Dave Bolen

Dave Bolen started in sports as a basketball player at Louisiana Normal High School but was soon recruited to the track team when his speed was evident. He first attended Southern University but dropped out to enlist in the Army in 1943, serving in World War II and being discharged in 1946. He then enrolled at the University of Colorado, graduating with an MBA degree in 1950. At Colorado he was runner-up in the NCAA 440 yards to Jamaican star Herb McKenley in both 1946 and 1947. Bolen won the AAU indoor 600 yard championship in 1948-49. Outdoors, his best finish at the AAU meet was second in the 400 in 1947.

Bolen’s career was in foreign relations and he went on to become ambassador to Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland in 1974 and the German Democratic Republic in 1977, serving as the first Black ambassador to the GDR. Bolen also worked to help free Nelson Mandela.

In September 2000, Bolen was inducted into the University of Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame. His legacy continued at Colorado through the David Bolen Olympic Award and Scholarship, which he established when he returned from the 1948 Olympics, and which honors students who compete in the most recent Olympic Games, are of good academic standing and major in business, science, or engineering.

Personal Bests: 440y – 46.7 (1947); 400H – 53.0 (1948).