Grace Butcher
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In some North American Indigenous cultures, it’s believed that Spider Woman shared the insect’s ability to spin webs by teaching people how to weave cloth. At 89 years old, Grace Butcher, whose ancestry traces back to the Cree Tribe, still draws inspiration from this story and the spider’s ability to make its own path.
Pat Douthat, Jo Ann Abbott, and Grace Butcher
Throughout her life, the women’s running pioneer has created her own pathways by following her passions, often forging ahead in spite of opposition. In addition to running, Butcher’s paths include motorcycle riding, horse training, poetry, teaching, and acting, among other fascinating pursuits. However, it was running that led Butcher to blaze a trail for generations of women in the sport.
Growing up in Chardon, Ohio, Butcher learned she was fast from a young age. She’d often outrun the boys in games of tag at recess and run around her yard while playing horse. In ninth grade, she learned about track and field as a sport that was only available to men, which was often the case at the time. “My walls were all covered with pictures of male athletes, because there weren’t female athletes doing the things I wanted to do,” Butcher told Starting Line 1928.
Grace Butcher running for the Magyar Athletic Club, Cleveland, OH
Butcher was only a sophomore in high school when she sought to change that. She approached the school’s track coach and requested he form a girl’s program. When the coach asked her who would be interested, she rallied classmates with potential to excel in events ranging from the sprints to the throws. She returned to the coach with a list of names, but he shut her down, citing a lack of competition in the area.
Seeing how disappointed Butcher was, her mother found an alternative that proved to be life- changing. She contacted Stella Walsh, the 1932 Olympic champion in the 100 meters and then-coach of the Polish Falcons, a boys and girls track club in Cleveland, Ohio. A couple of days each week, Butcher’s mother would make the 30-mile drive from Chardon, so her daughter could train with the team. “Back in those days, parents didn’t drive their kids all over creation so they could do sports,” Butcher said. “There wasn’t anything like that at the time, but my mother did.”
On her first day of practice, Butcher told Walsh she wanted to compete in the mile. But Walsh informed her the event wasn’t available to women at the time. Instead, she suggested Butcher train for the hurdles. She excelled in the event and picked up her first gold medal in the 50-yard hurdles at the Junior Olympics in Cleveland. As a result, she qualified for the National Championships, which were held at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio.
The famous photo Grace mentions - the pot is empty
Inspired by Harrison Dillard, the 1952 Olympic champion in the 110-meter hurdles and Baldwin Wallace alum, Butcher enrolled at the university. In the first quarter of her freshman year, Butcher dropped out of school and got married before having two children. It would be several years before she made her return to competition and pushed for much-needed change in the sport.
In the late 1950s, Butcher connected with a group of Hungarian refugees, who immigrated to Cleveland after the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, and started training with the Magyar Athletic Club. While working with her coach, Alex Ferenczy, Butcher was finally able to train for middle-distance events. “[Ferenczy] was astonished to learn that American girls were not allowed to run more than 200 meters. The powers that be here knew a girl couldn't possibly run all the way around the track, just not possible. Girls don't do that,” Butcher said. “And so he and I started a campaign.”
Butcher remembered the lobbying process as a “bloody battle” that involved numerous letters and phone calls urging the leaders of the Amatuer Athletic Union (AAU) to sanction a women’s 880-yard race. At one point, Butcher was even threatened with expulsion from the AAU, she said. “I was selfishly motivated. I wanted these events, but I also realized I can’t be the only girl in the whole country who isn’t fast enough to be a sprinter and who would do well in longer races,” she said.
Podium of USA vs. USSR Meet 1959. Lilane Greene (2:24.9) , Grace Butcher (2:23.9) , Lyubov Yanvareva (2:13.3) and Ludmilla Lysesk Shavtsova (2:11.3)
Her persistence paid off in 1958, when the AAU included the event in the program of the U.S.indoor championships in Akron, Ohio. Butcher won the race.
In the years that followed, Butcher won two more national titles in her signature event. At the 1959 U.S. outdoor championships, she set a then-meet record, winning the crown in 2:21.2.
In the late 1960s, Butcher’s advocacy for women’s running continued when she put together the first ever girl’s cross-country meet for local high schools in the Cleveland area. When women’s cross-country was added to the national program, Butcher urged administrators to include the event at the high school level. When pressed, they suggested Butcher take the reins on the initiative. So, she wrote a formal letter, which included a training program, to encourage 20 athletic departments to prepare students for the one-mile cross-country race she organized. To her surprise, 102 girls from 12 schools showed up on race day. For six years, Butcher hosted the meet, which helped girl’s cross-country gain significant traction.
“I don't often say I'm proud of anything. You know, pride goeth before a fall and all that,” Butcher said. “But I am proud of having started that event. It was quite a thrill.”
Off the track, Butcher’s interests took her down many other paths in her later years. In 1976, just past her 40th birthday, she made a solo 2,500-mile motorcycle trip through New England and Canada, and wrote a feature article about the experience for Sports Illustrated. As a professor, she founded Kent State University—Geauga’s literary magazine, The Listening Eye, which features poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. And she’s published several books of poetry, among other career highlights.
Today, Butcher continues to defy expectations for people her age. Just days before her call with Starting Line 1928, she suffered an ankle injury while training her horse, Spencer. Now receiving treatment, Butcher is already eager to return to the barn and continue working with him, another passion she’s pursuing head-on without hesitation.
“Find out what you love and then do it, take it as far as it will take you,” she said. “Go down that path.”
Taylor Dutch is a freelance writer, editor, and producer living in Chicago; a former NCAA track athlete, Taylor specializes in health, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in SELF, Runner’s World, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
A big thank-you to Once Upon a Time in a Vest with their help on photos.
