Tributes to Margaret Bradley 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

In 2008, the University of Chicago track & field team will host the inaugural Margaret Bradley Invitational. The meet is named in honor of Margaret Bradley, a 2001 University of Chicago graduate with an A.B. in biological sciences and geophysical sciences who went on to enroll in the Pritzker School of Medicine on the Chicago campus in the fall of 2003.

Margaret tragically passed away on July 10, 2004 while hiking in the Grand Canyon at the age of 24. She began the hike with a friend from the south rim of the canyon. My understanding of what happened after that is perhaps not completely accurate, but I would like to share what I have heard.

Sometime during the hike, Margaret’s companion began to feel the affects of the heat. It was 105 degrees when they began hiking, and temperatures along the trail rose in excess of 120 degrees that day.

Margaret was exceptionally fit and training 90 miles a week in preparation for marathons. A few months earlier she was the 31st-place finisher in the Boston Marathon and had realistic hopes of qualifying to the 2008 Olympic trials.

As her friend began struggling from the effects of the heat and after they had run out of water, Margaret decided to separate from him and search for help. She apparently left the main trail and got lost. Her death was determined to be from dehydration and a result of environmental heat exposure.

As an athlete at Chicago, Margaret was a multiple-time All-UAA performer and Midwest All-Region athlete. In 1999 she was named a cross country All-American by finishing 32nd at the NCAA Division III Championship at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh with a lifetime-best time of 17:38.9 on a 5,000-meter course -- the second-fastest time in school history.

Margaret was far more then an exceptional runner and outstanding student. She was also a member of the campus orchestra and someone I would truly describe as a renaissance woman. My memories of Margaret will always be of her pushing herself to higher and higher levels in everything she did.

Her personality was one in which if she made a decision to do something she was going to be her very best at it. That personality and her work ethic are why she achieved so much as an athlete, but also in the classroom.

I would like to thank her parents, Keith and Mary Jo Bradley, along with her brother, Eric, for allowing us to name this meet in her name. Margaret was a special part of our program, and she has truly been missed. This invitational will be an annual event in her name.

- Chris Hall, U. of C. Head Track & Field/Cross Country Coach