Olympian Lou Zamperini Still Living Life at Fast Pace

Lou Zamperini still flies planes. That’s easy. His eyes are good, his reflexes are sharp, and up in the airplane Zamperini doesn’t feel as if he is 84 years old. There, he is the same swaggering, curly-haired, darkly handsome young man who went away to fly planes in World War II.

That man would be running next Sunday in the seventh annual Keep L.A. Running event at Dockweiler Beach in Playa del Rey.

But on the ground, Zamperini is 84, and although he still stands straight as a rail and walks briskly, he doesn’t run anymore.

“You know, age,” he says. “It does catch up to you. I can’t do everything I used to do.”

So Zamperini will be the honorary starter instead, having long been a spokesman for the race, a one-man ambassador for the sport of running and for the love of running, for running everywhere and anywhere. No matter what.

And anyone interested in running, or in hearing good stories, should listen to Zamperini.

Because, boy, does he have stories.

For an hour, he talks about the old days and the new days. Maybe you’ve heard some of the tales. There has been a television documentary about Zamperini’s life and there is a big-time Hollywood producer interested in making a movie about Zamperini’s life.

“Nicholas Cage might play me,” Zamperini says.

For an hour Zamperini talks.

He talks about how the Depression made things tough and how he would hunt rabbits so his mother could make rabbit cacciatore, and if there were no rabbits, how he would bring home mud hens and his mother would make mud hen cacciatore.

He talks about how he started running to stay out of trouble.

Zamperini figured then he was a good runner because he was always outrunning the cops in Torrance, where he was a teenage terror, “a hoodlum,” he says, who found petty crime pretty exciting.

But running was exciting too, and by the time Zamperini was a senior in high school, he was the best prep miler in the country.

When the 1936 Olympic year came along, Zamperini, just out of high school, hitched a ride on the Southern Pacific railroad--his father worked for the railroad--and went to New York for the Olympic trials. Intimidated by the strong field in the mile, he entered the 5,000-meter trial instead.

“I hadn’t hardly run that distance,” Zamperini says. “But I finished second anyhow.”

On the boat ride to Berlin and the Games, Zamperini discovered food, lots of food, food he hadn’t hunted.

“I practically ate my way to Germany and by the time I got there, I probably had eaten myself out of a medal,” Zamperini says.

Still, the skinny young boy finished eighth. Zamperini’s finishing kick helped him pass a bunch of older, more experienced runners and that caught the attention of Adolf Hitler. Zamperini was invited to shake hands with the German dictator.

“He liked Italians and he liked my style,” Zamperini says. “I still have a picture somewhere of me shaking hands with Hitler.”

There would be no more Olympics for Zamperini, but at USC he was a two-time NCAA mile champion, setting a collegiate record that lasted 15 years.

Then Zamperini went off to war, a jaunty pilot whose search-and-rescue plane eventually crashed into the Pacific. Zamperini and another survivor drifted on a life raft for 47 days. They swatted away sharks with oars and caught fish to eat.

Found by a Japanese patrol boat, Zamperini ended up as a prisoner of war. He was tortured and nearly starved to death. He weighed 67 pounds when the war ended and never again was able to run the way he once had.

Which doesn’t mean Zamperini quit running. He has always run. He has also skied and he still hikes.

There is a walking component to next Sunday’s race, as well as 5K and 10K runs and a bike race. Zamperini is thinking about joining the walkers after he stands at the starting line, urging all the runners off, wishing them well.

Zamperini does a lot of wishing people well now. He works as a youth counselor at Hollywood’s First Presbyterian Church. Some months Zamperini talks to 5,000 youngsters, teenagers mostly, but some younger. He thinks maybe he can relate to these kids. He knows about causing trouble. His father and the Torrance police chief were well acquainted.

But Zamperini also knows about changing. He learned about getting respect instead of getting in trouble.

“I think kids listen to me because I talk to them and tell them stories,” Zamperini says. “They seem to pay attention.”

Whenever an Olympic year arrives, Zamperini gets excited about running. He is excited now. He will be an Olympic visitor, eager to see as many events as possible and happy to be honored as an Olympian himself.

After the war, when the Olympics came back in 1948, Zamperini says, it was hard. He wanted to compete again, but his body wouldn’t let him. He made a living dealing in war surplus. He now lives in Hollywood with wife Cynthia. They have two children.

Zamperini is honored to be invited to the Keep LA Running Race. Money is raised for area charities.

“That’s good and it’s good to get people running,” Zamperini says. “I like that.”

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: [email protected].