship I cannot tell the name of the town I am near. And out comes that voice from the grave, the voice of the man they used to call “the Mongo Miler.”
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