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PROVO — Doug Padilla competed in the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics in the 5,000 meter run, and he’s considered one of the greatest athletes from BYU.
A brutal accident nearly 20 years ago cut his career short — but that hasn't stopped the 12-time U.S. champion from winning in life.
“I was just an impatient, energetic person: rather than walk from A to B, I would run,” Padilla said during a taping of KSL Golf. “When people saw me walking on campus at BYU, they never saw me walking; I would just run.
“I guess I was energetic and hyperactive.”
Padilla’s career has taken him to Seoul, Korea, Berlin and beyond —but he never imagined he could make a living as a professional athlete. An oft-mentioned younger brother, Padilla was regularly shorter and smaller than his classmates in San Leandro, California.
“When I was a freshman in high school, I was 4-foot-11, weighed 82 pounds and people looked at me and told me the elementary school was over there,” Padilla said while taking a break during a round of golf at Riverside Country Club. “I never had a whole lot of confidence in myself as an athlete.
“If you have enough years of being picked last in P.E., then you don’t see your potential. That was me.”
Owing to his small stature, Padilla joined the track team as a freshman in high school. Even then, he was told he wasn’t good enough — Padilla wanted to run the mile, but the school already had that position covered.
Coaches moved him to the two-mile event, and the rest was history.
“It was better than sitting on the bench,” he said. “I saw the bench in church basketball. It’s absolutely true.
“Each year, I gradually got a little bit better. It just took me a long time to grow up.”
After a year at Chabot Junior College, Padilla transferred to BYU — and didn’t make the Cougars’ track team in his first season. He served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in El Salvador, returned, and made the team with two years of eligibility remaining.
“In 1983, I went to the world championships in Helsinki, and a guy told me I could be an Olympian. I said, ‘I’m not good enough to be an Olympian,’” Padilla said. “If he hadn’t told me that, I might’ve gone into the trials not thinking I was good enough to make the team.
“Then I believed it.”
It was an Olympic year, and Padilla qualified for the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles in the 5,000 meters.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I should’ve died. When somebody gets hit by a car at a high speed, people don’t live ... I shouldn't be here anymore.
–Doug Padilla, former BYU harrier and Olympian
“That was amazing,” he said. “I finished fifth in the world championships in ’83, so in ’84, I thought ‘shoot, let’s try to get a medal.’”
Padilla finished seventh, but credits the experience of his first Olympics for giving him confidence in front of nearly 90,000 people to continue his career.
“In the Olympics, in this country, in that race, I had over 100,000 people watching me,” he said. “I was the focus; I was the American, and I was the one they were cheering for."
Padilla went to the Olympics in 1988, but health hazards kept him from making the final.
“That was a little discouraging,” Padilla said. “But at the same time, the Olympics are absolutely unbelievable. There wasn’t the same pressure. We went and saw a lot of things.”
While training for an Olympic berth at the 1996 Sumer Games in Atlanta, tragedy struck. Padilla went out for a five-mile run — a course he ran hundreds of times along State Street.
“My run got cut short,” Padilla said. “I got hit by a car.”
Padilla was thrown 72 feet — first responders told Padilla later they measured the impact — and his lower left leg shattered.
“It didn’t take me long to realize that I should’ve died,” he said. “When somebody gets hit by a car at a high speed, people don’t live.
“I should’ve died. That was a pretty grounding fact — I shouldn’t be here any more.”
Padilla’s pro career was over. But that seemed a small price to pay — for family, children and life. He and his wife Lynette had four children, two boys and two girls.
“The recovery was very, very slow,” he said. “It took a long time to come up with a procedure to save the bone. We were just trying to avoid amputation.”
He established a company called RunnerCard that provides timing services at track tournaments across the United States, and eventually worked up to where he can run with some BYU track athletes on occasion.
But even that was a battle. Padilla was cleared to jog in February 2000, and he celebrated by taking his family to the Smith Fieldhouse. He never reached the point of training for another Olympics.
But that hardly seemed the purpose of life anymore.
“I just got to where if I have a good day, I’ll go two miles,” Padilla said.
Padilla regained his strength, took up other activities like golf, and lives life to the fullest — even without full mobility in his injured leg.
“We’re going to have challenges in life,” he said. “And that’s what makes us stronger."
