Bert Bonanno

Bert Salvatore Bonanno is an American track and field coach and sports administrator who has produced numerous Olympic champions and world-record holders.

Biography Bonanno began his coaching career in the 1950s at San Jose State College as an assistant to Bud Winter (1909–1985), regarded as one of the greatest sprint coaches in the world. He was playing racquetball with Winter at the TAC Annual Meeting when Winter suffered his fatal heart attack, one day before his induction into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.

At San Jose State, Bonanno led the freshmen team to two national track and field championships. He also recruited hammer thrower national champion Ed Burke, who went on to compete in three Olympics and was the flag-bearer for the United States at the 1984 Olympic Games. He was one of several foreign coaches—including some from the Eastern Bloc—recruited by the Mexican Olympic Committee to help the host team prepare for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. At the height of the Cold War, and with the Olympic Games so close to the US border, the suspicious Central Intelligence Agency recruited Bonanno to provide information on the coaches they suspected were undercover agents.

Bonanno worked as a liaison between the Mexican officials and 3M in 1968, the year the first artificial track was installed for Olympic competition. and sprinter Millard Hampton to gold medals. He also co-founded the Mercury News 10K Race