Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon, will deliver Syracuse University’s commencement address this spring, the university announced on Thursday.

Switzer first ran the Boston Marathon when she was 20 years old in 1967 and studying at SU. She was nearly dragged off the track by a race director during the men-only event, but was able to finish. Fifty years later, she ran the race again, the first woman to run a marathon 50 years after their first one.

She was inducted in the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2011 and was an inaugural inductee in the National Distance Running Hall of Fame. She won the New York City Marathon in 1974 and has run 41 marathons in her lifetime. Her best time is 2:51:37 at the Boston Marathon in 1975.

“Fifty years ago, when I was an emerging athlete and a determined young advocate for women’s sports, I was sitting in that audience of graduates imagining what the future would hold. I predicted many things, but I never, ever, could have predicted that one day I would be speaking to that audience!” Switzer said in a press release Thursday afternoon.

Commencement will be in the Carrier Dome on Sunday, May 13 at 9:30 a.m.

Switzer was influential in bringing the women’s marathon to the Olympic Games, creating the Avon International Running Circuit, a women’s-only racing organization in 27 countries.

Switzer is a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the College of Arts and Sciences. She has worked as a journalist, sports marketer and author. Switzer has also written three books and provided commentary at the Olympics, and every televised edition of the Boston Marathon for the last 37 years.

She is the recipient of the Arents Awards, SU’s highest alumni award. Switzer is on the sport management advisory board at the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics.

“We are privileged to have Kathrine Switzer as Syracuse University’s Commencement speaker. Her story of determination as a young athlete and her work as an advocate for women in sports created much-needed change,” Chancellor Kent Syverud said in the press release. “Students can take inspiration from her enthusiasm for her sport that has led to a life of remarkable achievement.”

Published on March 23, 2018 at 2:32 pm

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