American athlete, Olympic contender of the hammer throw at age 44. During his prior Olympic trials, he was 28, making the team in 1968. After those Mexico City games, heaving a 16-pound ball, he traded in his sweat suit for a business suit, said goodbye to track and went about starting a family and fitting into the corporate world.
In September 1960 he met a freshman student at San Jose State, Shirley, and they married five months later. In the spring of 1962, a photographer was shooting pictures of America’s finest hammer thrower and asked for a demonstration. Burke threw the iron ball and it flew wildly, crashing through the windshield of Shirley’s car. It took her a month to recover from the injuries and frantic with grief and guilt, Burke gave up the sport on the spot. Shirley could not bear to see him so shaken, and she made it a career to be supportive, to understand the hammer and the man who drove it. She did her job so well that she became Burke’s coach. In 1968, he made the Olympic team but failed to win a medal, and once more retired from sports, this time for 12 years.
During his throwing years, Burke had been a professor of political science. After his Olympic try, he patented the first hydraulic weight-lifting machine, sold it for $2 million, and became a sales rep for a major firm. Five years later he started a string of health clubs, made a lot of money, and continued to put his personal time into running a health club in Los Gatos, CA.
One day in September 1979, Shirley and their two daughters, Anne and Claire, were watching World Cup track and field competition on TV. Ed was in the garage. Shirley was intrigued by the hammer throw as the Russian champion was using a technique she’d not seen before. She called Ed to watch and they told the girls that this is what their dad used to do. They were nine and six at the time and knew nothing about their dad’s athletic history.
They got out an old hammer and headed for the throwing ring at San Jose State. Ed realized that he needed something physical in his life and this was it. He weighed about 180 lbs and needed to bulk up another 50 lbs. He had to relearn to throw the hammer, and learn new techniques. It was a tough commitment at his age. His knees ached, some days everything ached.
It took years to bring himself back to fighting trim. In 1982 he beat Roland Steuk, junior champion from East Germany. The next year he made it to the world track and field championships in Helsinki, Finland, and then, the Olympic team. In the August 1968 meet, he may not have been a Medal winner, but his daughters, now teenagers, and Shirley were cheering him on and he set a bench mark for every athlete over the age of 40.
Link to Wikipedia biography