Career
He was a two-time, running the 10,000 metres at the 1956 and 1960 Olympics. The diminutive 5" 5" Truex was called a seemingly tireless running machine. While running for Warsaw High School, Truex came to fame by setting the national high school record in the mile at 4:20.4, the record that had been held by Louis Zamperini for close to 20 years.
He went to the University of Southern California where he joined the Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps.
But the college sophomore went to the Olympics injured and was unable to finish his race.
At the Fresno Relays he added the American record in the 5,000 metres at 14:14.5, setting the 3 mile record at 13:47.6 along the way. The race was perhaps all the more notable because he had to weave through 47 competitors on the same track.
Three weeks later in Compton, California he knocked ten seconds off the mark. That mark still ranks him #2 time on the University of Southern California all time list.
By the time he graduated he was already in the Air Force at the Oxnard Air Force Base, where Bob Schul and world record holder Eddie Southern were also training.
He became part of the Southern California Striders, a dominant track team of this period. His second national championship in 1959 qualified him to run in the 1959 Pan American Games. In the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Max Truex set the American record in the 10,000 meters, 28:50:2, in finishing sixth in an event long dominated by Europeans.
This qualified him to run in the United States of America-Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics dual meet, the biggest meet of the year.
During that race, he developed a 2 inch blood blister. He tried to heal it for a year with no success.
He finally retired and returned to University of Southern California to get his law degree. At the age of 40, he was diagnosed with Parkinson"s disease.
The disease deteriorated his quality of life rapidly.
He had to retire early, eventually seeking unconventional fetal brain transplant surgery in China. He died at the age of 55.
