University of Kansas shot put phenom/Olympian Bill Nieder dies at age 89

Former University of Kansas shot putter and Olympic gold medalist Bill Nieder died Friday at his home in Angels Camp, California at the age of 89, his family confirmed to KU’s athletic department.

Nieder, the first collegiate athlete to surpass 60 feet with the 16-pound shot, won the silver medal at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia in his senior year at KU.

Four years later, during the 1960 Olympic Trials, Nieder was chosen as an alternate for Team USA after placing fourth. An injury to Dave Davis advanced Nieder into the Rome Olympic Games, where he won a gold medal and set an Olympic record in the shot with a throw of 64 feet, 6 3/4 inches.

Nieder, who was born in Hempstead, New York, grew up in Lawrence and attended Lawrence High before emerging as a two-time All-American at KU. He had the 28 best shot put marks in Big Seven Conference history, an outdoor national title and five conference championship titles while at KU.

He twice won the Texas-Kansas-Drake Relays triple crown and was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1961. During his career, Nieder owned the shot put world record three times and was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2006.

As a track phenom at Lawrence High, Nieder became the first high schooler to break the 60-foot barrier with a 12-pound shot put, with a throw of 60-9 3/4. His shot put record stood at Lawrence High for 59 years.

“One of the greatest competitors I’ve ever seen,” former Lawrence High football coach Al Woolard once said of Nieder.

Nieder was also a member of the KU football team his freshman year until a serious leg injury sidelined him and allowed him to concentrate on the shot put.

“Bill Nieder was one of the very greatest of the many great football players Lawrence High once turned out,” wrote Bill Mayer of the Lawrence Journal-World. “He would have been a brilliant center/linebacker at Kansas; his freshman season (freshmen weren’t varsity-eligible then) had everybody going nuts about his potential. Came the 1953 opener at TCU and Nieder, no surprise, was a starter. Didn’t last long because he got a horrible knee injury that required eight hours of surgery just to prevent amputation.

“Career as an athlete over, right? Bill wouldn’t let that happen and spent countless torturous hours rehabbing to the point he won the shot put silver medal at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne,” Mayer added. “More knee troubles, didn’t even make the U.S. team for 1960 until somebody else got hurt and Nieder was the replacement (he’d been tutoring the U.S. group and stepped right in). More knee difficulties right up to the 1960 Rome Olympics. Talk about grit. All he did was bring home the shot put gold medal.”

Nieder tried boxing when his track and field career ended following the 1960 Olympics. He was knocked out in his first match and retired from that sport.

After Nieder finished his athletic career, he worked for 3M to help develop the world’s first artificial athletic turf while also helping sell synthetic track surfaces. Nieder made national news in May 2011 when, according to federal authorities, he helped subdue a passenger who attempted to break into the cockpit of an American Airlines flight bound for San Francisco.

Nieder was 77 at the time.

“I was one of three guys who threw him down, but I’ve had problems with my hip, so I wasn’t one of the ones holding him down,” Nieder said. as reported by speedendurance.com.“Three guys were holding him down until the flight landed. He was well taken care of. I went back to my seat to sit down and his head was under my seat.

“My wife was scared and thought he might have had a gun or a bomb or something,” Nieder added. “I think she was more shook up after it was all over.”