And Our Hats Are Off To You

Wottle turns up a congratulatory letter from President Nixon. It says, "You may be certain that all of us fully understand your attachment to your famous hat."

"I had a wire from the Vice President," says Wottle. "He said something like 'Hat on or hat off, you're my kind of American.' That cable was in a box of things I mailed home from Munich that never came." Another page reveals the text from a speech given by Ohio Congressman Delbert Latta who took it upon himself "to speak for the American people in saying that your apology was happily accepted."

"I suppose you have to remember the main thing was the honor," says Wottle. "Just receiving messages from those in high office, not the text of what they say. Think of the poor politician, he's practically forced to do stuff like that. The Olympic year is always an election year. He knows the press will want to print it, so he can't really write anything personal. It comes out a stereotyped, patriotic form letter. I'm just glad I'm not a politician; I'm no good at beating around the bush."

The last half of the final scrapbook contains nothing but straight doses of Midwestern adulation. The communities of Canton and Bowling Green vied in the splendor of their greetings. Wottle and Jan rode in parades (says Dave, "You feel like such a dingbat, waving at kids you've known for years"), appeared at football games, accepted keys to the cities, a TV and the promise of a bust of Wottle in bronze (says Jan, "We haven't seen it yet"). From a personage named Chip Statler came a "first offer" of $500 for the now-moldering hat, with assurances it would safely reside in the "Chip Statler Hall of Fame." (It doesn't.) Bowling Green erected new city-limits signs that say, "Home of Bowling Green State University and Dave Wottle, Gold Medalist, XX Olympiad."

"I told them too late there was more than one," says Wottle. "I appreciated them doing all that, really, but I wouldn't want to go through it again. We got about five calls a night for weeks, people wanting me to speak to their ladies-over-80 meeting or whatever. It took everything I had to be civil when they got into the 'You owe it to your school or your community or your alumni association' bit. I did the good ones where I really wanted to help—the Cancer Society, Multiple Sclerosis, Cystic Fibrosis. But I don't think my speaking at a sports banquet means much to anybody. Now I can really brush 'em off. I don't think the American people understand the Olympics. They view the medal not as a symbol of a specific talent, but of a superperson, one who can just go out and do anything. I might apply for a job as a history teacher and be hired because of the medal and not on my merits. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. If people really understood the Olympics, they'd just give me a little recognition and then let me get back to normal."

Sid Sink, a purposive man, is fond of taking the long view. One day recently he attuned himself to Wottle's future, which most immediately includes a 90-day tour of duty as a second lieutenant in the Air Force. "I can see Dave going on the pro tour, then quitting after a few years," Sink says. "An all-encompassing love of running isn't what keeps him going. It's the attention, the people, the winning—he'd go for making a pile. After that let's see...." Sink closes his eyes, touches fingertips to temples. "I can't see him as a businessman, he sleeps too much.... I see him in a quiet country town. Not as a farmer—he'd have to keep more in contact with things than that. Maybe a teacher. A professor. Yes. A history prof with plenty of tenure." An appealing vision. Perhaps when it comes to pass and Mid-America has attained a historical perspective on the tumultuous summer of '72, David Wottle will have been returned to normal. He might even open his Olympic book. "For him," says Sink, "the pages will stay in."