John Link

JOHN FER HUMANITARIAN AWARD

John Link was born in Chula Vista, California in 1946. John was always the youngest and smallest in his grade but was also always the fastest runner in his class. He loved sports, especially baseball. His boyhood heroes were Mickey Mantle and Sir Edmund Hillary who summited Mt. Everest in 1953.

At the age of sixteen John ran the mile in 4 minutes and 20 seconds, which was very respectable for a teen of his age. He knew that he would need a scholarship to go to college. After the annual high school state track championship, the track coach from USC, Willie Wilson visited John and his parents at their home and offered him a special scholarship. He received the first Trustee Scholarship to the University of Southern California which was awarded to a worthy, incoming freshman with excellent grades plus another talent. His of course, was running.

John enrolled as a freshman at USC with a premed major and ran the mile in 4:06 breaking the freshman record of Louis Zamparini. His coach Willie Wilson developed excellent middle-distance runners. In John’s sophomore year, Coach Wilson was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. When hearing Coach Wilson’s diagnosis, John and three of his teammates decided to attempt to break the world record in the 4 x 880 relay to honor him.

On May 13, 1966 at the prestigious Colosseum Relays held at the Los Angeles Colosseum they achieved their goal and set a new world record of 7:14.4 before an audience of 25,000 track fans. Coach Wilson was the Honorary Meet Referee. The next morning, the LA Times sports section featured these four runners embracing their coach, The headline read “A Remarkable Achievement”. Four days later Coach Wilson passed away.

John, devastated by the loss of his coach, who was like his second father, decided to drop out of his premed major. He switched to liberal arts with the intention of becoming a teacher and track coach. Despite the loss of Coach Wilson, John ran the mile in 4:02 that year. The USC track team were NCAA champions, and John was a first team All American in two events.

In John’s senior year at USC, he decided to change majors again, this time back to premed with the intent to become a cancer doctor and researcher. Ultimately, he was accepted to medical school at USC and became a pioneer breast cancer oncologist.

John Link has had an almost 50-year career as a breast cancer oncologist. In 1988 he developed the first of its kind, the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Research and Treatment Center at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. Throughout his career he has cared for more than 14,000 women with newly diagnosed breast cancer and has served as principal investigator in more than 30 clinical research trials.

John has written numerous books, research papers and abstracts. In 2002 he wrote perhaps his most important document, a book for newly diagnosed patients called The Breast Cancer Survival Manual which he has revised every few years since its initial printing. The manual is now in its 7th edition. It is considered the most widely read by women with newly diagnosed breast cancer. In his long career John has witnessed the cure rate for breast cancer increase from 50% to now more than 90%!