Boston’s ‘Forrest Gump’ re-enacting end of cross-country run

Boston — Before there was “Forrest Gump,” there was Dave McGillivray.

Gump, the fictitious simpleton played by Tom Hanks in the 1994 Oscar-winning film, trotted across the U.S. because he “just felt like running.”

McGillivray did the same, but with a singular purpose: Forty years ago this month, he completed his own cross-country running odyssey from Medford, Oregon, to his hometown of Medford, Mass., to benefit the Jimmy Fund and its fight against cancer.

Today, McGillivray — now race director of the Boston Marathon — will dash into Boston’s Fenway Park, re-enacting the last leg of his 80day run in 1978. Hundreds of people since have matched or exceeded that feat, but McGillivray was one of the first.

“Running into Fenway Park after running 3,452 miles across America for the Jimmy Fund remains the absolute highlight of my athletic career,” he said. “It proved that anything is possible and gave me the confidence to continue to set goals in my life, not limits.”

Four-time Boston Marathon winner Bill Rodgers and former Boston Police Commissioner William Evans will accompany McGillivray to Fenway, where he’ll run to home plate just before the Red Sox take the field to wrap up a four-game series against the Cleveland Indians.

As he did in 1978, McGillivray is raising money for the Jimmy Fund, which supports cancer care and research for adults and children at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Next year, he’s releasing a children’s book, “The Home Run,” about the cross-country trek, with proceeds to benefit the Jimmy Fund.

“People like Dave make Dana-Farber’s strides into patient care and research possible,” said Zack Blackburn, assistant vice president of the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk. “We simply can’t run our operations without it.”

McGillivray was a 23-yearold recent Merrimack College graduate when he began his slog on June 11, 1978, after a ceremonial start at a Red Sox-Mariners game at Seattle’s Kingdome.

Averaging 45 miles a day, it took him through the Nevada desert, the Rocky Mountains and the cornfields of Iowa en route back to Massachusetts on Aug. 29, 1978.