LA Marathon founder William Burke dies at 87

William A. Burke, the civic leader who founded the Los Angeles Marathon and served 23 years as chair of the South Coast Air Quality Management District Governing Board, died May 29 surrounded by family. He was 87.

Burke's death closes nearly four decades of civic service that transformed a single 1986 race into one of the nation's five largest marathons and shaped air quality policy across Southern California — including Orange County — for a generation.

Burke drew his inspiration from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, where he served as tennis commissioner. He went on to found L.A. Marathon Inc. as a for-profit company and staged the inaugural race in 1986. In a 1991 profile, the Los Angeles Times called him "the one person responsible for creating and organizing the Los Angeles Marathon" and noted that he "has transformed the first modest race in 1986 into a multimillion-dollar marketing triumph."

On Friday, marathon officials paid tribute on Instagram. "Over forty years ago, one man looked at our city and saw what was possible," the statement said. "Although he was not a runner himself, he was a civic leader who saw the marathon as a gift to the city following the 1984 Olympics." Frank McCourt acquired primary ownership of the marathon in 2008.

Alongside the marathon, Burke built a parallel career as a public steward of Southern California's air. He joined the AQMD Governing Board in 1993 and served as its chairman for 23 years — the organization's longest-tenured leader — before retiring in 2021 after 28 years of total service. During that period he created an environmental justice program, the Asthma and Outdoor Air Quality Consortium and the Brain and Lung Tumor and Air Pollution Foundation.

At his 2021 retirement ceremony, Burke articulated the conviction that had defined his environmental career. "As I've said before, clean air is a right, not a privilege," he said. "I have spent my career fighting to be a voice of the unheard, so that all people have the opportunity to breathe clean air."

Burke is survived by his wife of more than 53 years, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, a former U.S. congresswoman and Los Angeles County supervisor, and their daughters Autumn Burke, a former California state assemblywoman, and Christine Burke Adams. He also maintained a 50-year friendship with Muhammad Ali and was a collector of antique cars.

His family, in a statement to the Los Angeles Sentinel, said Burke "had a remarkable ability to make people feel seen, valued, and welcome, whether they were lifelong friends or someone he had just met."