Wilcox Driven to Excel : Former World-Class Heptathlete Overcomes Injuries and Illnesses

A drive through Arizona in the summer of 1989 in turn fueled a drive to return to track and field for Marlene Wilcox.

The tenacity that helped Wilcox, 29, the NCAA Division II heptathlon champion and Division I runner-up for Cal State Northridge in 1983, develop into a world-class athlete also triggered an unusual series of illnesses that led to retirement five years later.

As a Thousand Oaks High senior in 1980, Wilcox, the former Marlene Harmon, set a meet record in winning the long jump at the state championships and also earned a spot on the U. S. Olympic team in the pentathlon. The next year, she set the junior record of 5,591 points at the Kansas Relays.

Wilcox set a U. S. heptathlon record of 13.10 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles (since broken) en route to winning the 1983 Olympic Festival in Colorado Springs with a personal best of 6,215 points. She placed third in a two-day event consisting of the 100-meter hurdles, shotput, high jump, 200 meters, long jump, javelin and 800 meters in 1983 at The Athletics Congress outdoor national championships to qualify for the World Championships in Helsinki.

Wilcox finished as the top American there, placing 11th, though she competed with ruptured eardrums suffered while flying to the meet with a severe head cold.

Wilcox also has personal bests of 5-10 3/4 in the high jump, 21-7 in the long jump and 23.52 in the 200 meters She ranked no lower than seventh in the heptathlon nationally from 1980 through 1984.

Wilcox had grown accustomed to the risks of an unrelenting training regimen. She suffered tendinitis in her right shoulder, three bone chips in her right knee, a pinched nerve in her right leg, torn hamstrings, 12 stress fractures in her lower legs and multiple stress fractures in both feet during a career that began at the age of 9 for the West Valley Eagles Track Club.

However, she was unprepared to cope with an incredible odyssey that started with the 1984 U. S Olympic Trials at the Coliseum.

She was among the favorites to make the team in the heptathlon, but was weakened by mononucleosis and finished sixth, failing to qualify.

In May of the following year, she began suffering from spinal meningitis, which resulted in a temporary loss of peripheral vision and a partial hearing loss. It is believed to have been caused by a weakened immune system due to extreme fatigue.

She experienced migraine headaches for several months afterward, but continued training.

“I made the mistake of overtraining and kept on pushing and pushing,” Wilcox said. “I felt guilty about not training. It was like a sin to take a day off.”

The effects of her spell with meningitis subsided, allowing her to resume training at a normal level until the fall of 1986 when she was weakened by four bouts of pneumonia followed by a virus known as Epstein-Barr.

“I caught a lot of colds and I had a hard time keeping weight on,” said the 5-foot-8, 122-pound Wilcox. “I was down to 115 and eating everything in sight. It got to the point where I would get up in the morning and be exhausted.”

There is no known medical remedy for Epstein-Barr except rest. However, Wilcox ignored her physician’s warnings and continued to train until she suffered a stress fracture in her lower leg after stepping into a hole during a workout.

“I tried to train through it for a week, but the pain became too bad to handle,” Wilcox said. “I had so many letdowns from unexplained illnesses and injuries that resulted in erratic performances that I felt that it was not worth the effort.”

She channeled her competitive energies into a real estate career, competing as an amateur equestrian show jumper and becoming a housewife and mother for Larry Wilcox, the former co-star of the television series “CHiPs”, and his three children, Derek (21), Heidi (16) and Wendy (10).

“Real estate was very lucrative and I was very successful,” said Wilcox, who now lives in Bell Canyon. “I enjoyed the challenge of problem-solving and negotiating. I rode horses three or four times a day. I didn’t even jog or even look at a track during that time.”

That all changed during a business trip in Tempe with Larry, as the couple passed by the track at Arizona State.

“I was in street clothes, but I just had to take a jog around the track,” Wilcox said. “I realized how much I missed it and that a competitive flame still burned. I felt that I still had some unfinished business to take care of.”

Wilcox, who still holds the sixth-highest point total by a U. S. performer in the heptathlon, has been making her point recently--in the 800 meters.

Now taking a more conservative approach to training and competing for Cal State Los Angeles, Wilcox won the 800 meters in 2 minutes 7.15 seconds at the Division II championships in San Angelo, Tex., last month.

She also teamed with Darcy Richardes, Soccoro Vazquez and Margo Grant, running a 53.9-second 400-meter leg on the Golden Eagles’ victorious 1,600-meter relay team that was timed in 3:38.52.

Wilcox, a junior in athletic eligibility, was able to compete for Cal State L. A. in 1990 without having to sit out a year because she competed only one year for Northridge and did not compete at the college level for the previous two seasons.

“The 800 is still a new event for me,” said Wilcox, who ran 2:05.10 in 1985. “Division II is a long way from Helsinki, but I am using it as a steppingstone and gaining confidence. What separates me from the national leaders is just experience.”

Wilcox has a season-best of 2:06.32, but she fell short of the TAC qualifying standard of 2:05.64. Nonetheless, she does not plan on returning to the heptathlon because she believes her ability to be competitive in the throwing events at an international level is limited.

The period away from track aided her recovery from Epstein-Barr and Wilcox said that no symptoms from the virus have resurfaced the past two years.

It was an uphill battle for Wilcox when she resumed training with the Cal State L. A. cross-country team in the fall of 1989.

“I knew it would take a long time to get back in shape,” Wilcox said. “It was frustrating because the drive was there and I expected myself to be at the level I had been. (Distance coach Greg Ryan) is a real good balance for me. He holds me back instead of allowing me to push too hard. We have real good communication and have figured out a system that has been working.”

In the beginning, however, Wilcox admits it required a great amount of persuasion from Ryan before she accepted those principles.

“Marlene is such a intense competitor that she gets wired up in practice,” Ryan said. “She has such high expectations that she has a tendency to train more tenaciously than her body is capable of. We negotiate on things more than I do with other athletes, but she is very cooperative.”

Wilcox approached Ryan about beginning a training program after returning from Arizona in August, 1989, but she was unaware that she had eligibility remaining until it was discovered by Ryan after reviewing her transcripts.

Still, Wilcox was not overly thrilled about the possibility of returning to college and initially declined. She reconsidered the offer after discussing it with her family.

“We have always encouraged pursuing education,” Wilcox said. “This was an opportunity to finish my degree and something I never had time to do before. I decided to try it for a year.”

Ryan did not think her days at Cal State L. A. would last much longer. “She could be doing a lot of other things than running and going to school,” Ryan said. “I thought just doing the schoolwork to keep herself eligible would be too much to handle, not to mention the 70-minute drive to school every day and working out. I thought she would be around for a year and that would be it.”

Ryan’s predictions failed to materialize and Wilcox stresses that the transition would not have been possible without her family’s aid.

Each member helps with the household chores and caring for the family’s five horses, five dogs, hamster, kitten and two goldfish to free Wilcox to pursue her goals.

“To exceed in an sport, you must have total self-indulgence without any strings attached,” said husband Larry.

Wilcox ran 2:09.23 last season at Cal State L. A., but hamstring injuries resurfaced, forcing her to drop out of her qualifying heat of the 800 in the Division II championships.

Thoughts of retirement once again entered her mind, but left just as quickly. “I was not going to let the setback affect my comeback,” Wilcox said. “I saw it as a three-year project. My first year my goal was to build a base, the second was to stay consistent and the goal next year is to go up to a different level.

“I have already surpassed what I was hoping to accomplish this year.”

The drive that started in Arizona might take Wilcox farther than she anticipated.