Running the mile in less than four minutes and sheltering the homeless are gigantic achievements, far beyond nearly everyone`s wildest personal dreams.
But Eddie Slowikowski, who dares to have such dreams, has already accomplished one of these feats. And, enlisting the help of those around him, he`s striving to do what he can to achieve the other.
Slowikowski is a slender, outgoing senior communications major at Loyola and a native of suburban Darien. He also is a sub-4-minute miler who has gone out of his way to confront and combat the plight of the homeless in Chicago.
Running in the Prime Time meet in Boston last weekend, he achieved a lifelong goal and established himself as one of the nation`s top three college milers when he won the event in 3 minutes 59.36 seconds.
Slowikowski, who has been running since the 5th grade, described how he felt kicking the final quarter-mile in that race in a furious 58 seconds: ”A magical feeling . . . you accomplish a goal. You stay through the pain, though your brain and body tell you, `No.` You go on, maybe because of something in the soul.”
His next goals in track are giant ones: 1) win the mile at the NCAA indoor championships next month in Indianapolis, 2) break the school record of 3:56.4, set as the indoor world record in 1964 by Eddie`s friend, Tom O`Hara
(the indoor mark is now 3:49.78, set by Eamonn Coghlan) and 3) make the 1992 Olympic team.
Slowikowski`s goal of helping the homeless sounds even loftier. But, as in track, he seems to be getting help from ”something in the soul.”
He knows homeless people first-hand, because he has chosen several times to stay overnight with them in a shelter in the basement of the Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church.
”When you stay with these people, you understand more,” said Slowikowski. ”They`re so real. You see what they go through, how they deal with life.
”Some people say, `Aw, they just want to get drunk.` That`s not true. They still have hope. They try to make it happen. Many of them are looking for work. I woke up one man at 4 a.m. so he could take two buses way across town and start a job at 6 a.m.
”Some are young. Some are college graduates,” he said. ”I met a 26-year-old woman who took computer training at the University of Illinois and a 34-year-old man who lost his own company because he got sick and didn`t have health insurance.”
Slowikowski has enlisted the help of his tight-knit track team in his battle to help the homeless. Team members have contributed cash and have collected contributions on campus. Slowikowski talks of getting other teams involved.
”I told my teammates how for $130 you can cater full meals to 40 people,” he said. ”We all chipped in. So did other people on campus. People are really generous once they know specifically where their money`s going.”
More than a year ago, Slowikowski said, his attention was focused on the homeless when he noted a woman huddled in a blanket in a stairwell in a Loop building.
”She was there every day,” he said. ”It was her `home.` I gave her my lunch. My roommate did, too. It was so very real.”
Slowikowski`s feelings toward running and caring for the less fortunate date to long before he starred in track and cross country at Hinsdale South.
”I always loved running,” he recalled. ”Running makes the body feel so light. It`s a release from tension or stress. As a kid, it was like getting off a leash. I`d run everywhere. I`d cut through alleys and shortcuts and race the bus to school.
”Our family has always been aware of poverty. My parents were active in the pantry at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church. We collected food to help feed needy people in our area.”
Looking back, Slowikowski suspects that his father, Norbert, a 1961 Loyola graduate and former Rambler track man, ”tanked” a footrace they had when Eddie was a 5th grader about to enter Cass Junior High.
”I wanted to be a football player, though I was about 2 feet tall and real skinny,” he recalled. ”My dad ran then, and still runs at 5 a.m. He said: `Let`s have a race. If I win, you can play football, but if you beat me, it will show you`re really meant for track.` ”
Slowikowski says he ”doesn`t fit the mold” of the typical distance runner. Many are introspective loners. They arise at dawn and take long, punishing runs. Their work habits are astonishing.
”I`m outgoing,” said Slowikowski. ”I`m not a morning person. I do my tough workout at 10 p.m. Until I matured recently, I cut corners. I tried to evade workouts. I slacked off. In high school they called me `Slack Man.` ”
Still, he had natural talent plus people to motivate him: his dad, a motivational speaker for business groups; his junior high school coach, Herb Rosen; his coach at Hinsdale South, Dave Jackson; his coach at Loyola, Gordon Thomson; and O`Hara himself.
”My freshman year at Loyola, I won a cross-country race, and Tom O`Hara cheered me on,” said Slowikowski. ”I`d never been state champion, yet I ran against five state champions and beat them all.
”Tom O`Hara told me, `You have a great future.` When Loyola recruited me, they mentioned tradition and O`Hara`s record and said I might someday break it.”
At a recent meet at Notre Dame, Slowikowski won the mile and was awarded a trophy as the meet`s outstanding athlete. He refused it, turning it over to teammate Andre Fomby.
”I`d run only one event,” said Slowikowski. ”Andre finished third in the mile, he won the 800 meters, and he anchored the 4×400 relay when we almost beat Notre Dame. Andre deserved the trophy more than I did.”
Loyola`s small but gifted track team contains four All-American: seniors Slowikowski, Fomby and Marc Burns and junior Jim Westphal. In training, they run some 65 miles a week, along routes that take them all over the Chicago area.
Slowikowski also puts in a lot of work for Chicago`s homeless, who he feels deserve something more lasting then a temporary cot or a mat on the floor in a church basement.
”If the church didn`t take them in, they`d be sleeping under the `L`
tracks or on lower Wacker Drive,” Slowikowski said.
Slowikowski is encouraged, he said, when he returns to the shelter and notes the absence of faces he had seen there before.
”It means, I hope, that they`ve found a home,” he said.
