Jim Ryun
Running Free

      Slowly drawing in a deep breath, Jim Ryun let his arms fall to his side.  Pressing his running shoes firmly into the cinders, he raised his head and gazed down the neatly chalked track.  Around him five other runners settled into balanced stances, and the spectators who had streamed to Berkeley, California, for the All-American Track and Field Invitational became still.  Seconds later the participants in the men's mile run stood poised in their lanes, their shoulders straining forward.  The crack of the starter's gun rang throughout the afternoon air, and within seconds a ribbon of brightly clad runners was sweeping around the first turn.  Moving rapidly down the track, his long and lean frame gliding forward in strong, graceful strides, was nineteen-year-old Jim Ryun.  
      Ryun moved steadily ahead, his University of Kansas jersey fluttering in the breeze.  The officials and athletes standing on the grass inside the track paused, their eyes following the runners as they soared around turn after turn.  The rising cries of the crowd filled the air, and murmurs of "world record pace" began to sift throughout the stadium.  Suddenly, after rounding the first turn of the third lap, Rvun exploded into a sprint.  With his feet spraying cinders in every direction, the young miler blazed forward.  The roar of the fans grew louder, and officials and sportcasters all around the track began to glance down at the racing needles on their stopwatches.
      Soon Ryun had thundered around the last turn and was flying down the final yards of the track.  The tightly stretched string at the finish line drew closer and closer, abruptly snapping across his chest.  A final cry shook the stadium, and Ryun, breathing rapidly, slowed to a trot.  A pack of photographers began to press in around him, and soon the clear voice of the announcer came crackling over the public address system: Jim Ryun, the freshman from the University of Kansas, had shattered the world record for the men's mile run with his time of 3:51.3.
      Ryun's triumph on that sparkling Sunday afternoon in 1966 brought him to the peak of a career that had already stunned sports fan from every corner of the country.  Although he had been running competitively for less than four years, the soft-spoken teenager had established himself as the fastest miler in the world, becoming the first American to hold that honor since Glenn Cunningham in 1934.

      Born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1947, Jim Rvun grew up with little interest in the sport that would one day send him to tracks and stadiums around the world.  The second of three children, Ryun was troubled both by a variety of allergies and illnesses and a gnawing sense of insecurity.  By the time he had reached his teenage years, Ryun realized clearly that his list of athletic options had grown quite narrow.
      "I attempted, as many little boys do, to excel in sports, but had no success," reflected Ryun. "In junior high I was cut from the basketball team and all of the other teams that were available, so I finally went out for the track team, trying to make that.  As it turned out, I didn't really make the team; I ranked third, and you had to be in the top two and for the most part in the top one in order to represent your school in competition."
      Despite his lack of success as a junior high school runner, Ryun realized that he had found one of the few sports in which he could hope to compete.
      Thus, two years later, as a sophomore at Wichita's East High School, Ryun made the decision to try out for the autumn cross-country team.
      "We were having an orientation assembly," recalled Ryun, "and the football and cross-country coaches were making presentations for their sports.  At the time I was 6'2" and 140 pounds, and I knew that once I got hit by a football player, that'd be the end of it.  So I chose to go out for cross-country, not knowing what it was."
      In addition to his desire to develop as an athlete, Ryun had another motive for wanting to participate in a varsity sport.
      "Actually," admitted Ryun, "my first goal was to win a letter jacket, because I figured if I could do that, I could win a girlfriend.  I wasn't all that popular in school."
      Thus, each afternoon, after he had set aside his books and pulled on his running shoes, Ryun joined a crowd of other East athletes for a thorough workout under coach Bob Timmons.  Many days later, after time trials had been completed, Ryun found that he had earned a slot on his school's cross-country squad.
      "Even though I only made last man on the 'C' team -- which would have been twenty-first overall -- I was thrilled," said Ryun, "because for the first time -- even though I didn't receive a letter -- I was part of a team."
      As the season wore on and his team entered intense competition, Ryun began to realize the demanding nature of the sport he had chosen.
      "I had been smoking and not taking care of myself during junior high school," remembered Ryun, "and as a result I wasn't in good condition.  My health was in sad shape, and when you run, you really have to demand a lot of yourself physically.  Every night for the next two months I would come home and throw up and not eat very well. Those first couple of months were really rugged for me."
      Despite the great discomfort that he was experiencing, Ryun appeared on the East practice field every afternoon, steadily skimming seconds from his times.  By the time the air had turned sharp and the leaves grown orange, the tall sophomore had climbed to the number-one place on his school's team, and in mid-November helped spark East High to a state cross-country championship with a fifth-place finish in the two-mile run.
      Within little more than two months Ryun had risen from the lowest slot on the "C" team to a position as his school's most highly regarded long-distance runner.  Yet when the cross-country season had been concluded and the first flakes of snow were being driven over the Kansas plains, Ryun promptly set aside his running shoes and sweat suit.
      "That's how little I understood how unusual my improvement had been," observed Ryun, "because as soon as the season was over, I stopped running.  There was only one thing that I did keep doing: I had a paper route, and I continued to throw my papers.  But as far as any real dedicated effort in terms of training, I did nothing.  Number one, I had not experienced what it was to train during the winters that Kansas was having at that time, and number two, I really didn't know that it was necessary."
      Despite the many weeks that he had spent away from a regular conditioning program, Ryun opened the spring track season with a 4:50 practice mile, nearly a minute faster than his first time the previous September.  As the weeks passed and the Kansas earth began to thaw, Ryun slowly came to realize that his running ability had only begun to be tapped.
      "My first race of the season was against the defending state champion miler, Charlie Harper from North High School," recounted Ryun. "It was the first part of March -- not a particularly nice day -- and it was at the South High Invitational.
      "Three laps into the race I found myself running just behind Harper and another runner, and then, with about fifty yards to go to the finish line, he and I were nose to nose and he won by two-tenths of a second.  I learned that I had run a 4:32 mile, which represented an eighteen-second improvement over a reasonably good time for a sophomore anyway."
      One week later, at his own school's track and field invitational, Ryun again faced the champion miler, sweeping past him this time with a sharp clocking of 4:26.  From that afternoon on, Jim Ryun would never again lose a high school race.
      "Throughout the rest of the track season, almost every other race saw a two- or three-second improvement," recalled Ryun. "When I first began racing as a sophomore, each race had been a struggle; it was a matter of staying up with the other person and hoping to outkick him at the end.  As I progressed, it became a different kind of struggle, one that was a mental struggle to stay out there and maintain a hard pace even though nobody was near me.
Inspired by his increasing success on the track, Ryun began to spend most of his spare hours running through the streets to Wichita.  In addition to his schoolwork and morning and evening paper routes, Ryun logged sixty to seventy miles per week, running in wind, rain, and snow.  By the end of the spring track season the tall teenager had turned in a 4:07 mile, establishing himself as the country's top high school miler only eight months after entering the sport.  Completely stunned by his accomplishments on the cinders, Ryun was frequently jarred into reality through the encouragement of his coach.
      "I had developed such a low self-image," said Ryun, "that when all of this began to happen my coach would have to show me films that had been taken of my races in order to let me visually understand that, 'You're right, it's the same person; it's not somebody else whom this is happening to.'
      "It was a thrill, but it was also difficult to comprehend," mused Ryun of his rapid development. "I thought, 'Wow, it's unbelievable that it could ever happen to me.' While growing up I had tried to gain the esteem of my peers by having a smoke or saying a curse word or doing whatever was necessary, and all of a sudden I was receiving approval from another direction.  It was difficult to believe that it was happening to the same person."
      Although he had never harbored a great deal of self-confidence, Ryun had little trouble in claiming responsibility for his success.
      "I had God-given talents and was a churchgoer," explained Ryun, "but I basically refused to recognize my Creator or even give Him credit as the One who had given them to me.  I was simply willing and happy to receive the credit, but it was really God who should have received it.
      "I remember that at times my father would say, 'Well, don't forget to give God some credit,' and even though I was a very polite and kind person, my basic attitude was, 'Well, gosh, I've done all the work; here I am doing unnecessary things to cause this success to develop, so why shouldn't I get the credit?' And even though I was a churched person, I did not know Jesus Christ and had not been baptized in the Holy Spirit, and it wasn't until later that everything began to become more clear to me."
      Following the conclusion of the school year, Ryun continued to participate in many races; as a result he entered his junior year with an even greater degree of stamina and speed.  In June of 1964, while taking part in the Compton Relays, the Wichita racer shook the sports world by running the mile in 3:59, becoming the first high school boy in history to shatter the four-minute barrier.
      Soon after his victory in the Compton Relays, Ryun participated in the U.S. Olympic trials, held in the Los Angeles Coliseum.  As a lanky high school senior competing against the nation's strongest and most seasoned runners, Ryun swept to a third-place finish in the 1500-meter run, earning the privilege of representing his country in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.
      Elated by his finish in the Olympic trials, Ryun eagerly packed for the long flight to Tokyo.  Yet several weeks later, after arriving in the Japanese city, Ryun realized that he would not be able to compete at full strength; because of a cold that had gripped him, the American star was easily eliminated in the semifinals and was forced to watch the race for the gold medal from the crowded stadium stands.
      Although for a time he felt a desire to toss aside his running shoes in order to resume a normal, less intense life style, Ryun soon placed the Tokyo disappointment behind him, reaching ahead for new achievements on the Wichita East cinders.
      Ryun soon began to reap the results of his decision to persist as a runner.  During one of the races in his senior season he recorded a 3:58 mile, establishing a new national high school record.  Following his graduation from East High the talented Kansan continued to shave seconds from his times, and on a June afternoon in San Diego, while competing against such champion milers as Jim Grelle and Peter Snell, he snapped the string at 3:55.3, registering the fastest mile ever run by an American athlete.
      The following autumn Ryun entered the University of Kansas at Lawrence, where he had accepted a four-year track scholarship in order to work toward a degree in photojournalism.  Joining him at the school was his Wichita East coach, Bob Timmons, who had assumed the reins of the college's track program.
      Throughout the following years, Ryun swept to peak after peak, steadily conquering records of every kind.  In 1966, while running in the Compton Relays, Ryun took the mile in 3:53.7, only a tenth of a second off the world record held by Michel Jazy of France.  One week later he broke the American record for the half-mile run with his time of 1:44.9.  It was less than a month later that Ryun, participating in the All-American Invitational in Berkeley, cracked the world record for the mile, turning in his sparkling time of 3:51.3.
      In 1967 Ryun was presented with the Sullivan Award, an honor given annually to the country's finest amateur athlete.  During that year the American star lowered his world record mark in the mile, recording a time of 3:51.1 at the National Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Championships.  By the end of the year Ryun had snared the world record in the 1500-meter run with his time of 3:51.1, and a year later, while running in the rarefied air of Mexico city in the 1968 Olympic Games, he took a silver medal in the 1500-meter, finishing second only to Kipchoge Keino of Kenya, East Africa.
      Despite the amazing achievements that he had enjoyed during the previous years, Ryun returned to Kansas from the 1968 Olympics with a growing sense of weariness and frustration.  Less than five years earlier he had been a shy sophomore struggling for a high school letter; now he felt the eyes of the world burning into him.
      "I became disillusioned with running," admitted Ryun. "Some people were leveling a lot of criticism on me, saying, 'Hey, here you are, the world record holder, and you go to Mexico City and finish second.  The criticism basically came from people who were not very knowledgeable, but, of course, they would receive a lot of exposure in the newspapers, and at one point there were headlines: Ryun Lets Down His Country By Not Winning Gold Medal. When you're an amateur, it's awfully difficult to understand why people say those things."
      Overwhelmed by the constant stream of attention and demands that was flooding him, Ryun finally decided to express his feelings by stepping off of the track during a race in the 1969 national championships.
      "I had married my wife, Anne, a few months earlier," explained Ryun, "and at this point there was such an intense interest in who I was and what was happening in our marriage that I wanted to serve notice to the media—because I couldn't seem to get it across any other way—that I wanted to be alone; I wanted to be with my wife.
      "As far as I was concerned," continued Ryun, "this was simply a way to get everybody to leave me alone, although, reflecting back upon it, I realize that it was not the correct way to do it.  I mean, a person should never walk off the track.  But I really needed an opportunity to get to know my wife without someone taking a picture or bothering us."
      Throughout the following months Ryun did not appear at any races, choosing to remain hidden away with his new bride.  Nearly a year later he stepped quietly back into the light of public attention when he again began to participate in national competition, slowly gearing up for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany.
      "The 1972 Olympics were a key part to my whole story," revealed Rvun. "In the spring of 1972, I was thinking, 'It's going to be a sea-level Olympics this time, Kip Keino will be back, I'm still the world record holder in the 1500-meter and I've regained my form.' I had spent a lot of time training -- as much as 120 miles a week in Kansas in the winter -- and I had won my first race of the season against Keino.  Even though it hadn't been a very fast time -- well above four minutes -- it had been an important victory to me in the sense that I had defeated him."
      Then, during the first week of March, while competing in a nationally televised race in the Los Angeles Coliseum, Ryun was the last runner to cross the finish line, registering a time of 4:19, a full twelve seconds slower than his fastest time as a high school sophomore.
      "When you're a record-holding miler, that's not the correct thing to do," observed Ryun. "But it was really an opportunity that God was using to get through to me, because during all of the adversity that I was facing in that year of 1972, born-again, Spirit-filled Christians would just keep popping up in my life.  I would ask them what made them so happy when they were having troubles, and they would simply share with me the Gospel of Jesus Christ -- what it means to be born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit."
      One evening, while visiting the home of some friends, Ryun and his wife came to realize in a new way their need for reconciliation with God.
      "We had just finished playing racquetball with my coach, Bernie Taylor, and his wife, Clare, and they had us over for some lemonade.  We were just sitting in their living room, sipping our lemonade, and Bernie proceeded to share how he had come to know Jesus.  As he did, it was just like a little light turned on and I recognized that what was really necessary was that we had to humble ourselves before the God of this universe and receive Jesus as our Savior, and then be baptized in the Holy Spirit.
      "We went home," continued Ryun, "and Anne and I began looking through the Scriptures.  A little bit later in that year -- in May -- we humbled ourselves before God in the presence of some of our friends and asked the Lord to come into our lives and be our Savior and fill us with the Holy Spirit."
      In the days and weeks that followed, Ryun found himself looking upon God, himself, and others in a new manner.
      "It was really something," reflected Ryun, "because before this the only peace I had ever received had come from my success in running.  If I ran a good race, at the end of that race I'd have a peace because I had achieved what was necessary. But yet I would have that uneasy feeling that if I didn't keep going at it hard, someone would come along and do the same thing that I had done and break my records and then where would I be?
      "But on the night when I received Jesus Christ, peace came into my life that overwhelmed me.  I knew that Jesus was doing a new thing in me; I knew that He was giving me that peace that I had so much wanted and had pursued.
      "On that same night when I received Jesus Christ, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit and received my prayer language and began to understand for the first time in my life what it is to be a Christian, even though I had been churched all of my life.  And that's not to say that I went out and set the world on fire, because just as sometimes happens -- not to everyone, thank God -- I did not get deeply into the Bible, nor did I get into fellowship with other Christians."
      Although he realized that he had much to learn about his budding relationship with Jesus, Ryun knew that he had discovered the most important and precious treasure he could ever find.  Spurred on by the new joy and sense of purpose that he was now experiencing, the veteran runner began to channel much of his energy toward a more tangible objective: a gold medal in Munich, West Germany.
      "Even though I had had a mountain valley year on the track, I came into the Olympics favored to win the gold medal," recalled Ryun. "I spent the whole summer in preparation, and as we arrived in Munich, the one prayer that Anne and I had was that in some way we would he able to glorify God.
      "Even though we weren't in fellowship and weren't reading the Bible, we recognized what a difference having Christ in our lives made and because of that we really wanted to give Him the praise.  Even in that infant stage we wanted so much to give Him the glory.  So we went into the Munich Olympics hoping to win, because we felt that as a result of a win there, we would have a better opportunity to share Christ with people."
      Thus, several weeks later, on a warm afternoon in September, Ryun strode to the starting area for the first round of the men's 1500-meter run.  As he and the other participants arrived at their places on the track, television cameras were swung into position and announcers checked their microphones.  The runners became still, the spectators leaned forward, and the crack of the starter's gun split the Munich air.  Instantly the crowd of young athletes was pouring down the track.
      Their legs rippling with every stride, the slender runners swept around turn after turn.  By the time he was entering the third lap, Ryun was running near the back of the group, steadily moving toward the lead.  Suddenly, as he was nearing the end of the third lap, Ryun was spiked by a runner at his side.  The American champion tumbled toward the track, striking his head on the aluminum railing that ran along its inside edge.
      For several seconds Ryun lay slumped on the track, his eyes closed.  Then, scrambling to his feet, he broke into a sprint.  But the other runners, now far down the track, streaked across the finish line many seconds ahead of him.
      "After I finished the race, I was walking under the stands of the stadium, and found that Anne had somehow worked her way down out of the stands," recounted Ryun. "I'm not quite sure how she did that, because that was the year when the Black September group had just slaughtered a number of Israeli athletes, and security was very tight.
      "We held each other and we prayed and asked the Lord to help us.  Then we went into the training room -- because I was bruised and bleeding and sore from the fall -- and one of the Olympic coaches and some members of the media said, 'You were fouled; it was obvious.  You'll be reinstated; no problem.'
      "So we assumed that that would be the case.  But just a few hours later the same coach came back and said, 'Hey, they've decided that it was your own problem; they say you fell over your own feet.'
      Startled by this announcement, Ryun hastily composed a written petition, which he promptly submitted to the International Olympic Committee.
      "It was denied," said Ryun, "and the real clincher to this whole thing is that on the night before the finals in the 1500-meter -- the run for the gold medal -- I saw a videotape from a different angle that clearly showed that I had been fouled by a runner from Pakistan.  So the next day special provisions were made for ABC to show the tape to the International Olympic Committee, which, of course, had the power to reinstate me into competition.  The rules read that if you were fouled, you could be reinstated.
      "So they came and viewed it, and they walked out of the room shaking their heads and in essence said, 'Well, yes, you were fouled, but we've never reinstated anyone before, and we don't want to set a precedent at this point. So come back in four years and try again."
      Completely shattered by what had happened to him, Ryun began to experience a number of feelings that did not closely resemble the gospel message that he had embraced only months earlier.
      "I'll tell you," said Rvun, "even though I was a Christian and wanted to praise the Lord, my honest reaction at that point was to catch one of those guys in a dark room and smash his glasses or do something to really express the inner hurt that I was feeling, because I realized that I had trained all of those years for nothing.
      "But," he continued, "that was the point where Christ came into the situation, and He enabled me to slowly give the anger and bitterness to him over period of months.  At first I wasn't willing to; I was willing to throw a 'pity party', wanting everybody to sympathize with 'Poor Jim'; he's fallen, and it's obvious that he was fouled and let's all feel sorry for him.' And once I had swallowed in that enough, I recognized that I no longer had that peace that I had first received when I had met Christ.
      "I finally got before the Lord one night and said, 'Lord, I'm tired of this; I need to get out of this and I really want to be free of it.' And the Lord just simply spoke to my heart: 'You've got to forgive these men and you have to get this bitterness out.' And I remember saying, 'Okay, Lord, I ask for your forgiveness and I want to be released of this.' And I had to do the same thing the next night and the next night.  But slowly, over a period of time, I was able to resolve my anger and give it all back to the Lord."
      As the days passed, Ryun began to realize that the prayer uttered by him and his wife prior to the Olympics had been answered but in a manner in which they had not anticipated.
      "We had prayed that I would win a gold medal because we so much wanted to share with everyone possible that Jesus Christ is alive today and that He is so eager to help people," explained Ryun. "But the Lord showed us over a period of time that most people who live in this world are losers; most people don't win gold medals.
      "I certainly don't intend this as a criticism of athletes who are successful," stressed Ryun, "because I think the Lord wants Christians to do significant things in sports because that's a way of witnessing; it's a wonderful platform. But had I gone on to tremendous, lucrative commercial endorsements and other things that could have been done, I would have lost that identification with other people and would not have been as able to share with them about Christ -- to tell them that He wants to help them with their everyday troubles.  And I can see now so much how the Holy Spirit was involved in all of that; I realize that that was the gold medal as far as I was concerned."
      Following the conclusion of the 1972 Olympics Ryun entered professional track, where he competed until 1976, a time when he sensed a leading in a new direction.
      "One night I was just getting ready to go to bed," recalled Ryun, "and I was saying my evening prayers. As I prayed, I felt very clearly that the Holy Spirit was asking me to retire from running.  I thought, 'That had to be the Lord, because it sure wouldn't be me.'
      "So I told Anne, and she had just asked me a week or two earlier, 'What would happen if the Lord was to tell you that you were no longer to run?' And I had replied, ‘Well, when we get to that bridge, we'll cross it then.' And all of a sudden, two weeks later, I found myself crossing that bridge, and doing it with a lot of joy, knowing that the Lord had something else planned."
      Within a short time Ryun had scheduled a press conference, and two days later found himself standing before a large crowd of sportscasters, reporters and photographers.
      "At the very beginning of the press conference I sensed the Lord telling me that I was to take the initiative by basically saying this: 'To some it may sound like this is a Billy Graham crusade or testimony time, but I really want you to know where I'm coming from.  Two nights ago the Lord spoke to me and said that I was to retire and begin to serve Him more fully than I had in the past.'
      "After I had finished my statement, one man asked me, 'Well, now that you've retired from running and are going to serve God, what are you going to do?' And I said, 'Well, the first thing I'm going to do today is pick up my little girl from school, and then we're going to get a Big Mac, and then I don't know what's going to happen this afternoon.  But I do know this, that the Lord has promised in Matthew 6:36 that the birds of the air have food and grain and we're not to worry; as long as I serve Him in every way possible, He will provide.
      "I remember sitting down that night and thinking, 'Boy, I really poured it all out today; they're really going to rake me over the coals.' But they just carried the story the way it was, saying, 'God told Ryun to retire.' And it was really meaningful to me, because the Lord probably got the credit more fully than He ever had before in my life."
      Realizing that God is always present to those who seek Him, Ryun spends time each day speaking with Him and reading the words of the Bible.
      "God is revealing himself and His will to people who are willing to sit down and listen to Him sincerely," said Ryun. "He has a message and a purpose for each of us, if we only would slow down and let Him touch us.
      "If I don't regularly spend time in prayer and Bible study, I feel like I've lost touch with what the Holy Spirit is doing in my life," he added. "To give you an example of what can happen when you're open to Him, one day I was sitting in my little car on the beach in Santa Barbara, just reading the Bible and enjoying talking to the Lord, when up to the window walks a man who apparently hadn't shaved or bathed for a long while.  He sat down and said, 'Do you have any money?' and I said, 'Well, I don't have any money, but I have something else that's free.' Well, of course, he wanted to know what that was, and I told him it was Christ.
      "In the past I had always been a very quiet person, and when I answered him in this manner I thought for sure that he would come right through the window and begin wringing my neck.  But he sat down for an hour and a half and we talked about his problems.  I shared the Lord with him, and he was very receptive."
      After earnestly telling the man about the love of Jesus Christ, Ryun realized that he had another step to take.
      "I felt the Lord saying, 'Now I want you to go out and buy him some food.'  And at that point I began debating whether that was the Lord speaking to me or not and I said, 'Now, Lord, wait a minute; I just bought this car; it's new and my wife hasn't even sat in it yet and you want me to invite that man in here just to buy him something to eat?  Someone might see who I am; I mean, what would they think?' They might think, 'This guy's running around with winos!'
      "So, I started to argue with the Lord a little bit, and then I asked the man if he'd like to go for something to eat, and before I really had a chance to finish, he was in the car with me and we were on our way to buy him a hamburger and a cup of coffee.  And I proceeded to meet him the next several Tuesdays around noon, and it wasn't only him, but about five or six winos.  Through such experiences, Ryun has come to appreciate more fully the fruits that spring forth from his daily visits with God. "My point is, that as a result of staying in the Word, I was able to tell these men about Jesus Christ, and the Lord has shown me the importance of coming to Him every day to pray and read.  I am always looking for ways to witness to others about Christ, because if somebody hadn't cared enough to love me into Christ, I would be nowhere now.
      "I have a tremendous wife who encourages me to look for opportunities to witness," he added, "regardless of who it is or what the circumstances are.  Anne is such a neat encouragement to me, and she's been a marvelous blessing."
      In addition to spontaneously sharing the message of Jesus Christ with those whom he might encounter, Ryun has discovered another avenue through which he can extend God's love to other people.  Each year the former record-holder travels to various places in the United States in order to conduct motivational seminars for various church and civic organizations.  He has also written a book, In Quest of Gold, co-authored by Mike Phillips and published by Harper and Row.
      When he is not busy with other activities, Ryun spends a great deal of his time at his Lawrence, Kansas, home with his wife and their daughters, Heather and Catharine, and identical twin sons, Ned and Drew.  Clearly realizing his many responsibilities as a father, the three-time Olympian attempts to communicate to his children the peace and hope that he has come to taste through knowing Jesus Christ.
      "I'm slowly learning what it is to take on a servant's attitude," revealed Ryun, "and with my family I'm learning to be a better husband and father.  Before I opened my life to Christ I was always considered a very kind and concerned person, but for the most part it wasn't flowing from the heart of Christ; I was primarily living for self.
      "For me, coming to know Jesus was like the difference between darkness and light," he observed. "Before, even though I was a churched person, I was living in darkness; I really did not know what it is to he born again.  Becoming born again and being filled with the Holy Spirit was like walking out of the darkness into a lighted room.  I think that's the best way to describe it: light and darkness; all the difference in the world."