Michele Tiff-Hill
Michele Tiff-Hill grew up in Cleveland, into a very athletic family. Her father, Benjamin Tiff, competed as a high-school sprinter alongside Olympian Jesse Owens, and her brother, Milan, held national records in the triple jump. Her sister, Margot, was also a talented tennis player who even played on the pro circuit.
But Tiff-Hill didn’t get into running herself until her late 20s, instead focusing on her music career in high school, college, and beyond. She took up running in an effort to simply be more active with all the hours she spent sitting at the piano bench every day. Though she initially did her running in secret, she quickly grew more motivated to improve her race times.
“I had a very recognizable brother in the area and everybody knew him and they knew I was Milan Tiff's sister,” she explains. “So I felt a little intimidated and just went out on my own and tried to do what I could do until I felt more comfortable and confident.”
Tiff-Hill continued to see improvement as she trained and wrote programs for herself, running her first race, a 10K, in about 52 minutes. She ran her first marathon and second marathons in Stockholm, where she achieved her original goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. eventually took prominent coach Eino Rompannen up on his offer to coach her after she broke three hours in the marathon in Scottsdale, Arizona. From there, Tiff-Hill went on to become the first Black woman to qualify for the Olympic Trials in the marathon in 1984, qualifying in a time of 2:50:19 at the 1983 Sri Chinmoy Marathon.
During the height of her running career, Tiff-Hill took note that there weren't many women of color lining up with her at starting lines, and was aware that she was on track to become the first Black woman to achieve that milestone.
“It motivated me further and I knew I wasn’t going to stop there,” she says. “I always appreciated seeing [fellow women of color] when they were there, but, but then again, you know, a competitor is a competitor.”
Although Tiff-Hill achieved the qualifying standard, she, unfortunately, sustained a stress fracture in her final weeks of training and had to pull out at the 5K mark in the race. While that part was devastating, she still found the experience of being at the first women’s Olympic Trials marathon to be quite memorable.
“I loved meeting the different, really fine athletes,” she says. “It just made me determined to come back and qualify again, under better circumstances, and run the whole thing. “
While she worked to remain competitive and re-qualify and improve her times after that, her running career slowly came to a halt after she was diagnosed with Graves Disease when she was in her 40s. But Tiff-Hill continued to find fulfillment in the sport in other ways, first by coaching her husband, Dave, and then later coaching a large group called the Grinders, which she and Dave formed together in their current home city of Tucson, Arizona.
Tiff-Hill was also recently inducted into the National Black Distance Running Hall of Fame and featured in a documentary about Black women who have broken three hours in the marathon. She hopes this list of women continues to grow at a more rapid pace and shares advice for the athletes working to add their names to it.
“I’m honored to be in the company of all these other women [whose] resumes are just incredible and I’m just so happy that African American women are getting this recognition,” she says. “Distance running has [grown so much] as far as times coming down, and there's no reason why more women of color and African American women can't be part of that. Believe in yourself and don't let anybody place restrictions on who they think you might be or what you can do.”
Emilia Benton is a freelance journalist based in Houston. She contributes regularly to Runner’s World, Women’s Running, SELF, the Houston Chronicle, and more. Emilia is also an 11-time marathoner and USATF Level 1 running coach. She lives in her hometown of Houston with her husband, Omar, and Boston Terrier rescue, Astro. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @emiliambenton.
