John J. Kelley, a former high school English teacher who won the 1957 Boston Marathon and eight consecutive national marathon championships, died Sunday in North Stonington, Conn. He was 80.

The cause was a melanoma that spread to his lungs, said Amby Burfoot, an editor at Runner’s World magazine and a former student of Kelley’s.

Kelley, who lived in Mystic, Conn., was often confused with his friend, the unrelated John A. Kelley, who won the Boston race twice and who died in 2004. To distinguish between them, Boston sports writers called John A. “the Elder” and John J. “the Younger.” John J. was amused by the coincidence of names, saying, “By a flip of teasing fate, I bore the monarch’s name.”

At 5 feet 6 inches and 126 pounds, Kelley ran his first Boston Marathon as a high school junior despite a warning from his coach not to. A badly swollen knee forced Kelley to drop out halfway through the race, making his coach so angry that he ordered him to run a one-mile race the next day.