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V 6 N. 15 Conversations with Darryl Taylor Part One

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This series of conversations with Darryl Taylor former 880 runner from Long Beach State and the old 49er Track Club began with a nice email from Darryl about the good old days and we just kept adding things to the conversation, and other parties joined in, we wanted to share these with our readers because they bring to life what running was like in over fifty years ago beginning with some memories of Darryl's high school days and then on to college and post graduate times.  Hope you enjoy them as much as I have.    We had written earlier about Darryl as a coach in this post.

A Tribute to Darryl Taylor    You can get an idea of what kind of man Darryl is from this letter one of his  former  athletes wrote to us several years ago.



Here is what came in from Darryl  a few days  ago.   He is reminiscing about high school running in California in the late 50s.
George & Roy-Here is the narrative I spoke of earlier with a couple of photos related to the event. Hope you enjoy. Also, I will contact John Bork about the LA Foundation. I'm also in contact with Larry Knuth who hosts the "Old Guys" T&F reunion that took place this last week-end. I'm sure you will get an update on that event like you did last year. This year's event was again attended by some great ones: Laszlo Tabori-still on the mend after hip replacement surgery, Bob Soth-1960 Olympian from 1960, Chris Johnson-USC NCAA Indoor Mile Champion, Jim Bush, Ron Allice, Kevin Hogan, Gene Gurule, Dave Mellady and many, many more.
ALSO-I can copy DVDs also and will send this off in short order. Zamperini was something else!



Please excuse the errors. In the end, the details are essentially correct. Hope you enjoy a little blast from the past.
The other day, on my 75th birthday, I was going through a box of memories and got caught up in thinking about the past. In one box I found an original Mt. SAC Relays program from 1959, the first year of that now world renown multi-day competition. It was my senior year at Excelsior High School and our team was entered in the 2Mile Relay, an event we had won at the old Santa Ana Relays (8:10) and then at the Bellflower National Record Relays (8:07). The field was loaded with a host of nationally ranked teams and I would be anchoring against Leroy Neal of Fullerton, Dale Story of Orange, Larry Canova of Bellflower and Mike Howard of Rancho Alamitos, 1:57 men or better. We had a pretty good team with the potential of hitting8:00 flat which would require an average of 2:00.0 per man. I had recently run 1:57.3 at the Compton Cup, Steve Bruhns, a Junior had chipped in a 2:01 at Bellflower and Chonito Perez had recently broken our school record in the mile with a 4:28. Don Pickering filled out our team as we braved a cold night under the lights at this brand new stadium.
Our coach rightly picked Bellflower HIgh School as our main competition due to the fact that Larry Canova has clocked 1:53.8 in anchoring his team to a new National High School Record in the Sprint Medley Relay. With Bellflower and Excelsior both in the newly formed San Gabrial Valley League, I was very well aquainted with Canova's talent. Dale Story of Orange was the national leader in the mile in 1959 and would set a new high school record of 4:11.0. Leroy Neal was a 4:20 miler who would go on to set National JC records at Fullerton JC before racing for Occidental College. Mike Howard, of Rancho Alamitos High School was that school's 880 record holder at 1:57.4.
To say that I would be running scared does not do justice to the butterflies in my stomach while I was warming up with double sweats on while eyeing those other anchors who I looked up to with great admiration.
At 8:15 on the night of April 24th, 1959 the starter's pistol sent these 6 teams off!
This was a great moment!

My coach at Excelsior High School, Jack Newman, the man who is responsible for setting the direction of my life, had a simple strategy for this 2 Mile Relay: start with our slowest runner with instructions to hang as close to the leaders as possible. The second man was our second fastest with the job of catching the leaders and putting us into the lead before passing the baton to our miler. His carry was to try and build on whatever lead he inherited so that the anchor, being yours truly, at least had a shot at holding off that pack of wolves who would be chasing this very scared rabbit. In essence, he stuck with the formula that had taken us to victory and a school record at both the Santa Ana Relays and Bellflower National Records Relay. Why mess with a winning formula? Fine, fine but it would take some inspired racing to win this one in the face of these super-star anchors.
This newly built stadium was like all stadiums of the time, with those tall stadium lights focused on the football field, leaving the long straight-away fully illuminated while casting a deep shadow around both turns at either end of the track. So it was that Don Pickering took a deep breath, lined up in lane 6 and immediately plunged into the darkness around the first turn. Today’s standard Olympic style start/finish line was non-existent back then, which meant rather than finishing at the end of a long straight, all races started and finished in the middle of the track. All six teams had to run in lanes for the first 400 yards before breaking for the pole and with the 440 staggers it was hard to tell where we stood until each team came out of the turn and into the light.
I could see immediately that Don was running the race of his life. He broke for the pole in the middle of the pack and within a few strides of the leaders before descending into the shadows of that third turn. Meanwhile I was nervously pacing the sidelines, keeping my sweats on and staying warm for as long as possible, the tingling chills I was feeling more a result of nerves rather than the cold air. Along the back straight, I could see Don hanging in there just back of the leaders as they prepared to start their finishing kicks. Back in the shade of the final turn and finally emerging for the pass in a solid third place. Two weeks after hitting 2:04.4 at Bellflower, Don made his contribution with a life-time best of 2:03.8. DON PICKERING: 2:03.8 PR. Mission accomplished!
Next up was Steve Bruhns, a Junior who would medal in the CIF Championships later in the season at 660 yards. Steve wasted no time in cutting down the lead runners he chased into that first dark corner around the first turn. Mid-way along the far straight he was striding comfortably just off the shoulder of Bellflower’s # 2 man with both these guys separating from the pack. Steve paced his effort perfectly, drafting off the leader while waiting for the final 150 yards to kick into the lead and pull slightly away from Bellflower and the rest of the pack. Steve’s previous best was a fine 2:01.5 at Bellflower and no-one expected him to crack 2:00 as our youngest team member. Proving Coach Newman’s strategy as the right one, Steve blasted 1:59.8, put Chonito Perez into the lead, and dropped to the ground knowing he had done his part. STEVE BRUHNS: 1:59.8 PR-Mission accomplished.
Our miler, Chonito Perez, was a fierce competitor and though he never considered himself a middle-distance runner, he was not about to let the team down. His 2:03.7 PR from Bellflower Relays now came into focus as he ran in the lead while being chased by Bellflower, Orange and Fullerton. La Puente and Rancho Alamitos were now too far back to be considered a threat. As he ran his first 220, it was time to shed the warmth of my sweats, double check the laces of my Adidas spikes and finally look into the eyes of Larry Canova, Dale Story and Leroy Neal. Seeing the grim determination on their faces did little to settle my own nerves. The starter lined us up along the rail of the finish line, ready to place us in the exchange zone according to
to place us in the exchange zone according to each team’s position coming into the final exchange. Quite unexpectedly, through the first lap of his 3rd leg, Chonito didn’t give up any of the five yard lead he had inherited. Using the same efficient, choppy stride he was known for, he lengthened his lead down the back straight and made steady gains in the shadows of that final turn. The starter now lined us up shoulder to shoulder as I took the inside lane with a quick, final glance down the line at those three runners I had looked up to throughout my high school years. One last burst of effort and Chonito was holding out the baton, willing me to take it off his hands while hoping that he had done his part. At the exchange, it was hurrah for the miler and a nifty 2:02.6 carry that lengthened our lead to between 20 and 25 yards. CHONITO PEREZ: 2:02.6 PR-Mission accomplished.
So it all came down to this. My mates had all run their life-time bests, each one contributing to the lead I was handed and as I took the baton for the anchor. I had just a moment to see Bellflower 20 yards back, while Fullerton and Orange trailed by yet another 8-10 yards in 3rd and 4th. As I set off into the night, with a clear track in front of me, I could see Canova sliding over into lane one, waving his team mate to hurry with the stick so he could begin the chase. I had raced Canova early in the season and made a big mistake, choosing to follow his long striding lead no matter what happened in the final 220. I was truly overmatched on that one, struggling to hold onto 2nd place while he won going away over the final half lap. I didn’t want to repeat that mistake but at the same time I didn’t need eyes in the back of my head to know exactly what was going on behind me. That nice lead was being whittled down with each long stride from the flying Buccaneer. Running on pure nerves now I hit 56.2 for the first 440, eyes as big as tea-cups at that clear track in front of me. Most of today’s runners cannot appreciate the sound of long spikes digging into a freshly rolled track, giving fair warning to any leaders of an approaching chaser. Past the finish line and into the far turn and still no tell-tale sound of approaching spikes. Down the back straight and into that final darkened turn and the crowd came alive as the announcer reminded the crowd who was chasing the leader. All thoughts of hearing any chasing runners were now drowned out by the cheering spectators. Still, I had the lead! Out of the shadow and into the light for the final 55 yards to the finish line, I saw my Dad and my coach side by side on the railing. Dad’s face was obscured by the 8mm movie camera that was an extension of his right hand so he offered no clue. In contrast, my coach’s expression told me everything I needed to know. The first sign was a pair of elbows reaching into that open space that I had cherished for the past 800 yards. That clear air had belonged to me and was now being possessed by Larry Canova. At 6’-1” his long strides carried him to victory as I could only hope that Story and Neal would not follow in his wake. Across the finish line, holding onto 2nd place with a PR of my own left little room for any disappointment. Glancing over my shoulder I witnessed Story and Neal leaning for the finish line in a dead heat for 3rd place, one second back. My 1: 56.2 anchor took a full second off my previous best while our team’s 8:02.3 was a whopping five seconds off our newly minted school record from Bellflower Relays. DARRYL TAYLOR: 1:56.2 PR-Mission ?????? well partly accomplished.
These first four teams, Bellflower at 8:01.5, Excelsior 8:02.3, Orange & Fullerton 8:03.5 would all rank among the top 10 nationally in the 1959 season. Canova and I would both follow his coach to Cerritos College where at one point, we tied for a new school record at 1:54.5 and the national lead early in the season. Larry would lower that shared record to 1:54.0 while I returned a year later to recapture the record at 1:53.4, placing 6th in the Southern California JC Finals behind, you guessed it, Leroy Neal of Fullerton College. Dale Story, as mentioned, would go on to the National High School Record of 4:11.0 before heading for Oregon State where he won the NCAA Cross-Country Championships while running barefooted on an icy championship course in the mid-west.
All of these memories coming from a single old Mt. SAC RELAYS program 50 + years ago.

Darryl Martin Taylor's photo.

What I like best about this photo is that on the back, in red ink, was a note to us from Coach Newman. It read as follows:


"Haircuts needed by all four of you guys. Just starting to grow out again, and we expect a long hot summer ahead."




Don't ya just love Coach's attention to detail. I really miss getting together with him but so glad we could while we had the opportunity!


Darryl,
You pass my hair cut inspection.      

Check out the first entry we ever did on the blog   Dave Kamanski from Belleflower HS who is seen in that picture above shaking your hand is mentioned in the last 4 paragraphs.  Clickon his name below.   George
Kamanski



V 6 N. 16 More Conversations with Darryl Taylor Part Two

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Darryl,
You pass my hair cut inspection.      

Check out the first entry we ever did on the blog   Dave Kamanski from Bellflower HS  is pictured (previous post) shaking your hand.  My colleague Roy Mason was at Bellflower and knew Dave.  In our first ever blog posting six years ago Dave got the following ink.


Roy wrote:
 Paul David Kamanski , I’ll take a moment to explain his significance, both to the sport and to the state of Ohio. Dave was the coach at Bellflower High 15 years before I was. It was he who told me where the old copies of T&FNews were stored in an attic storeroom above the coaches’ office. He coached my lifelong friend, Buddy Cox. When I coached at Bellflower, Dave was just down the road at Cerritos College where he coached track and XC. Dave was a personable guy, a man’s man, a guy who always had time to talk. When Cerritos was installing a new all weather track, Dave asked if he could bring his new transfer sprinter over to work out on our track. It was Houston McTear who had burned a few bridges behind him. The guy didn’t last long at Cerritos which I think was his last stop. Something about attending classes. 


Not that class attendance was a major obstacle for Dave. Eric Tweit and I had a kid who had super potential on the track, but not in the classroom. He had run 52.0 without training, but dropped out to take a $3/hr. janitorial job his senior year. Dave got him enrolled at Cerritos and assured me grades would not be a problem, “He’ll be taking 10 credits of Kamanski” – volleyball, wrestling, handball, principles of officiating. The kid enrolled each spring and ran 51+ for the intermediates and 47.0 on a relay leg. 

Here is the Ohio connection.  (Note: George is from Ohio but not a Buckeye fan.)   Dave was best known for being one of the top referees in D-1 football. It was common to see him doing PAC-10 games most weekends. He was also the referee for four Rose Bowl games. (One of our rituals was asking him what time it was. “Well, let me check.” Elaborate extension of his arm. “I see by MY ROSE BOWL WATCH that it is 4:25.”) 

Dave was the referee for the 1980 Rose Bowl in which Charles White leaped into the end zone to score the winning touchdown on fourth down with less than a minute to play, giving SC a 17-16 win over the Buckeyes and plunging the state of Ohio into mourning. Unfortunately the cover of the following week’s SI showed White crossing the goal line without the ball. Oops! When asked about this, Dave had a stock answer, “The camera lied”.

George
Thanks for the interesting bit of history on Kamanski. We had a special relationship with him. Can't recall how many years ago this was, but sitting in the stands at Cerritos College while watching the Master's CIF Championship meet, I spotted Ty Hadley sitting a couple rows below me. I knew he had done some coaching at LBSC in the early '60s so I went down and sat with him for a while. During the conversation, he related that Dave had recently been diagnosed with stomach cancer and would not be around too much longer.  I quickly gathered the team that won the Southern California JC Championship Cross-Country title of 1960 and we were able to visit him at his home in Tustin. He still had his sense of humor, telling Larry Canova (Bellflower High School 1959) he needed to get his hair cut! Our little group had lunch together, talked about old times and the impact Dave had on our lives, running and otherwise. It was only a few days later that Dave passed away. He was seldom seen without his beloved cigar and I fear that had some effect on his health. Dave was a graduate of Occidental College and while at Cerritos he went out of his way to take me with him to Oxy's awards banquet 1960 or 1961. In the end Long Beach State was a better fit for me and choosing to be a 49er remains one of the best decisions in my life.  Darryl


Darryl,
The DVD is copied.   On it you will also get a nice bonus of archive films from the U. of Kansas  pre Jim Ryun days showing  Wes Santee winning the Big 7 cross country meet about 1955, also Big 7 Indoor races and field events.  Some rare footage of Wilt Chamberlain high jumping indoors and oudoors and triple jumping out doors.  How he got a release from the basketball coach to jump at the conference meet is anyone's guess.  Might have had a Saturday afternoon game, so he could have had time to get to Kansas City where the Big 7 Indoor meet was held same day.  Also on this is Cliff Cushman,  Al Oerter, Parry O'Brien all at Kansas Relays.   Film quality is a bit lacking, but still good enough to appreciate those days.  George


Darryl,
Good memories.  Did you write all this from your head, and a little reference to your training log?
I knew all the guys at Dayton Roosevelt who were the first team under 8:00 in 1962.  Warren Hand, Alan Payne, Charley Reed, and Lee Calhoun.   Warren won the state in XC his junior year.  Alan ran 1:56 not sure if he went to college.   Lee and Charley came to Oklahoma when I was there.   Lee won the Big 8 indoors at 600 yards as a soph. and triple jumped.  He could win the 880 and TJ in dual meets.  Charley was a journeyman 880 and mile relay guy.   Lee drifted around for a couple of years after college then  became a preacher, ended up with T.D. Jakes' mega church in Dallas.  He died about three years ago.  His little  brother Billy also came to Oklahoma on a partial scholarship as a half miler.  He moved down to the 440 won two NCAA indoor titles at that distance.  By then he had a full ride.   He never ran the NCAA outdoors, because he had to go home to Dayton to work the summers at a GM plant to support his wife and kids.  I see him every once in awhile when I go home.  Charley worked many years at GM and is now reitred.   I think Alan also worked most of his life at GM.   A lot of people will enjoy your stories.

Forgot to mention,  I remember seeing you run in some of the big indoor meets on TV  with that blond hair.
At first I thought ,  "Is Rainer Stenius running the 880?" Then heard your name.   When I was in high school in the late 50s early 60s in Ohio we had some good chargers in the 880 too.   Barry Sugden from Akron  Beuchtel and Darnell Mitchell  and Choice Phillips  from Cleveland John Adams .  Mel Brodt coached at John Adams and went on to Bowling Green to coach Sid Sink and Dave Wottle.  Sugden was a child from the Firestone family tire merchants.  He could have been a legacy entry into Harvard, but chose to run for Stan Huntsman at Ohio U with Mitchell and Elmore Banton. Good decision.    Breaking 2:00 in those days meant something, usually a full ride somewhere if your grades were half decent.   Not any more.  George



Thanks a million-the DVD I'm copying right now contains the 1935 CIF Southern Section Finals, I believe held at the Coliseum in LA. That would be the one with Zampirini winning the mile in his National Record that lasted until Max Truex took it down in the 1950s.  Zamperini's CIF record lasted until Dale Story ran 4:16.9 in 1959, leading up to his big race with Archie San Romani JR. at the Compton Invitational, Archie getting the best of Dale 4:08.9 to 4:11.2.  That race being contested in the Open division against College and Club athletes robbed both of a National HS record. Evidentially Dale ran another 4:11.0 for the record in some other competition. 
Here are a couple of interesting photos from my archives you might enjoy from the long, long ago!





George,
I do have notes from every year I competed, beginning in 1955 as a XC runner at Excelsior HS. Some detailed and some just what a work-out consisted of. This particular race I had references to from the program, photos, my work-out journal and that 8mm B&W film that my Dad took, probably lasting a full 20-30 seconds. So, a combination of all those plus my recollection of the biggest race of my HS career.  Made it to league finals, won my quarter-final heat for CIF Finals, made it to CIF Finals but nothing could quite match the electricity of that cold night. As I began putting down memories, more and more details came back to me. I see Larry Canova a time or two each month so he added some of his perspective. All fun! I also received a brief note from Steve Bruhns and Don Pickering saying they enjoyed the trip back in time but I'm still waiting to get them to tell me what they remember of that night, just to complete the story for myself.
I have other writings from some of my races and work-outs over the years but to be honest, pushing my stories onto your blog just seems like bragging a bit. I have little to brag about and much to be thankful for in terms of the great team mates and opposition competitors I was privileged to share the track with. When placed side by side with the truly great athletes of the 1950s and 1960s I just don't measure up to their standards.
That being said, I will continue to share some of what I remember and wrote about in the past. You guys are to be applauded for making this forum available to runners of all levels of ability and accomplishment. I SALUTE you for that!
Darryl

I wonder what meet you might have seen that I ran in. I can only recall one local indoor meet that my parents were able to watch at home. My Dad set up his 8mm camera and recorded the race off the TV.  Also, the Albuquerque meet was scheduled to be broadcast on year but just before the 2MR started, there was a "Breaking News" interruption announcing that President Johnson had been sent to the hospital with some ailment. When the broadcast came back on, we had already finished.
You are making me think that I might find some film footage at LA 84 Foundation. I will check that out for sure. My two sons would love to see their Dad run an indoor race. And now my grandkids would enjoy that also.
Thanks for the tip.
Also, Darnell Mitchell and I were room-mates for the Pacific Coast Club on a trip to compete in the Saskatoon Saskatchewan Indoor games in '68 or '69.  We also ran in a 1000 at one of the LA indoor meets, Darnell was running for the Army and I for the PCC.  He won as I chased him around the track for 2nd place. I'll have to see if I can find a photo from that meet. John Bork was also in that race as was Dave Kemp and Mike Eck from Cal State Fullerton.  Think I ran 2:11

Start of L.A. Invitational 1000
Mike Eck,  John Bork,   ?   , Darryl Taylor,  Dave Kemp,  ?  Darnell Mitchell





With a lap to go I was still with him. Seems like I was always chasing those legitimate 1:47 guys!




V 6 N. 16 March , 1966

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MARCH 1966

Vancouver, BC
    February 19 finds us in Vancouver, BC for the Achilles meet (sponsored by the Achilles International Athletics Society). The big news, Parry O'Brien's lifetime best 64-0 shot put at age 34, was reported in last month's issue. The two time Olympic gold medalist was pushed by Neil Steinhauer who threw 63-3 ½. 
Parry O'Brien Video    Helsinki to Rome (interviewed by Caitlin Jenner)



Burleson being interviewed by Bob Richards.
One of our readers points out that yesterday, Feb. 20, 2016 was
Bob Richards' 90th birthday.

Dyrol Burleson wins the mile against minimal opposition in 4:04.7. Jerry Lindgren is finding the indoor season more challenging than last year. He decides to change tactics in the two mile. Tired of being the guy who sets the pace, he goes out slow (no splits given) and attempts to finish strong. Not a good plan, Gerry. Hungary's Lajos Mecser handles him easily, 8:43.0 to 8:49.4.

San Francisco
    Six days later we are in San Francisco's venerable Cow Palace for the Golden Gate Invitational. Ron Clarke may not be the Energizer Bunny, but this evening he gives a pretty good impression.
His objective is Jim Beatty's indoor two mile record of 8:30.8. At the halfway point his 4:13.8 puts him only three tenths behind Beatty's pace. Once that announcement has been made, the crowd of 9300 comes alive. With the announcement of each succeeding quarter mile time, the roar increases. With a quarter mile to go, the great Australian needs a 63 second finish. He does that with ease, coming home in 61.1 to take Beatty's mark by two full seconds in 8:28.8. Let's see, this is Clarke's – give us a minute to count them all - 16th world record.

    As much as this race was Clarke against the clock, there was some serious competition as well. Tracy Smith, a model of consistency last month with three clockings between 8:43 and 8:42, runs the race of his life to finish in 8:32.4, the fourth fastest indoor two mile ever. Gerry Lindgren, who later complained that school work is interfering with his training, is a well beaten 8:48.2.

    Other highlights include Jim Grelle's 4:00.3 mile and San Jose State's Joe Neff's 880 upset of Bob Hose, Archie San Romani and Cary Weisiger in what was obviously a tactical race. Neff's 1:56.4 gives him a three tenths margin over the three. Gayle Hopkins thumps Olympic champ Ralph Boston in the long jump 25-10 ¼ to 24-11 ½ and Art Walker holds off Mahoney Samuels in the triple jump 52-5 ¾ to 52-0 for the best field event marks. John Pennel wins the pole vault at 16-5.
Art Walker


Art Walker in Action  See Walker's style in this clip.

    A couple USC kids give notice of good things to come. Earl McCullough takes the 60 yard highs in 7.2 while teammate Lennox Miller wins the 60 by a remarkable three tenths in 6.0.
Earl McCullough
Lennox Miller

Toronto, Ontario
    On the same day before 13,685 fans in Toronto's Maple Leaf Games, Pennel's roommate, Bob Seagren, vaults a lifetime best of 16-7. A narrow miss at 17-0 portends things to come.
Bob Seagren

   Kansas City , MO
 The following day, Feb. 26, sees the finals of the Big Eight Indoor Championship. Kansas, lead by John Lawson's mile – two mile double, wins 41-37 over Nebraska. In this unenlightened time freshmen are not permitted to compete on the varsity level, therefore Jim Ryun, an Olympic competitor as a high schooler, is relegated to running a “special freshman mile'. The fact that the Kansas City track is a painfully tight 12 laps to the mile (146+ yards) doesn't seem to bother Ryun. He clips off a 3:59.6, the third fastest ever, behind only Tom O'Hara (3:56.4) and Jim Beatty (3:58.6), and the best for a 12 lap to the mile track.
Our friend Bill Blewett was a freshman at Oklahoma and wrote several years ago about that race.   
In the freshman mile of the 1966 Big-8 indoor meet (added to the program just for Ryun), he ran 3:59 on the little 12-lap Kansas City track, and the first two runners he lapped were Pete Carney and me. That distinction was reported in 
the Daily Oklahoman as well (When Pete saw the paper he shouted: "Why did they have to print that?"). But Ryun also inspired me. As a freshman I set my goal was to run sub-4:00, and I actually believed I could. My best mile at OU was a 4:07.8 relay split at Texas Relays my senior year. Three years later, in 1972, I ran 4:02.1 in the Meet of Champions in Houston. I competed seriously through 1976 but never bettered that mark. Today I joke that not breaking 4:00 was the great failure of my life. In reality, trying to break it -- running track at OU -- led to the successes of my life.
Bill Blewett can be seen on the pole after completing the
first lap at the Big 8 outdoor meet a few years later. Kind of
a tight bunch.


Baltimore, MD
    On the same date in Baltimore, buddies Seagren and Pennel have a mutually bad night, vaulting only 15-6 to tie for fourth, a foot below Russian Gennadiy Bliznyetsov. Over half the crowd of 9,000 wait until 1:20 the next morning to see if Bliznyetsov clears a WR 16-11. Willie Davenport has been undefeated in the hurdles this indoor season. The streak ends this evening as “quick-legged” Richmond Flowers beats him by a tenth in 6.9, becoming only the second man to break 7.0 behind Hayes Jones' 6.8.

Albequerque, NM
    The following weekend, March 4-5, the track and field focus is on Albuquerque where the AAU championships are held at an elevation of 5100 feet. Jumpers take the limelight, as Bob Seagren becomes the first indoor 17 foot vaulter with his world record 17-0¾ clearance. Art Walker displays his unworldly triple jump talents by adding 13 inches to his own WR with a leap of 54-9½ . When it becomes time to vote for the outstanding performer award, Walker isn't considered, as the triple jump isn't listed as an official event, only an invitational one. Your reporter, for one is incensed and ready to start a movement to have this injustice corrected. As of this writing, Art is still alive. At least a co-most valuable performer award should be designed and presented to him half century after this obvious wrongdoing. Look for the forward thinking solution Once Upon A Time in the Vest proposes at the end of this article.

  Another highlight of the meet is the 2 mile relay, where a hastily assembled crew representing the 49er Track Club goes at it.   The team is made up of Dave Kemp Marines and L.A. State, Darryl Taylor formerly with Long Beach St., Dave Mellady, Marquette, University of Chicago TC, and Marines, and recently graduated Oklahoma State standout Dave Perry.  They ran in that order and layed down splits of  1:51.7, 1:51.8, 1:53.9, and 1:49.9 or 1:50.0 depending on whose watch you're looking at finishing in 7:27.  4 just off the WR.   More about this race will be discussed by that quartet in our next posting.
Perry, Mellady, Taylor, Kemp after that
2 mile relay win

    Remember when you were a sophomore in high school? The world was a confusing place and life moved at an incomprehensible speed. Apparently this is not the case for Bill Gaines, a tenth grader from Mullica Hills, New Jersey. The “sizzling sophomore prep”, running only his third indoor race with spikes, equals the 60 yard world record of 5.9 in his heat and wins the final in 6.0.


    Freshmen Willie Davenport and Richmond Flowers have a couple interesting match ups. Willie bests Richmond, 6.9 to 7.1, in the hurdles, but the positions are reversed in the 60 as Flowers is second behind Gaines in 6.0 with Davenport fourth in 6.1.

    Though John McGrath tops Dave Maggard 64-3 ½ to 63-0 ¾ in the shot, the significant story is that of the last place finisher, Parry O'Brien, who fails to make the finals after two fouls and a 56-8. The two time Olympic champion, whose career has been a model of consistency, has now experienced his lifetime best throw (64-0 on Feb. 19) and undoubtedly his only last place finish in a period of two weeks.

Detroit, MI
    A week passes and we are in Detroit for the NCAA championship, the second time it has been held in Cobo Arena. Kansas tops USC for the title 14-13, but it is 19 year old Martin McGrady of Central State whom the fans are talking about as they leave. McGrady set the 600 world record of 1:09.0 last month on Louisville's generous eight lap to the mile track, but today he is up against a strong field on an 11 lap to the mile track. McGrady leads through a 49.8 quarter and holds on to edge Iowa State's Steve Carson and St. John's Olympian, Tom Farrell, in 1:09.4. He returns to run the fastest relay leg of the meet, 46.9, but comes up three tenths of a second short of catching Morgan State in the mile relay.

    How can Jerry Lindgren winning the two mile be an upset? Here's how. Lindgren has raced this distance six times this season and won only once. In several races he has been badly beaten. On the other hand, Kansas' John Lawson, the reigning NCAA cross country champion, has lost only once. Lindgren shows no timidity, taking the lead early and sprinting away from Lawson on the final lap to win, 8:41.4 to 8:43.2.

Martin McGrady
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Martin McGrady (born April 20, 1946 in AkronOhio – died April 29, 2006)[1] was an American track and field athlete known primarily for running the now obsolete indoor 600 yard dash. Before Eamonn Coghlan, McGrady held the title of "Chairman of the Boards."[2] Sports Illustrated said "Martin McGrady doesn't run the 600, he owns it."[3] Running standard Olympic distances, McGrady "barely earned a footnote" but at the Imperial distance indoors, he was legendary.[4] The race at the 1970 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships where he set the World Record of 1:07.6 in the event is regarded as the best indoor race and the number 7 track and field competition of the 20th Century.[5] McGrady's record stood for 22 years until it was finally beaten by Mark Everett.[6]
By running the odd distance, McGrady did not face softer competition. Reigning Olympic Champions/World Record holders Ralph Doubell (800 m) and Lee Evans (400 m) wanted the good race against McGrady.[7][8] The racing rivalry between Evans and McGrady is still remembered. They are pictured at the finish of a 600 on the cover of the March 1968 issue of Track and Field News, of course with McGrady taking the victory over a leaning Evans and Jim Kemp.[9] McGrady won three straight National championships[10] and had three straight victories at the prestigious Millrose Games.
McGrady attended Garfield High School in Akron and studied Medical Technology at Central State University, where he was coached by David Youngblade. He set the first of three world records in the 600 while at Central State, just a week before winning the 1966 NCAA Men's Indoor Track and Field Championships. He also tied the world record in the 500 metres.
On October 8, 2010, Youngblade had the honor to induct McGrady into the Central State University Hall of Fame.[11]

Cleveland, OH
March 18 finds us still in the rust belt, specifically Cleveland, for the Knights of Columbus meet, where Bob Seagren ups his new PV record by half an inch to 17-0¾. Half an inch may not seem like much but it is significant in that it matches the best mark (outdoors) by his roommate, John Pennel. No more exclusive laundromat duty for Bob. John will now have to take his turn. Only Fred Hansen's 17-1, 17-2 and 17-4 outdoor clearances are better than the roommates'.

Australia
    Not all the news is indoor nor in the US. Jim Grelle travels to Australia to take a shot at Fred Dwyer's 5:10 American record at 2000 meters. With help from Laurie Toogood and the always available Ron Clarke, he succeeds in 5:07.4.

    Earlier Clarke established an Australian record at 5000 when he clocked 13:28.8. Your reporter can already hear readers cries of outrage. Yes, Ron has run faster than this twice. How can this be the Australian record? Calm yourselves and pay close attention. In order for a mark to be an Australian record......it must be made on Australian soil. Now don't you feel funny objecting?

    A note in the On Your Marks column gives insight into what makes a champion. Cliff Cushman, the 400 intermediate hurdles silver medalist from the 1960 Rome Olympics has gained a bit of weight. He weighed 149 in 1960, recently ballooned to 192 and is now at 178. Though not able to compete because of his enlistment in the Air Force, Cushman recently measured a marathon course and ran it in 2:57. When at Kansas he ran a 9:09 two mile, so his plan to compete as a miler when he finishes his tour of duty as a pilot in Viet Nam, is not out of the question.

North Hollywood,  New York City, Lansing, Toronto
    It has been awhile since we reported on whether the Adidas ad featuring Cliff Severn Sporting Goods, 10636 Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood still decorates the last page of the magazine. Let's check. Yep, some things never change. The shoe being advertised is the Tokyo 64, “The world's lightest track shoe with DETACHABLE spikes, of course”. They can also be purchased at Carlsen Import Shoe Co. in New York City, Van Dervooort's Hardware in Lansing, Michigan and Adidas Sporting Goods Ltd. in Toronto.

    And now to the Art Walker problem. Fifty years have passed, but it is never too late to right a wrong. The first thought our staff came up with is to arouse the citizenry and storm the castle (AAU offices) with torches and pitchforks. Though this plan has obvious merit, we have decided to hold it in reserve. Instead we have determined to let the hearts and minds of our fellow track enthusiasts bring us together in a peaceful solution.

    Here's the plan. As so many of you know, we gather every Friday at the Dew Drop Inn for spirited discussions of T&F. Starting this week, Mabel will place a large pickle jar at the end of the bar for donations to the “Art Walker, Outstanding Performer 1966 AAU Indoor Track and Field Championships, March 4-5, Albuquerque, New Mexico Triple Jump World Record 54 feet 9½ inches” plaque. When we have gathered the required amount, we will have the plaque made and present it to Art. We know you feel as strongly about this as we do. Come early, drink heartily and open your hearts and wallets. Meeting time is 5:00 except on the third Friday of the month when Dewey gets his Wal-Mart greeter check. He can't get there 'til 5:30. As he always buys, we start a bit later on those evenings.

Seriously folks,  if any of you know the current whereabouts of Mr. Art Walker, former world record holder indoors in the Triple Jump, we would love  to have that information.  We would like to give him the recognition he deserves for that WR in Albequerque 50 years ago.  You can notify us at   irathermediate@gmail.com.


Steve, Roy, and George

V 6 N. 17 Interesting comparison on athletes today and those of the past, also Jim Ryun WR 880 indoors

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Couple of interesting clips for you.  The first is a  recent TED talk by David Epstein who wrote "The Sports Gene".   He is an incredibly effective speaker as well as writer.

In this talk he compares super athletes of the present with the best of the past.  Are the present day athletes really that much better or has technology made the difference?  He argues that athletes in the past 75 years or so have self selected or been selected into sports by their body types   and their rather abnormal limb and arm lengths into areas where those body types will give them the maximum advantage to compete in a given sport.  In the distant past, Epstein points out that high jumpers and shot putter were the same body types.  No more.  The the running surfaces and other tech advances like starting blocks have also given them some extra leverage.  In cycling , the improvements in performance seem to be related more to aerodynamics and materials development than any other reason.

David Epstein TED Talk


Now for the other piece of this post,  In 1967    Jim Ryun running in a dual meet on his home indoor track, Fog Allen Fieldhouse, in Lawrence, Kansas set a world record in the 880 yards race in 1:48.3. It's probably Ryun's least remembered WR.   We found a film of this race in the KU archives.  Only problem is the film has been placed backwards in the re-recording device, so the runners appear to be going in the wrong direction and seem to be wearing their uniforms inside out.   The meet was between Kansas and Oklahoma State.  The runner chasing  Ryun is James Metcalf a member of Oklahoma State's world record setting 2 mile relay team.  Metcalf upon seeing the film this week commented that he (Metcalf) had run earlier that night in a 600 yards and finished second to Lowell Paul, a 1:46 half miler from KU.   A pretty tough double assignment that evening for Metcalf.  James also mentioned that before the race, Ryun told him it was gonna be fast.  Can anyone think of a world record being set in a dual meet besides this one?   Jesse Owens got his three in one meet but it was the Big Ten meet.

George,

What's amazing is that Ryun's teammates didn't mob him over a new WR. Guess they were used to it.

He is just walking around and the only one who even talks to him is McCubbins.

John

Will Shakespeare had some thoughts on this:  Macbeth  Act 5 Scene 5

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Ryun 880 WR indoors

Here's a reference to that  race in Great Moments in Allen Fieldhouse History

V 6 N. 19 Still More Conversations with Darryl Taylor Part Three

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This series of emails between Darryl, David Perry, and Dave Kemp center around the 1966 AAU indoor 2 mile relay championship race in Albequerque.   Darryl , David Perry, Dave Kemp, and Dave Mellady competed for the 49er Track Club in this event.

Hello Roy and George-Love all these great articles from what would be the final hurrah for this old 49er!  The 1966 and 1967 Indoor season saw some of the US's top middle distance runners heading West and joining the newly formed "49er Track Club".  I was most fortunate to participate is a series of indoor 2-Mile Relay events with these super-stars while getting my feet wet as a high school English Teacher and Track/X-C coach. I was reluctant to give up what gave me the most profound feeling of achievement and as a result I was able to contribute to some great team victories.
In 1966 we put together a mixed bag of runners for the National AAU Indoor Championships being held in Albuquerque New Mexico's 5000 ft. elevation. 
Dave Kemp-former Marine runner and LA State runner
Dave Mellady-former Marquette, Chicago Track Club and US Marine
Dave Perry-fomer Oklahoma State standout and brother of John Perry
Darryl Taylor-Long Beach State
At some point in our careers, all of us had run under 1:50 outdoors with Dave Perry easily to top talent on our team. Dave came West for this meet after signing with the 49ers so this was his first race on our team. Kemp, Mellady and I had competed against each other several times before teaming up with the 49ers to win the Los Angeles Times Indoor Games.  Splits were encouraging, especially if we could find a replacement for Jim Schultz who didn't break 2:00 on the lead off which put us in a hole right from the gun. Dave Kemp ran 1:56, I ran 1:54 and Mellady ran 1:54 to win the race (as I recall). Something around 7:45.  Mellady ran a 4:08 Mile in an all-comers meet so he was in racing shape while my training partners and I averaged 63.8 for 20x440 the following week. We all felt like we had three parts of the puzzle ready to go. February turned to March and on the 4th we flew to New Mexico where Tom Jennings introduced us to the 4th piece of the puzzle, Dave Perry. A good night's sleep, early arrival at Tingley Stadium Fairgrounds and a good warm-up in the converted Rodeo arena and we were ready to test out our newly minted relay team. With Schultz now at home, Dave Kemp put us on the right track as he blasted 1:51.7 right out of the blocks. I took the 2nd carry and ran 1:51.8 so everything was working perfectly. Dave Mellady, in a slightly off night ran 1:53.9 and gave the baton to Dave Perry. Whoa! That guy took off, never looked back and depending on whose splits you looked at ran either 1:49.9 or 1:50.1. Winning time was a close shave at the world indoor record for an indoor 2 Mile relay at 7:27.4. 
At the banquet, when they announced the winners of our event they simply said that the winning relay team consisted of "Three Daves and a Darryl". We cracked up at that!
Here are a couple of photos of that night, for me a very meaningful race for the National Championship.



     Dave Perry      Dave Mellady       Darryl Taylor       Dave Kemp
Three Daves and a Darryl at Awards Banquet  
Recent Stanford Graduate and new recruit Harry McCalla at lower Right

From DAVE KEMP:
Oh, what a night that was!  I'll go a little farther back in time, to the West Coast Relays at Fresno.  I remember running the 2 mile relay that night.  I ran leadoff leg for CalState-LA.  We were a "courtesy" entry into the big race that included USC and Ok.State.  If memory serves me right the Ok.St. team consisted of Tom VonRudden, Dave Perry, John Perry, and (this one I cannot remember)  Ed.  That fourth man was James Metcalf  The race was a great one for Cal-State LA, but Ok.St. and USC both broke the existing world record with Ok.St. getting the win on a great final 880 by Dave Perry.  As the race unfolded I could hear the announcer calling the race over the P.A.  What I remember most of all was him calling "Its the Cowboys and Trojans, Cowboys and Trojans"  over and over.  I thought to my self, "I'm in this race as well"  and was motivated to push hard.  I finished the first leg in first place with a 1:50.3 split.  Handed off to Sam Clayton who ran 1:50.4, then Dick Barton with 1:51.6.  Then, due to an injury to our normar #4 we had to use a 200 type guy who ended up running around 2:08.  Disappointing for us, but great for OSU and USC. 
The Race in Albuqurque was something else.  We got there a couple of days ahead of the race, but had only 3 runners.  Dave Mellady was back in Milwaukee attending to serious family business.  I recall calling him and he was out shoveling snow!  I said we really needed him for the race, so he was able to arrange a flt. to join us on the day of the race.   The race was tough, with each leg having the Lobo runners go out like rockets and getting big leads, with each of the 49'ers closing the gap to even at each handoff.  Dave Perry had such a great surge at the end of the final leg to eek out the win.  Afterward, I couldn't understand why I had such a headache and throwing up!  I was reminded we were about 7,000 ft elevation.  Then it all made sense.  The dinner afterward was a proud moment for all of us, but especially for Tom Jennings as he had put his heart and soul into the 49er Track Club.  This was such a great bunch of guys, and I just wish we could all have been together for a longer time.  Great Memories.  Great to see Dave Perry's comments.  No one was tougher than him.  -Dave Kemp

Darryl
This is really nice of you to send this on .   It's the kind of thing I hoped to see more of from readers,  so I really get a kick  when something like this arrives.  We'll get this on really soon.   
Someone recently sent me a DVD of the 64 Colesium Relays.  Think I saw your blond head in one of the races.  I can send you a copy if you don't have one.  George


 Darryl,

Dave Perry sent this to me.  I think it belongs on your desk as well.


Hi George,


Reading Darryl's letter brought back a memory of that night.  1966 was the

year after my senior year at Oklahoma State.  Coach Higgins had lined me

up to run a series of indoor meets all over the country.  Canada, East & West

coast.  Just prior to the AAU in Albuquerque, I had won the 600 at the LA

Times Indoor Meet, and met briefly for the first time my future 2MR teammates. 

Tom Jennings put us together to run at the AAU Indoor Championship shortly
after I joined the 49er Track Club.
What Darryl didn't mention was the great team fielded by New Mexico University,
and we were running on their home turf.  On that team was John Baker, the person
a movie was based on who sadly died of cancer at an early age, and Clark Mitchell,
one of the greatest high school half-milers in California track history.  Let's just say it
wasn't a walk in the park.  They were definitely the favorite that night.  It took a
helluva time to win, and a tremendous effort by everyone on our team.
It was a very memorable night, and I was fortunate to share it with        some really
great guys.  A gung-ho enthusiastic bunch who loved the sport.
Amazing that Darryl has such a detailed memory of that night so long past. 
We didn't realize it at the time, but some of those brief flashes in time would
have a way of crystalizing in our memory.  There was nothing quite like some of those experiences.                                                                                               
Regards,
David (OSU '65)

From Roy after seeing this post

 The Jim Schultz mentioned maybe couldn't break 2:00(damn sure he could, but just maybe not at that time) but he sure kicked my ass when I was a 49er (name coming from the fact that the school "Bellflower" was founded in 1949).  He was a Bellflower runner.  So was his much younger brother whom I coached at BHS.  Great kid who ran 2:01 or so and was a XC stalwart.\


DAVE KEMP breaks for the pole behind (?)  NYAC (?)  University of New Mexico (?)

Great crowd in the stands,   did the recent NCAA indoor meet draw than many?


Darryl Taylor waits for the baton while Dave Mellady races New Mexico (?)


                                 David Perry Finishes Off With a 1:49.9 and a Team 7:27.4

                  Note the timer having a smoke trackside.  Not an unusual sight in those days.
Dave Perry    Dave Mellady    Darryl Taylor    Dave Kemp

Former Marines congratulate each other after winning National title.

V 6 N. 20 Ryun's 880 WR Outdoors and Glenn Cunningham clip

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This clip, also from the KU archives shows Jim Ryun's 880 WR set at Terre Haute, IN.   In the second clip Ryun explains that he ran a 1:51 prelim and three hours later ran the finals setting the WR.   Tom Von Ruden is the only other runner I recognize in the race.  It appears Ryun also ran and won the mile that weekend over Jim Grelle.  Great drive at the end of the 880. Maybe some of you see others you know.  Film quality leaves a bit to be desired.  The photographer got a bit carried away with a blonde female sprinter but c'est la vie.   John Lawson can also be seen in this piece in the 3 or 6 mile.  We'll certainly report more in depth on this meet when we get to July, 1966.

Jim Ryun USATFF Meet Terre Haute, IN 1966


Ryun Interview on the Terre Haute Race


Here is a 9 minute clip on Glenn Cunningham  obviously produced by someone at U. of Kansas.  Really great quality.  No sound.   Scenes on campus with other students, all of them look to be much older than today's undergrads.  Any lipreader who can enlighten us on their conversations?  This was probably taken before the 1936 Olympics as it is labled 'Glenn Cunningham, World's Greatest Miler'. Perhaps though Cunningham had already enrolled in graduate school as he went on to earn a doctorate.  In some scenes he is also wearing a vest lableled NYCE.   He did go to New York for post grad studies.    Film quality here is excellent.

Glenn Cunningham, World's Greatest Miler

I wonder how many other universities have good film archives covering track and field from the 1920s  onward.  Could be a lifetime search to find these.  Check out your alma mater's records and let us know if you find other good ones.

George , Roy, Steve


V 6 N. 21 John Disley RIP

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John Disley
John Disley  No. 4


Leading Gordon Pirie

John Disley, a  name not well known to our American readers but an icon on the other side of the Atlantic.   Disley was the bronze medalist behind Horace Ashenfelter in 1952 in the Steeplechase at Helsinki.  He was for many years instrumental in leadership in British track and field and the relatively new sport of Orienteering.  Disley and Chris Brasher were also instrumental in getting the London Marathon going.  Both men attended an early  NYC marathon and were so taken by the excitement of the event, they decided that London needed one too and went about organizing that great event.

John Disley, Obituary


Biography From: Welsh Athletics


During the 1950s Wales’ outstanding athlete was undoubtedly John Disley. Born in Corris on 20th November 1928 he became Britain’s first world-class steeplechaser when he set four British records at 2 miles and five at 3,000m.
In September of 1951 Disley broke his own British and Commonwealth record for the 3,000m steeplechase, clocking 9:11.6 in a meeting at the White City, London, the home at the time of British athletics. Among those he beat was future Olympic champion Chris Brasher who was back in fifth place. Disley’s preparations for the following year’s Olympic Games in Helsinki were obviously going well. At those Games Disley was Wales’ only representative and was in the form of his life. He won the second heat with a huge improvement on his record, becoming the first British athlete to beat nine minutes. The final was a disappointment for him though and was won by the inspired American Horace Ashenfelter with Disley, despite another big improvement on his record, just being pipped for second place to take bronze. His Olympic medal was only the second to be won by a Welshman in an individual track event after Tom Richards’ marathon silver in the 1948 London Games. Only Colin Jackson has achieved this feat since.  Later in the year he became the first Welshman to be voted British Athlete of the Year and also won the Welsh Sports Personality of the Year award in 1955 - Ken Jones was the first winner the previous year.
He went to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics as Britain’s number one, and despite running 8:44.6 he could only finish sixth in a race surprisingly won by his inspired friend Chris Brasher in a new British and Olympic record 8:41.2. Brasher went into the race as Britain’s third string, behind Disley and Eric Shirley. It was Brasher’s first win over Disley.
It was his misfortune and greatest regret that the steeplechase, held in 1930 and 1934, was not re-introduced into the Commonwealth Games programme until 1962 when his competitive days were over. In 1958 he was still good enough to be ranked second in the Commonwealth but was denied the opportunity of representing his country in this event. On home soil at Cardiff Arms Park, and in front of fanatical Welsh fans, he would surely have won the gold medal. Instead, as far as the Commonwealth Games were concerned, he had to be satisfied with competing in the one mile in Vancouver in 1954 (he finished fifth in his heat, but still bettered his own Welsh mile record by 1.2 seconds with 4:09.0) and the three miles in 1958 where he had to pull out with Achilles tendon problems.
The European Championships in 1950 (Brussels) and 1954 (Berne) were not happy occasions as he could only finish thirteenth and tenth respectively.
A schoolmaster, he ran for London Athletic Club throughout his career and, despite missing out on the chance of carrying the three feathers to victory in Cardiff, he gained 19 British vests between 1950 and 1957. Educated at Oswestry High School in Shropshire, he had never seen an athletics track until he went to Loughborough College as a student in 1946. Before that his running had been confined to annual cross-country runs and school sports.
Disley first appeared on the Welsh scene when he won the first of his four Welsh mile titles at the 1949 championships held at Abertillery Park in the undistinguished time of 4:32.0. But he went on to beat Jim Alford’s Welsh record set in the 1938 Sydney Empire (Commonwealth) Games, clocking 4:10.6 in 1953 and subsequently beat it on five further occasions to end with a best of 4:05.4 in June 1958. Strangely, he didn’t win a Welsh steeplechase title, but won three AAA steeplechase titles, including the 2 miles event in 1952, which was classed as a world’s best (9:44.0 secs). During his career, he set 18 Welsh records at 1,500m, mile, 3,000m, 3,000m and 2 miles steeplechase and 5,000m. His best position in the Welsh cross-country championships was second in 1955, in a race at Caerleon won by the late Lyn Bevan of Newport.
He was a member of the International Orienteering Federation (1972-78) and was a leading pioneer of the sport in Britain. He was awarded the CBE in 1979 for his work in outdoor education and was vice-chairman of the Sports Council (1974-82). His other claim to fame is that along with Brasher, he founded the London marathon in 1981, and today it remains as one of the great marathons of the world. He married UK record holder (220y 1949, and 100y 1951) Sylvia Cheeseman in 1958, who won three relay medals at major Games including a bronze in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.
He was one of the first five athletes inducted into the Welsh Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007 and is a vice-patron of Welsh Athletics, the governing body of the sport in Wales.
Mike Walters and Clive Williams

V 6 N. 22 " Diary of a Clapped Out Runner" by Rob Hadgraft

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   We discovered this blog recently and feel it would be a disservice not to give it due mention.  Great title:  "Diary of a Clapped Out Runner".   Yankee readers, this does not describe a social disease.  Rather it means 'worn out , rundown, ready for the wrecking yard' in our across the pond cousins' vernacular.  The title comes from the fact that  the creator Rob Hadgraft recently competed in his 1000th race and has also attended 1000 football matches.  One supposes his feet  will be preserved someday in a public museum not to mention other aspects of his anatomy.
Rob Hadgraft in Action
Diary of a Clapped Out Runner   click on this link to see Rob's work.

Mr. Hadgraft is  a prodigous author of 15 or is it 16 books on running and English football, of which I confess  near total ignorance.   His running subjects however are Alf Schubb, Walter George, and Arthur Newton, none of whom are household words in America, but their names do conjour up some long forgotten passages in books and postings we've made over the years.





Sydney Wooderson
It is  Rob's Hadgraft's current quest that I find intriguing.  He is researching the career of Sydney Wooderson the former English record and world recordman in the mile in the late 1930's.  I'm sure that some of you remember seeing pictures of Wooderson, rather meek in appearance going head to head with the greats of his day and often beating them.

Wooderson was able to crank out a WR 4:06.4 mile in 1937.  He also held the WR in the 880 and 800 meters, and ran his fastest mile at 4:04.2 losing to Arne Anderson in 1945.     The photos remind one of a Walter Mitty like character out of James Thurber's imagination.  Mr. Hadgraft describes Sydney as wearing his NHS  glasses.   NHS is the English "National Health Service" and the spectacles seem to be what all Englishmen were issued up to the time of the Beatles.  The difference however is Sydney Wooderson was real, and he was a tremendous competitor on the world scene.  His career lasted until the early 1950s as he moved off the track and competed on the national level for his club the Blackheath Harriers.  I love the reference to Blackheath athletes as the 'Heathens'.  Were I an Englishman I would join this club if they would have me.


Wooderson defeating Jack Lovelock
Two videos for your viewing pleasure

Wooderson defeating Lovelock  1935 AAA meeting.

Wooderson Training

To aid his research Rob Hadgraft has taken a unique path.  He is in his 60th year on the planet and has decided to look for sixty venues where Wooderson competed from his earliest days of running right to the end of his career.   Fortunately for Rob, many of those sites can be found in Southeast England.   He hopes to physically be present at those sixty sites within the year.  That should require a little more than one site per week starting last November.  You can scroll back to November on the blog to begin this odessey with Rob.  Everyone of his pieces is original work, cleverly and humoursly written.  In fact if you go back to the beginning of his blog in 2012, you will have a lot of reading to do.   Drifting through the entries last night I found one piece which will be referred to without doubt on this blog concerning an English lady who may well have been the world's first female marathoner in 1926, one Violet Piercy.  You will learn more about Violet  at a later date or if you cannot wait, go to  Rob's posting.  Violet Piercy.

V 6 N. 23 Has the Sport Found a Way to Present Itself?

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I must confess that with the World Indoor Championships last night in Portland, OR scheduled to begin,  I was less than  enthralled by the prospects of watching that event.  First it would only be seen on live streaming on NBCSN in the States and CBC and BBC computer links as well as others of which I'm not aware.  The meet was in competition with the opening rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament making it the red haired stepchild of sports programming.   Heck,  in Canada it was in competition with the Women's World Curling Championships.  You know who won that contest for live TV programming.   Can an American transplant on Vancouver Island even begin to comprehend that arrangement?  Certainly not.    Fortunately I met a track nut yesterday who informed me about the CBC live streaming of the event, and I tuned in at 6:15 last night.  

The venue,  the Portland Convention Center is somewhat smaller than I expected.  It's not a cavernous building like the Hoosier Dome where the World Championships were held years ago. But the upside was, less than sold out but  appreciative crowd got their money's worth on the opening night.

After a somewhat lackluster opening ceremonies with a few speeches from local dignitaries and Seb Coe,  none of which I had time to listen to,  the meet got underway.  Actually it wasn't a track meet in the traditional sense with two or three field events going on while prelims and finals in running races dominate the scene.  Instead the night was a two ring circus of women's and men's polevaulting being the only events contested. It was reminiscent of the Brit Pub Vault on the Roof in Minneapolis.   And the competitors put on a display of vaulting and showmanship that thrilled even the most jaded of spectators.
Jenn Suhr,  Class of the Women Pole Vaulters

Jenn Suhr proved once again in an understated way that she is the class of women's world polevaulting.  New faces and some older faces showed up and approached their personal bests, but no one appeared to have much chance against the world and Olympic champion.

The organizers and maybe even the IAAF deserve some credit for the way the event was presented.  The men and women vaulted at the same time on two parallel runways and pits.  They alternated attempts first women, then men, so there was almost constant jumping going on.  From a livestream viewer's point of reference, a competitor would vault, you'd get a replay from two or three different angles and then a competitor from the other gender would be ready to go.  There was a constant flow to the event.   Vault after vault after vault for three hours plus.  The women's event finished at least an hour before the men's event and Renaud Lavillenie had not even taken his first jump yet.     As dominant as Suhr is in the women's event, Lavillenie is in a completely different domain.  He is the single best representative for the sport of anyone in my memory, yet I doubt  he would  be in the 100 most recognizable athletes in the US.  In Europe, yes.  He would rank up there with the best known soccer players and Formula One drivers.   His presence last night made it a landmark viewing experience.   LaVillenie has the Gallic charm of a French movie star like Belmondo or Montand.  He shows a lot of emotion but in a calm controlled way.  He can focus all that energy into his event and put himself over the best the world has to offer.   He came in late in the event as everyone except Sam Kendricks was struggling near their limits.  He dumped a heap of psychological hurt on everyone by clearing 5.85 meters like it was a warmup jump.  Which it was, as he hadn't taken even a run through with the pole for two hours.  I may be in error on that, as the videographers did not show us any warmups.   Was this a poker game with the other competitors?  Very possibly, but it may just have been Lavillenie enjoying the moment.  He does not seem to be an arrogant person.  Last year at the Prefontaine meet I spoke to him, and he was very approachable, very personable.  He races motorcycles, he takes jumps off an icy, snow covered runway as seen on youtube this winter.  He runs the 4x100 relay for his track club in France.
Lavillenie,  What More Can He Do for the Sport?

  During the event last night he was charming everyone one around him including a beautiful Brazilian vaulter who sat with him much of the time.  After clearing his opening height he immediately passed the next two scheduled heights, thus putting enormous pressure on the remaining vaulters.  Kendricks was able to respond to his next height, but went out on the subsequent height thus handing the event to Lavillenie on a gold platter.   Lavillenie  won the event  with only two jumps.   He went on to clear 6.02 meters then had the bar set at 6.17 which would have  been a new WR.  He failed three attempts, but each one was a show in itself.     His second jump came close to disaster when he came down in the front of the pit on his back, his feet straddling the box.  He sat there for a few seconds, and then a broad grin turning to  a smile spread across his face.  Was he saying, "How glad I am to be alive and able to move all my limbs." or was he just epitomizing that sentiment that all the rest of us feel about polevaulters, that they are bat shit crazy?  Did he call it a night with the victory already in hand?  No, he went for it again when almost no one in the crowd would have faulted him for packing in his poles.   He bailed on that last jump, but still did a back flip on the mat thus ending the show.

During the evening ,  I never once thought about the doping scandals that cloud track and field these days.  The dopers as far as I'm concerned were on the sidelines last night.  These guys get their highs and rushes from their event.  No amount of performance enhancing drug is going to give them the acrobatic ability or courage to do what they do.  There is something beyond the strength and speed required in this event that only some psychological quirk can give an athlete to want to fly to and fall from such heights.

Final Thought:    Reigning World Outdoor Champion,  Shaunacy Barber the very young Canadian showed a lot of poise and fortitude while not having his best night.  He hung in, passed when he had two misses to go to a last ditch effort on the next height and just barely failed to clear.   However he does need to work on color coordination.  His green and yellow socks with his red, white and black  Canadian uniform turned the screen into a nauseating blur of bad dreams and psychodelic disharmony.

GB


V 6 N. 24 April, 1966

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APRIL 1966
    Has there ever been a relay powerhouse like Southern University? The relatively small Baton Rogue school doesn't receive the attention of neighboring Louisiana State in most sports but that changes when track season starts. The Jaguars open at the Texas Southern Relays March 18-19. The Texas Southern kids take the national lead in the 880 relay, running 1:23.2 in the prelims but the Jags take the final in 1:23.4. As long as they are there, they add the mile relay, two mile relay and the sprint medley to their win total.
    This is just a warm up for the Texas Relays in Austin on April 1-2 where Southern runs three races no more than three tenths of a second from the world records and establishes a collegiate record in another. They win the 440 in 39.9, two clicks off Stanford's record. The Jags run 1:22.9 in the 880 prelims, only three tenths off Abilene Christian's world record. The only bump in the road comes from those pesky Teas Southern guys who turn the tables on their Louisiana neighbors in the final as both teams clock 1:23.4. Undeterred, the Jaguars take the mile relay in 3:04.7, two tenths from Arizona State's record. The cherry on top of the sundae is a collegiate record in the sprint medley where their 3:16.5 is the second fastest ever behind the Santa Clara Youth Village's 3:15.5. Oh, and just to keep everybody involved, the Jaguars win the two mile relay in 7:27.2 to cap a couple pretty good days.
    Mention needs be made of Theron Lewis' and Robert Johnson's efforts for Southern this weekend. Lewis ran 440 splits of 45.3 and 45.6, an 1:50.1 880 leg and anchored the 880 relay in both the prelims and final. For all that he may not have been the best guy wearing a Southern uniform this weekend. Robert Johnson split 45.8 and 1:48.7 the first day and 46.0 and 1:47.0 the second.
    Santa Barbara's Easter Relays had quality performances at the other end of the running spectrum. UCLA's Bob Day and Geoff Pyne ran together for three miles of the 5000 meters before Day showed his significant mile speed to pull away from his New Zealand teammate to finish in 13:44.2 with Pyne at 13:47.4.
Brian Sternberg and Paul Wilson hold the collegiate pole vault record at 16-8, but if UCLA's Marc Savage has his way, they may not hold it for long. Savage vaults 16-7 ¼ to beat Wilson on misses.
    On April 9th in an all comers meet at Mt. SAC, roommates John Pennel and Bob Seagren welcome Sam Kirk into the exclusive 17 foot vault fraternity. All three clear 17-1 with Pennel winning on misses. The other member of the club is now retired world record holder Fred Hansen at 17-4. Pennel nearly takes that record with a near miss at 17-4¾.
    Another transcontinental jump finds us at the Pelican Relays in Baton Rouge that same day where Southern's 22 year old ex-paratrooper freshman, Willie Davenport, runs 13.2 to tie Martin Lauer's and Lee Calhoun's world record in the 120 high hurdles. Well, sorta, kinda, maybe. Track and Field News writes, “Some suspicion has been cast on the time in reference to its acceptability as a world record”.   Details are promised in the next issue. Davenport's teammates continue their relay dominance with 40.2, 3:06.0, 7:27.2 and 3:17.5 sprint medley wins. Their dual with Texas Southern doesn't go well. Southern hits the tape first in 1:22.9, three tenths ahead of TSU, but that sticky detail about passing in the zone eliminates both, making Arkansas A&M the winner at 1:26.0.
    In late and undated news, the possibility of a collegiate PV record by Marc Savage becomes a reality as he clears 16-9 in a dual meet at Stanford. Across the bay Tommie Smith runs a windy 9.2 and anchors San Jose State to a 39.9 relay win.
    Join us now as we skip through the statistical pages of this issue, picking out significant minutia. Tommie Smith may have some potential as a quarter miler. On April 2 he eases up before the finish yet is timed in 45.7, the third fastest ever quarter mile and 12th when 400 meter times are converted.
    Former Oregon runners are enjoying the early season.  So is Bob Day.   Dyrol Burleson has returned from Europe and has run a nation leading 3:57.5 mile. UCLA's Day is second at 3:58.4. Jim Grelle's rare attempt at two miles has resulted in an 8:34.0 leader. Day is second at 8:37.4. Day leads the 3mile/5000 at 13:20.2 and 13:44.0.
    Neil Steinhauer, a junior at Oregon, is now fourth on the all time shot put list behind only Randy Matson, Dallas Long and Bill Nieder with his 65-3½.
    The 400 intermediate hurdles are now an official collegiate dual meet event (except in the Big 8 which chose to go with the 300 meter variety) and Geoff Vanderstock of Mt. SAC has run 50.0m. How good is this? Only Russia's Vasiliy Anisimov ran faster last year at 49.5.
    Surprisingly there is a high school kid with the ninth best javelin throw in the country this season. Shreveport, Louisiana Woodlawn High's Terry Bradshaw has thrown 243-7 for the HS record, 32 feet better than any high schooler this year.
Terry Bradshaw would break actor Michael Landon's national record
We'll watch his development. Who knows what his future holds, maybe a world record, several national championships, a couple Olympic gold medals and a lengthy career as a high school track coach and PE teacher.  We'll keep an eye on him.

V 6 N. 25 Guest Article from Paul O'Shea: "How To Get The Most From A Track Meet: Come Early And Join The Eltringhams"

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How To Get The Most From A Track Meet: 
Come Early And Join The Eltringhams
By Paul O’Shea

Pausing at the top of the steps, looking down into the stadium, you’ll hear the hush, as if you had walked into the rear of a church.  It’s early on the first day of a major track and field championship when trials are on offer, and only dustings of fans are sprinkled among the seats.
This morning, though there are few observers, the intensity, the importance of the athletes’ assignments will be no less critical than if they had advanced to the next round or the one following.  You’ll watch middle distance contestants push just enough to advance. You’ll assess the young triple jumper who gives her all in a first international competition.  You’ll catch the discus thrower’s remorse at an effort just short of qualifying for the final.
Later, these early tests may provide admittance to the exclusive chambers of the event’s call room. They also introduce us to the devout core of the sport, the dedicated men and women who witness track and field competitions.
Our sports pages are stuffed with stories about the results, the athletes, the controversies. But what about the fans who watch those who run, jump and throw. What are their stories? How did they become passionate about this sport? Why do they clear their calendars months, sometimes several years in advance for the elite meets?
This is the narrative of one couple who define the term fan, buff, devotee, enthusiast, arguably “zealot.” They watch and record in a contemplative fashion, with the reserve and respect garnered from myriad competitions.
You won’t see track fans in team gear, unlike the raucous hordes populating high-revenue professional sports. Few bury their heads in the latest mobile devices, oblivious to the contest that first drew them to the arena.  Beverages lean toward Diet Coke rather than Bud Light.
Track fans have an affinity for paying close attention to matters at hand.  Most can juggle with aplomb a high jumper reaching for a PR, middle distance runners breaking for the curb, even Usain Bolt marching into the stadium with his supporting cast.
Perhaps you’ll be fortunate enough to sit with the Eltringhams, Tony and Sue, British-born American residents rich with memories amassed at high-end meetings. They’re armed with stories, leavened with wry humor.  You’ll have immeasurably enriched your own experience.
Sue and Tony Eltringham



The Eltringhams have been following track and field since the storybook names of the l960s. In an earlier day, their luggage would have had more badges than a Nascar driver’s tunic (See under Nick Symmonds).  Over the past decades they’ve attended the l972 Olympics and ten of the first 15 World Championships (together with their U.S. Trials). Among their souvenirs are memories of three British Commonwealth Games, a World Cup, a World Relays, and eleven Diamond and Golden League meetings.  Much of their foreign travel has come as they’ve joined Track and Field News tours. One forthcoming T&FN outing will be to the 2017 World Championships in London.
Like a couple preparing to file a joint tax return, getting ready for a track meet involves groundwork. The Eltringhams read the websites, sample the blogs. They gather year-to-date performances. They bring a clipboard and scoring sheets for the decathlon and heptathlon as well as sheets to help them chart the makes and misses in field events. They tote the essential Track and Field News’ Big Gold Book, a spiral-bound source of metric conversion and decathlon and heptathlon tables.  They carry well-seasoned seat cushions.  “We still have ours from the 1994 Commonwealth Games, superior to those you get at Hayward Field. The right selection of clothing is pretty easy, unless you’re going to the UK,” they offer dryly.
But what Tony and Sue present, and surrounding seatmates soon sense, is their history with the sport and their appreciation of its uniqueness and value.
Tony was born in Yorkshire, England and educated in the public schools’ system after winning a scholarship to the county high school. There he became involved in athletics, ultimately competing as a quarter-miler in the All-England Schools championship.  He matriculated at Cambridge University “to study Natural Sciences and obtain a Blue in the 440 yard hurdles, before I had even seen a hurdle in anger.”  As a freshman he was pressed into service in wintry conditions against historic rival Oxford on the Iffley Road track, transformed earlier into sacred ground by Roger Bannister, and ran first on the four by four relay. “Fortunately, Wendell Motley, who won silver in the l964 Olympic 400, was our anchor. We won the race in a record time that still stands today.
 “As a young man I kept scrapbooks for the l956 and l960 Olympics but didn’t see an international event until a meet at the White City stadium in l966 when I watched Tommie Smith beat my hero, Wendell, over 440 yards, setting a British all-comers record.  I had stayed with Wendell the previous night in his new London apartment, aware that he and his wife had been moving down from Cambridge all week and certainly had done no training.  He went on to win the Commonwealth title and then retired.”
           Looking back at his post-high school running, Tony says, “One fun aspect of UK Club athletics was the ability to mix with well-known stars, as we represented our clubs in relays and unfamiliar events.  John Cooper, Tokyo silver medalist in the 400-meter hurdles was my nemesis. Over two years no matter what lead Notts AC had over Birchfield Harriers at the end of three legs, I was destined to lose it by around the 220 yard mark, with a cinder spray on the front of my vest to prove he did it.”
Tony and Sue met in a Cambridge physics lecture in his first year and her second.  She had changed subjects from math, and he stipulates that her “half-blue scarf” attracted him.  They were married in 1970.
Following graduation Tony began his business career in Zambia with Anglo American, moved to the USA to eventually join Magma Copper in Tucson where he was director of research and development, adding director of smelting and refining to his responsibilities.  Over a 40-plus year career he worked on four continents and after retiring from BHP Billiton in 2009, continues to consult worldwide, working on operational problems throughout the mining industry, and teaching critical thinking as an additional service.
“Sue and I have resided in California for almost twenty years, though I lived in Australia, Texas and Chile up to 2009, travelling extensively. Sue stayed at our home in Walnut Creek.  Both of our daughters were born in Zambia, educated in the United States and graduated as chemical engineers.”
While working in Zambia Tony coached and competed for a local athletics club.
“Our elder child was due to be born in mid-August 1973,” Tony remembers.  “I had been coaching two Zambian athletes after work and agreed to run for the local athletics club in the 400 meters and relay.  One of the athletes was a 15-year old Olympian sprinter, and the other a sprinter-long jump specialist who went on to run a leg in the 1600-meter relay in Moscow in l980.”
The Zambian national championships were on the 25th of August, so despite Sue’s imminent delivery date, “I drove to Lusaka and competed on that day, winning the 400 meter hurdles and a national title, not having seen a hurdle in five years. The time was only three-tenths of a second slower than my previous best. Forty-five minutes later, I came third in the 400. Sandie, our daughter was born at 7 o’clock in the evening of the 31st.”
          “Tony was there for the birth, then tore off to the boat club to load boats for a regatta about fifty miles away,” Sue remembers.  “He rowed the next two days!
           While Tony has a life long passion for Athletics (the international designation for track and field), “the one thing I’ve learned is that the satisfaction gained from rowing in a crew cannot be equaled in any other sport in which I have competed.  The sense of togetherness cannot be matched in the sports I understand.”
            Sue endorses this sense of unity.  “When all eight of the crew are perfectly in sync, the boat lifts and ‘sings.’  This was told to me by all our early coaches but it took a while to experience.  In fact, over thirteen years of rowing it happened exactly three times, but it was a wonderful feeling.”
            It took Sue a bit more time to enter the athletic kingdom. She was she claims, “spectacularly unsuccessful on the sporting front” at Chelmsford County High School for Girls. It wasn’t until l963 that she was introduced to track and field when she and her Chelmsford mates thought they would be going to watch gymnastics but instead, looked on as America’s John Pennell just missed breaking the world pole vault record of 4.94 meters (16 feet, two-and-a-half inches) held by a Finn.  She proudly points to her own initiation to the sport, well before meeting her future husband, “actually before he saw an international event.”
           Born in Cheshire, England, she also went on to Cambridge where she studied Maths, then Natural Sciences.  Because incoming students were strongly encouraged to participate in a sport, she eventually chose rowing and found a lifetime endeavor.  Awarded Blues for rowing for Cambridge in four successive victories against Oxford, after graduating she was a member of the nation’s premier rowing club.
          Following university, where she received undergraduate and graduate degrees (as did Tony), her early adult years involved working as a metallurgist, while at the same time maintaining a deep interest in rowing. She competed through all the seasons the Eltringhams were in Zambia, even negotiating the “bump” associated with the birth of two girls.  She also taught Tony to row.  When the couple came to the United States she later became a tax preparer, and continues with the profession today, “as long as it doesn’t get in the way of track and field.”
As you’d expect they have their special memories. Of the hundreds of remarkable performances they’ve witnessed, when asked their favorite, Sue fondly recalls Mary Peters of Great Britain winning the pentathlon in the l972 Munich Olympic Games.  She defeated the favorite, Heide Rosendahl of the host country, by ten points, setting a world record. Peters was facing death threats because she was a Protestant from Belfast, and it was the time of violence in Northern Ireland.
Tony’s peak memory was Kip Keino’s steeplechase win at the same Games.  Not expected to make the final, and in only his fourth race at the distance, the Kenyan won in Olympic record time. Twenty-three other competitors had superior times going into the competition.  The Eltringhams’ favorite events are the multis—decathlon and heptathlon for Sue, while Tony’s include the 400 and its hurdle sibling, 800 and the four by four relay.
There were other performances to remember, including one with an unusual conclusion.
 “In 1971 we were at the East African championships in Lusaka,” Tony remembers.  “The meet had more delays than it could afford, including a pause while Sue and I, from the stands, had to make understood from the crowd that the men’s high hurdles had been incorrectly spaced, requiring a re-run and further delay.
“The last race of the day was the men’s 10,000 and sunset was fast approaching. In Zambia, at a latitude of 11 degrees south, the sun drops like a stone in the last fifteen minutes of daylight.  The meet organizers were forced to marshal vehicles at each end of the straight but it was barely enough lighting.
Worse was to follow when the lap counter lost count or flipped two lap cards at once.
“With two laps left the bell rang and most of the leading group took off in a last lap sprint, except Naftali Temu who apparently had the correct count (three years earlier he’d won the Olympic 10,000).  Almost everyone finished based on the bell.  Temu proceeded correctly to run the ‘extra’ lap and claim victory.  We left without any clarification on what had happened and nothing was mentioned in the local newspaper about the fiasco. Forty-five years later the official results still politely claim, ‘race void.’  
“Both Sue and I thought the l984 U.S Olympic trials were exceptional in that we were sitting surrounded by famous athletes so that our children could obtain autographs from medal winners from different decades.  We were three seats down from Bill and Mary Toomey. In 1994, forty years after their famous “Miracle Mile” encounter in the Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, we sat behind Roger Bannister and John Landy at the same event in Victoria, B.C. They went out on the field together to present awards to the 1,500-meter medalists. They also signed an artist’s impression of the famous picture of Landy looking the wrong way, which hangs in our home.”
Five decades on the world of track and field has changed dramatically.  The men’s 1,500-meter world record has fallen by fifteen seconds, and we see high jump attempts over eight feet.
Addressing the expanding virus of doping violations by nations and individuals, and corruption in the international governing structure, Tony believes that “trying to test athletes around the world all the time is going to be very expensive, far more expensive than most other sports because track and field is the most international of the individual sports.”
Track and field also faces an enormous burden in trying to develop a wider audience, attract sponsors, and provide at least a middle-class income for its professional providers. There is a lone billionaire oligarch in American track and field’s pantheon, and the international governance issues at the sport’s top have emerged as criminal and ethical misbehavior.
For generations to come, track and field fans will march into stadiums, line cross country trails, shout support as marathoners stride by. This is our sport, and an intimacy fans share with the athletes. There is no better way to enjoy these events than with congregants such as the Eltringhams.  Catch them early before the crowd starts filing in.

----------------------------------Paul O’Shea is a lifelong participant in the world of track and field, as competitor, coach, journalist and traveler to national and international events.  After retiring from a career in corporate communications, he coached a high school girls’ cross country team and was a long-time contributor to Cross Country Journal and Athletics, the Canadian publication. He now writes for Once Upon a Time in the Vest from his home in northern Virginia, and can be reached at Poshea17@aol.com.

V 6 N. 26 Dr. Otto Peltzer, a Pioneer on Many Fronts

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We are privileged to post the following chapter from an about to be published book,
 His Own Man, by Tim Johnston on Dr. Otto Peltzer, the German world record holder of the 800 meters  and other distances back in the 1920s.  Some of you will remember Mr. Johnston as Great Britain's eighth place finisher in the Mexico City  Olympic Marathon.  He was the man just behind Derek Clayton and ahead of lumineries like Gaston Roelants, Kenny Moore, George Young, Naftali Temu, and Ron Daws on that day.

Mr. Johnston is still searching for photographic documentation of Dr. Peltzer's series of indoor races in North America in 1928 when he raced against America's best middle distance men. 
If any of our readers have access to or knowledge of where to find photos of those Madison Square Garden, Boston and Chicago races, please do not hesitate to contact us at:   irathermediate@gmail.com.  

Interest in track and field was phenomenal in those days as seen in issues of the Chicago Tribune.  See following link.  These races made the top of the sports pages.  I've learned so much about Lloyd Hahn and Ray Conger as well as Peltzer from Tim Johnston's writing.

Please note that footnotes are not in a standard convention.  This was due to editing difficulties with Google Blogs.  The two pictures below were taken from Google Images.

Hahn Conger Peltzer Race

So sit back and enjoy this account of track and field in a truly golden age.


Dr. Otto Peltzer


12—New Worlds
Calvin Coolidge’s presidency (1923-1929) had ushered in a period of unprecedented prosperity for the United States. Wall Street rose two-and-a-half times, making Coolidge, despite his taciturnity and lack of charisma, an extremely popular president. It was the Jazz Age, the age of excess, a joyous window between the First World War and the trauma of the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression.  There was a passion for spectacle, particularly sporting spectacle, enthusiastically nourished  by ubiquitous press and radio reporters and their photographer colleagues. Arriving at New York on board the luxurious Columbus, flagship of the Norddeutsche Lloyd line, Dr. Otto Peltzer was welcomed as a world celebrity. Even before the ship docked, journalists had swarmed aboard, questioning him about his plans; he was showered with invitations to attend dinners and receptions and give speeches, photographed running laps of the deck.


Peltzer claimed to have two main aims in touring the country: to get to know his likely opponents at the forthcoming Olympics and to learn about educational and sporting facilities within the U.S. school and collegiate systems. Wickersdorf had granted him leave of absence, and his wealthy godfather, Paul Millington Herrmann (who had given him his Mr. Toad car), had agreed to finance the entire trip. While ensuring his financial independence, this gave Otto’s enemies another opportunity to query his amateur status. As a result, the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) joined with its German counterpart in refusing him permission to compete.
Meanwhile, as sociologist/social anthropologist, Peltzer set about observing and analysing the life of the inhabitants of the world’s richest, most powerful country. While flattered by his welcome, he seemed to find the Americans almost as strange as Fanny Trollope had done almost a century before in the best-selling account of her visit, Domestic Manners of the Americans. Everybody was always in a hurry. Family and social life were frighteningly superficial. People only went home to change their clothes and sleep. They ate in dreary self-service cafeterias, or bought ready-made sandwiches from ‘dragstores’, of whose malted milk and fruit juices Peltzer appeared, however, to approve. On Sundays they drove miles out of town, not to admire the countryside, but in search of a ‘Negro-Chickenbar’, where they would stop to gobble down a meal saturated in unhealthy oils and fats, or else they pulled off the highway, spread a rug among the dust and litter and ‘picnicked’ on sandwiches.
However, there were also more positive apects. Otto Peltzer was a celebrity: everywhere he went, he was honoured and feted. He met and chatted with Ted Meredith, his predecessor as half-mile world-record holder. Like Nurmi, he was taken to the White House and introduced to President Coolidge. Sadly, we have no record of what passed between the great athlete and the famously taciturn President. When Peltzer visited high schools, he found that, as holder of the world record for the 880 yards, the longest distance over which high-schoolers were allowed to compete, his name was at the top of every honours board. As he moved west and south across the country, visiting schools and colleges, he was constantly impressed by the high standard of scholastic sport, noting that some colleges were strong enough to take on national teams. But he regretted the lack of the moral and intellectual training that he felt should accompany sporting development. The educational system was not producing ‘whole men’. Above all, he deplored the obsession with making money. Everything within the system seemed to be geared towards ‘getting rich’. While properly impressed by Yellowstone Park and the Grand Canyon, he also observed and deplored the mid-western dustbowls created by deforestation. He remarked on the obsession with violence of popular culture: the average western included so many deaths that human life ceased to have any value.
Otto celebrated Christmas at his godfather’s house in California. He pointed out that the local Christmas Eve, in place of the traditional German contemplative family evening, with the quiet exchange of presents and singing of Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht, had become an unbridled celebration, more akin to Carnival, or to the Munich Bierfest. He took the opportunity to visit the newly constructed Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and run a few laps of the track where the 1932 Olympics were to be held*. 
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*Curiously, in view of the problems he would have in 1932, Peltzer makes no mention of the unusually hard track surface; See Capter 16.

Before leaving New York, he had met Mike Murphy, coach to Yale University, who claimed to have invented the sprinters’ crouch start. They had had long technical discussions on foot placement, which Peltzer took up again with the Californian coaches. With remarkable prescience, he insisted on the importance not so much of the actual start, but of the ensuing pick-up phase. He felt that it was important that, in the start position, the feet should be placed relatively close together, so that the initial strides, while the runner was accelerating, were also short and close together. He was introduced to an eighteen-year-old high-school sprinter called Frank Wykoff, who had just set a new national record for the 100 yards*.

_________
*Wykoff would go to run a new world record of 9.4 seconds and win relay golds in three successive Olympics, contesting the dominance of American and world sprinting of black athletes.


In New Year 1928, permission unexpectedly came through for Peltzer to compete. He began with a 440 yards against one-eyed Bill Spencer, who had beaten him several times in Europe. As was not uncommon in the States at that time, the quarter started in a tunnel beneath the stands, joining the track proper at the start of the back-straight, thus giving the runners a 220 yards straightaway and a single bend. There were no lanes. Up against a field of pure sprinters, Otto was able to open out his stork’s stride on the long straight, running Spencer, winner in 49 seconds dead, to within one-tenth of a second at the tape. He followed up this excellent opening run by twice running a straight 220 in 21.8. He had clearly not lost any speed in his three months without competition. But he was now faced with a series of far sterner tests: three races on the tiny American indoor tracks. The standard racing distance of 1000 yards involved negotiating up to seven tight, one-hundred-and-eighty degree bends. Peltzer, with his long, fluent stride, was at a serious disadvantage against the more compactly built, quick-striding Americans like Ray Conger, Bill Dodge and indoor specialists Joie Ray and Lloyd Hahn.
The first of a series of three indoor races was to be held in New York, on 2 February 1928, at Tex Rickard’s newly refurbished Madison Square Garden—the same Tex Rickard who, two years before, after Otto’s famous victory over Wide and Nurmi, had offered him $250,000 to turn professional. The Garden could accommodate 20,000 spectators for a track meet, double that for a major boxing event. Hemmed in by the banked cycle track, the 160-yard board track (11 laps to the mile) was just three runners wide, with tight, flat bends reminiscent of the original Olympic stadium in Greece. In addition, there were the problems peculiar to performing in front of 20,000 human beings packed into an enclosed, inadequately ventilated space. In his biography of Jewish middle-distance champion Abel Kiviat (b.1892), Alan Katchen refers to complaints by indoor competitors of ‘what was euphemistically called “indoor sickness”, causing ‘nausea, labored breathing and the like’. After narrowly losing the gold medal to ‘gentleman amateur’ Arnold Strode-Jackson in the 1912 Stockholm Olympic 1500m, then gaining gold in the 3000m team race, Kiviat went on to become America’s oldest surviving Olympian, dying in 1991 at age 99—which suggests that ‘indoor sickness’ couldn’t have had any lasting after-effects. 
See Alan Katchen, Abel Kiviat, National Champion, Syracuse University Press 2009, p. 76.

In Beyond Glory, the story of the battles for the world heavyweight boxing title in the 1920s and 30s, (many of which were held in the Garden), David Margolick described a knock-out punch as materialising out of ‘an atmosphere made milky by tobacco smoke and resin dust’*.
________
*David Margolick, Beyond Glory, Knopf Doubleday 2010, p. 40.

Even Willis Carrier’s  new, centrifugal air-conditioning was said to be insufficient to disperse the haze of cigarette and cigar smoke. For his part, Paavo Nurmi claimed to find the swirling clouds of cigar smoke ‘invigorating’.
Peltzer must have found the conditions trying, but in his memoirs he doesn’t complain. His only grievance is that the restrictive attitude of the German and U.S. athletics authorities had not given him the opportunity to accustom himself to the specific exigencies of racing on the U.S. indoor circuit. Having worked so intensively on his speed, while being short of distance work, he would have preferred his first race to be the 600 yard event, but eventually settled for a specially arranged half-mile. Arthur E. Grix, the U.S. correspondent for Der Leichtathlet, published a long report on the event:
Crowds throng the entrance to Madison Square Garden. Programme and newspaper sellers shout themselves hoarse. The name “Peltzer” is on everyone’s lips—a name that draws in thousands who have never before attended an athletics meeting. The boxes are packed with the cream of New York resplendent in evening dress, headed by Mayor Walker. The Garden is filled to the rafters: sold out! Everyone wants to witness the struggle between the national indoor specialists and the new German holder of the world record, grabbed away from their own Olympic champion, James Meredith.
Peltzer steps unobtrusively onto the infield. But his height gives him away. The crowd rises and applauds. A huff from the mike: Peltzer will not be starting in the invitation half-mile event as announced; there are insufficient entrants. The world-record holder will be running in the open 1000 yards. Excitement ripples through the crowd: it’s a strong field, led by favourites Bill Dodge and Olympic bronze medallist Schuyler Enck: eleven runners, far too many for the narrow track.
Mayor Walker fires the gun. CLICK! The gun misfires. Everybody back! Peltzer rises from his crouch-start, protests that some of the runners have their feet over the line. The gun fires again. Peltzer disappears from view, then resurfaces in seventh place, desperately struggling in the mad scramble for position. Pushed and kicked, he pushes and kicks back. When he tries to take the lead, other runners shove him out of the way. Finally he has had enough, you can see it in his face! On the fourth of the fourteen long straights, he switches to the outside lane. With giant strides, he storms past the entire field and takes the lead. This is the high-point of the race, what the crowd has come for. A mighty cheer goes up: the German has justified his reputation.
Peltzer slows slightly on the bend, lets a runner past, allowing him to make the pace. But two, three others force their way into the lead: Bill Dodge, Schuyler Enck... But Peltzer isn’t done: on the penultimate straight, to the astonishment of the crowd he sweeps into the lead again. Dodge hangs on, as if attached to the leader by a chain. As they exit the final bend, he tries to pass. But Peltzer is on his guard, sprints again, breaks the tape three yards clear.
The crowd go wild: wave hats and scarves, toss programmes and scraps of paper; just like at a baseball game. Clearly exhausted, Peltzer collapses onto a pile of wood shavings by the pole-vault pit, wrapped in a blanket. Then the band strikes up the Deutschlandlied. Everyone rises, bare-headed. In the centre of the hall, the slim, blond German stands erect, black eagle on his chest, proudly contributing to healing the gulf between two great nations striving towards peaceful co-operation.
Grix remarks on the slow time: 2:18.6, outside two-minute pace for the half-mile. But that was readily explicable by the excessively large field, and the extra distance Peltzer had to run as a result of all the pushing and shoving, which Grix estimates at a minimum of 14 metres, equivalent to more than 2 seconds.
‘Before the race,’ continues Grix, ‘Peltzer was extremely nervous, and his mood was not improved when an official, having failed to recognise him, tried to make him leave the track during his warm-up. What was astonishing was the obstinacy with which, far from home, without a coach or companion, he fought to impose himself on the race. But that is what endeared him to the American public, who have no time for European sensitivity’.
Grix also reported on a visit to Peltzer’s hotel the next day. He finds the champion lying in bed, wearing his habitual grey pullover. His voice is hoarse: he has a cold, result of training on the fifteen-storey-high flat roof of Wanamaker’s Hotel. On the table, Grix notes a letter to one of Peltzer’s Wickersdorf pupils, who has broken his leg skiing. Instead of writing home to report on his success, the champion is writing to express sympathy to a young unknown. Peltzer, Grix reflects, must be a basically good person. Although it is past 10 a.m., there are still no morning newspapers in the room, although Peltzer could easily have had them delivered. The champion, reports Grix,  thinks himself misunderstood, a prophet without honour in his own country.
‘My dear Peltzer,’ says Grix, ‘you’re too sensitive!’
‘Yes,’ says Peltzer, ‘I admit it, I am very sensitive. But that’s the secret of my success, what enables me to find that extra burst of energy, to rise above myself.’
After breakfast the two men go out for a stroll down Broadway. Peltzer, wearing his customary fur-lined leather flying jacket, quickly attracts attention. Mobbed by autograph hunters, he good-naturedly signs every scrap of paper thrust under his nose. Then they slip away through the traffic and buy the morning papers. In a small park they settle down on a bench in the crisp winter sunshine to read the race reports. PELTZER! scream the headlines in bold capitals. Not a single paper denies his achievement against the odds, or disputes his class. All agree that he is no indoor runner: his long stride simply isn’t suited to the tight curves.  
Otto’s second race was to be ten days later, at the Knights of Columbus meeting in Chicago. It promised to be even more of a challenge than the New York event: not only would he be facing Bill Dodge again, out to get his revenge after their brawling encounter at the Garden; there would also be Ray Conger, whom Otto had easily defeated in his world-record 1000m race in Paris, but who was currently in top form on the boards, having just got the better of indoor king Lloyd Hahn in a rousing finish in a 1000-yard event in Kansas City.
Before leaving for the mid-west, Peltzer attended some indoor events for black athletes in Harlem. He noted twelve-year-olds running fantastic 400-metre relay times. This, he commented prophetically, was the foundation for future American athletics success: already supreme in the sprints, hurdles and high jump, the blacks were now preparing to dominate the middle distances.
In Chicago, Otto worked out on the indoor track at the University of Chicago gym. To his dismay, on the morning of the race he discovered that the event was not to be run on the normal board track, but in a hall used for equestrian events. The track was a mix of sawdust, dirt and. . . dried horseshit! The smell made his eyes water. His short indoor spikes could get no purchase. He rushed out to buy a pair of longer ones, but found that these, too, were inadequate to cope with the soft, friable surface. When he attempted to deploy his main weapon, his devastating sprint, the long spikes threw up clouds of dirt, but got no traction: it was like running through soft sand. He would have done better to withdraw, but feared accusations of cowardice. To avoid the shoving, kicking and fisticuffs of the New York event, the field was limited to four runners: Peltzer, Dodge, Conger and their old rival Le Larrivee, another indoor specialist. The distance was extended from 1000 yards to 1000 metres, a difference of 100 metres, presumably to avoid starting on a bend. The race was a great deal less eventful than in New York. Larivee led for much of the race, with Peltzer right on his heels, determined not to let either of the other two runners through. However, on the last bend, as the leader eased, in preparation for the sprint, Conger launched a surprise attack. By the time Otto had got round Larrivee, Conger had gained several metres. When he attempted to laumch his sprint, he found himself simply wallowing in horseshit. However, he did manage to hold off Dodge. Second, in the slow time of 2:39.1, to Conger’s 2:37. But he hadn’t been disgraced, and was generously applauded by the crowd.
After the race, Peltzer was invited to speak to the German-American Steuben Society. The meeting was also attended by Count Luckner, famous for his war exploits in the Pacific as the ‘Sea-Devil’ or ‘Merciful Pirate’, commander of the freebooting frigate, Seeadler. At the end of his lecture, to demonstrate his continuing manliness, Luckner was asked to rip up some telephone directories. After he had obliged, a lady called Magda Brandenburg, editor of the society’s newsletter, ‘abducted’ Otto and drove him to her house, where traditional Viennese culture and cuisine were served. Magda was another of the women, fleetingly mentioned, barely acknowledged, yet undoubtedly influential, in Peltzer’s male-dominated life. She would reappear in 1932, when he again travelled to the U.S. for the Los Angeles Olympics. While enjoying the refined food and company, Peltzer nonetheless noted the advantages for an athlete of the American diet, rich in protein and fresh fruit and salads: a healthy diet was a particular obsession with women’s groups; the men simply ate what their wives told them to. However, Otto believed, it was not diet, but schooling that accounted for American sporting dominance.
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune datelined 29 January 1928, Peltzer gave his views on American athletes. He was surprised by their success: many smoked, drank strong liquor and regularly ‘indulged’ in coffee; and yet some college teams were good enough to defeat national teams in Europe. He found American women unappealing: they were ‘too fickle’; bobbed hair was ‘humbug’. He liked his beer, but American beer was ‘soup’. He would need at least a week of intensive training to take on Lloyd Hahn in his final race in New York.
Returning to New York, Peltzer found himself involved in a project to set up another progressive, Wickersdorf-type school in Germany. Donors were found, a certain Dr. Ewald appointed trustee. After he returned to Germany, Otto heard no more of the project. His letters to Ewald went unanswered. He had, he wrote, ‘fallen into the hands of a swindler’. By the same token, he only ever received a fraction of the fees he had been promised for his lectures. He had rapidly become acquainted with what he would deplore as the ruling principle of daily life in the Land of the Free: the quick buck.   
The closing competition of Peltzer’s American tour, once again in the Garden, was to be a three-man race. Billed as the Mile of the Century (by 1999, there would have been scores of such events), it would feature Peltzer and his two leading American rivals: Ray Conger (who had just beaten him in Chicago), and King of the Boards, Lloyd Hahn. The latter, a country boy from Falls City, Nebraska, born in 1898, hence two years older than Peltzer, had begun his track career as a sprinter, then progressed to the half-mile and mile (he had finished 6th in the Paris 1500m, and would gain 5th place in the Amsterdam 800 after running a never-ratified world-record of 1:51.4 for the metric distance at the U.S. Olympic Trials). *
*Otto's Stamford Bridge record of 1:51.6 for the imperial distance was in any case intrinsically faster.
His compact build (1m 75 for 70 kg) and short, quick stride made him ideally suited to the tight indoor tracks. The previous year, in winning the Knights of Columbus Mile at the Garden in 4:12.2, he had come within one-fifth of a second of Nurmi’s indoor world best. Second in that race, five yards back, had been Edvin Wide. The press, wrote Peltzer in his memoirs, hyped up the rivalry among the three men, but as far as he was concerned, there could only be one winner: Lloyd Hahn. Nonetheless, he would give it his best shot.
Ever-present Arthur Grix described the event:
By the time the start is announced, the spectators’ excitement has reached fever-pitch. The infield and track are cleared. Hahn and Conger are ready and waiting, but Peltzer is nowhere to be found. At last, after keeping his opponents waiting for four, nerve-wracking minutes, our athlete strolls onto the track in his grey sweat-suit—to be greeted with a tremendous round of applause.
Visibly twitching with impatience, a half-dozen gentlemen in black lounge-suits wait for Peltzer to fasten his laces. Then come the introductions: “Dr Otto Peltzer, Germany! Holder of the world’s half-mile record!” Uproar from the crowd—in the way only the Americans know how. The band plays the Deutschlandlied. All rise, heads bared and bowed, while Peltzer, erect in his national vest, accepts the tribute to his nation from a country which just ten years before had sought our downfall.
Hahn and Conger are introduced, earning their own share of frantic applause. Mayor Walker fires the gun. The three runners leap from the start-line. At the crown of the bend, after the first ninety-degree turn, Conger and Hahn are already 5 metres up. There are 26 such turns. If Hahn gains 3 metres on each one, by the finish he will have an 80-metre lead over Peltzer. But Peltzer clings on! Roared on by the public, the trio of gladiators circle the track as if their lives depended on it. Hahn completes the first quarter-mile in 60.8 seconds. Three laps run, ten to go. You can see the strain on Peltzer, as he tries to regain on the straights the ground lost on the bends to the local favourites. He loses 5 metres, but his giant’s strides bring him back into contention.
In the seventh lap, halfway through the race, Hahn surges ahead and takes 5 metres. Conger has to let him go. Peltzer tries to pass Conger, but the American fights him off. Staccato-striding Hahn extends his lead. Visibly struggling, Peltzer hangs onto Conger. The bell!  Hahn patters through the 1500m mark in 3:54. Peltzer is staggering, at the end of his tether, seemingly about to step off the track. Then he pulls himself together, remembers where he is, who he is. Relaxed, almost walking the last 5 metres, he jogs across the line.
Hahn had won easily in 4:13.0, just a second shy of Nurmi’s world indoor best, with Conger 20 metres back, and a jogging Peltzer another 20 metres down. Grix continues:
The public roars, the band strikes up the Star-Spangled Banner. The three runners shake hands. Peltzer wraps himself in his blanket and collapses on a heap of wood chips. However, he is not as exhausted as he seems. After a minute he speaks to me; his breathing has returned almost to normal. It was simply, he explains, that his legs had let him down:  they were not used to the distance. When the results are read out, his name in third place is greeted with wild applause. Outside the changing-room, a delegation of gentlemen from the German Embassy in top hats and frock-coats is waiting to shake his hand.
German Ambassador von Prittwitz und Gaffron telegraphed the Foreign Office: ‘Dr Peltzer has done more for Germany’s reputation than ten years of work by the Embassy.’
German-born Harry N Sperber, reporter for the German-American New Yorker Staatszeitung*

*In melting-pot America, the mother-tongue newspapers of the country's various ethnic communities were-and still are- of great significance in providing news and forming opinions.
wrote:
A hundred-percent successful goodwill tour ends on Saturday, when Dr Peltzer returns home. He can leave us in the knowledge that his tact and diplomatic skills have won innumerable friends: the German national anthem was sung by 30,000 people in the Madison Square Garden. There is something appealing about this man Peltzer, whether you simply observe him from the grandstand in action on the track, or if you have the chance to meet him in person. You can forgive him even his occasional outbursts. He has something of that Lindbergh quality. And it is doubtless this quality that brings him so many friends.
Just days later, in a special race to which Peltzer was also invited, but in which he was refused permission to start by the German athletics authorities, Hahn ran a new world-best—indoors or outdoors—of 1:51.4 (again intrinsically slower than Peltzer’s outdoor record for the imperial distance). In his memoirs, Otto claims to have riposted with a solo run of 1:50.4 in Boston, but there is no supporting evidence for this.  
Peltzer was due to leave for Bremen on the evening of 7 March 1928, which the Americans had realised was the last day of his twenty-eighth year. They organized a banquet, to which a number of high-ranking dignitaries were invited. One speaker after another emphasised the honour Peltzer had done them by choosing to celebrate his birthday in New York. The fact that he had lost his last race was irrelevant; what counted was the way he had fought against the odds, never given up. He had conducted himself like a model sportsman.
After his return to Germany, an article in Der Leichtathlet pointed out how Peltzer had exploded the myth that an athlete needed to rest through the winter. The top Americans like Hahn, Raie and Lermond, and the black Canadian, Edwards*, competed up to twenty times in ten weeks. 

*Phil Edwards, Peltzer's future rival, multiple medallist in three consecutive Olympics (128, 32, 36).
For his part, in summing up his U.S. experience, Otto emphasised the extreme competitiveness of life in America, including in sport: everything was geared towards success, coming first, and—ultimately—making money. In his view, while competition was to be encouraged, it should not be the be-all and end-all. Everyone should work eight hours a day, and complement their working day with sport. By eliminating superfluous, time-wasting activities, it was perfectly possible to train for two hours a day, five times a week. He ends the chapter on his American tour by setting out a series of principles drawn from a new edition of his book, The Athlete’s Training Manual. Many of these, written almost ninety years ago, have a remarkably modern resonance.
1. Don’t put blind faith in your coach: think for yourself!
2. What counts in training is not the time you spend at the track, but how you use it. ‘Fiddling about’ will never make you a champion.
3. Don’t try to break records in training. Don’t over-train, stay just below your limit.
4. For your first competitions, avoid rivals stronger or as strong as you are. You need to build up confidence by winning regularly. If you do find yourself in a strong race, don’t try to match the leaders; hold back, run to the limit of your current ability.
5. Get used to training under difficult conditions: running in heavy shoes, on a soft track, in bad weather.
6. After a race, give yourself time to recover and reflect: nothing is more hateful and disagreeable than mutual hugging, being carried on other people’s shoulders.
What every athlete needed above all, concluded Peltzer, was an intense, inner love of sport, enriching and strengthening him; preparing him for Olympic competition.
The Amsterdam Olympics, marking the completion of Germany’s international sporting rehabilitation, were now less than five months away. As principal bearer of his country’s gold-medal hopes, Otto needed to get down again to a serious training and racing programme.

Please note that footnotes are not in a standard convention.  This was due to editing difficulties using  Google Blogs.  

V 6 N. 27 Boston Marathon Wrap and Gary Corbitt's Historical Analysis

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By now, most of you know that the 2016 Boston Marathon served as the Ethiopian or should I say EPOpian Olympic trials.   I can say that in gest only because it is well known that Ethiopia does little or no drug testing of their athletes.  How could this cash strapped country expect to allocate precious resources to set up a testing lab in Addis Ababa and send technicians out to the hinterlands to find their hundreds of runners to get a blood or urine sample?  Home country testing is supposed to be the frontline of world wide drug testing expected to police the sport.   Assuming that that home testing is always going to be somewhat suspect in any country responsible for putting clean athletes on the starting line, the World Anti Doping Agency was set up to be the failsafe mechanism to assure us that when we buy a ticket to an international track meet or just turn on our TVs that we are watching a game being contested on a level playing field.  Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus and an Easter Bunny , and international bankers are honest people who really care about others.

 Just a few comments on the race.  Can any of you without looking it up name the two winners?   Well they were Lemi Berhanu Hayle 2:12:45  and Atsede Baysa  2:29.18   The first time since 1986 a Boston area runner finished in the top ten, Zachary Hines was 10th  in 2:21:37.  The first American female was 9th placer Neely Spence Gracey in 2:35:00.     At first I was sad that there didn't seem to be any locals in the lead pack. Then I remembered that the Americans had just had their Olympic Trials, so that eliminated the possibility of seeing some sub 2:12 Yanks in the men's race.  Same for the women.  OK.  And as you will see below in Gary Corbitt's historical look at Boston, there were many years that Americans did not dominate the Boston Marathon.
So guys lets just suck it up and wait for next year when the homies will be back on the starting line at Hopikinton.   Lastly, the marathon proved once again the challenge to find commentators who can make the race interesting.  I had to turn the sound off to keep from changing the station and watching Let's Make a Deal.  Inane comments seem to be the norm in marathon broadcasting.  Can't the producers find a Dick Bank out there to spice things up?  When Larry Rawson started giving stats in the Metric System including the height and weight of runners, I knew this broadcast was not geared to the American public.  Also how many people watching that broadcast could relate to a minutes per kilometer pace?  I've been trying for years up here in Canada  and still can't make the transition.  Ok, we Yanks are  dumb on this, so to appeal to your dumb audience, let's dumb it down a bit, puleeeze.

Below is Gary Corbitt's most recent post on his great blog covering some of the most interesting bits  of Boston Marathon history.



Boston Marathon History
42 Years Ago Ted Corbitt (1919 – 2007)
4/15/74 Ted Corbitt’s last Boston Marathon at age 55 in2:49:16 was only 34 seconds slower than his first in 1951.  The patches and wires on his chest were for a medical experiment done by Joan Ullyot MD.  This was his 175thmarathon; including 22 Boston runs.

44 Years Ago in Boston Marathon History
Nina Kuscsik
4/17/72 Nina Kuscsik became the first official women’s winner of the Boston Marathon.  The women’s division had eight starters and finishers.
  1. 1.       Nina Kuscsik – 3:10:26
  2. 2.       Elaine Pederson – 3:20:35
  3. 3.       Kathrine Switzer – 3:29:51
  4. 4.       Pat Barrett- 3:40:29
  5. 5.       Sara Mae Berman – 3:48:30
  6. 6.       Valerie Rogosheske
  7. 7.       Ginny Collins – 4:04
  8. 8.       Frances Morrison

39 Years Ago
Marilyn Bevans
The First Lady of African American Long Distance Running
April 18, 1977 Marilyn Bevans finished second to Miki Gorman at the Boston Marathon in a time of 2:51:12.  102 women finished under 4 hours.  She would record her personal best marathon time of 2:49:56 in 1979 at Boston.

105 Years Ago  
Clarence Harrison DeMar – Mr. DeMarathon
(1888 – 1958)
4/19/11 Clarence DeMar wins his first of 7 Boston Marathons in a course record 2:21:39. The race had 127 starters.
4/19/30 Clarence DeMar age 41 wins his 7th Boston Marathon in 2:34:48.  The race had 216 entrants.

82 Years Ago
Augustus “Gus” Johnson
4/19/34 Augustus Johnson became the first known African American to finish in the top 20 in the Boston Marathon.  His time of 2:55:39 earned him 14th place overall.  A native of Lansing, Kansas, Johnson would go on to record top 20 finishes four more times between 1936 and 1940.


81 Years Ago
John Adelbert “Johnny” Kelley – Old Kelley ( The Elder)
(1907 – 2004)
4/19/35 John A. Kelley wins the Boston Marathon for the first time in 2:32:07 over Pat Dengis.  He would again win in 1945 in one of the fastest times in the world that year of2:30:40.
Old Kelley started in 61 Boston Marathons.  He had seven 2nd place finishes and was in the top 10 another 18 times.  He was a two time Olympian in 1936 and 1948 for the marathon. 

68 Years Ago  
Ted Vogel – 1948 Olympian
4/19/48 Ted Vogel places 2nd to Gerald Cote missing a Boston victory by a mere 44 seconds.  Cote winning time was the fastest time in the world for 1948 of 2:31:02.
Ted Vogel represented the first generation of track runners who moved into road running and changed the sport.  He along with track runners Charley Robbins, Tommy Crane, Bob Black, Clayton Farrar and Lou Gregory were part of a transformational period in the history of long distance running.

67 Years Ago
Louis C. “Lou” White – A Renaissance Sportsman
(1908 – 1990)
4/19/49 Lou White finished third at the Boston Marathon in2:36:48 and recorded the highest finish ever for an African American.  Representing the New York Pioneer Club, he would win national championships in 1950 & 1951 at 15K and 10 Miles. 

61 Years Ago
Nicholas George “Nick” Costes
(1926 – 2003)

4/19/55 Nick Costes finished third place and was the first American finisher in 2:19:57 at the Boston Marathon.  The course during these years was a bit short.
Nick Costes received his master’s degree in education from Boston University and went on to become a professor of kinesiology at Troy State University. Previously marathoners were laborers, bricklayers, miners, blacksmiths, milkmen, mailmen, and soldiers.  Now the marathon appealed to educated professionals.  Costes was considered a sports scholar.  In 1972 he published a book titled “Interval Training.”

56 Years Ago
Gordon McKenzie – “The Consummate Front Runner”
(1927 – 2013)
4/19/60 Gordon McKenzie of the New York Pioneer Club finished 2nd in 2:22:18 and was the first  American at the Boston Marathon. The 1960 Olympic marathon selection process included a point system based on performances at Boston and Yonkers.  Gordon would be selected for the 1960 Olympic team in the marathon.  He was also was a 1956 Olympian in the 10,000 meters.

53 Years Ago
Abebe Bikila  (1932 – 1973)
Mamo Wolde (1932 – 2002)
4/19/63 Abebe Biklia and Mamo Wolde of Ethiopia set Boston Marathon checkpoint records and were over 2 minutes ahead of the Boston course record at 18 miles.  They would finish 5th and 12th respectively.  This was Bikila’s first loss in a marathon.  There were 183 finishers.

Comment from Richard Trace,  Lakeside, OH, formerly of Oakwood, OH
This was the Boston run by legendary stumbler R. Trace.  I remember standing next to Bikila and Wolde before the start.  They were perfectly proportioned scale models of human beings.  About 7/8 scale.  Before 1/2 mile into the race they had faded away into the distance.  After I did see VanDendriessche and talked to him in the Lennox lobby.  Unassuming, modest guy.  When I got up the following morning sore and stiff, he was coming in from a run.  This was the only marathon lost by Bikila and I have never thought the 4 men who beat him got proper credit for doing so.  VanDendriessche, Kelley, Oksanen and Brian Kilby who wanted to go to Washington, D.C. because "the people there want to see me run".  Seeing the warm greeting between Oksanen and Kelley at the start has stuck in my memory.

50 Years Ago
Roberta Bingay “Bobbi” Gibb – Happy 50th Anniversary!
4/19/66 Bobbi Gibb at age 23 became the first female to complete the Boston Marathon in 3:21:40.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Bobbi’s groundbreaking run.  She was the Grand Marshall for this year’s race.  Her three first-place finishes previously relegated to an “Unofficial Era” in the event’s history will now be recognized as part of a “Pioneer Era,” along with Sara Mae Berman.

48 Years Ago
Ambrose “Amby” Joel Burfoot
4/19/68 Amby Burfoot wins the Boston Marathon in 2:22:17as Americans go first and second with Bill Clark in second place.  This is the first American win since John J. Kelley in 1957. 
Old John Kelley mentored Young John Kelley.
Young John Kelley was a mentor to Amby.
Amby mentored Bill Rodgers.
All these gentlemen were winners of this great race.

77 Years Ago
Ellison Myers “Tarzan” Brown
(1914 – 1975)
4/20/36 Tarzan Brown wins the Boston Marathon in 2:33:40. He would win again in 1939 with a course record of 2:28:51.
Tarzan Brown and Thomas Longboat (1907) are the only Native Americans to win this race. Tarzan was a Narragansett Native American with a tribal name of Deerfoot.

59 Years Ago
John Joseph Kelley -  Young Kelley (The Younger)
The Greatest American Distance Runner of his Era
(1930 – 2011)
4/20/57 John Kelley wins the Boston Marathon in record time of 2:20:05 over Finland’s Veikko Karvonen.  This was the first American winner since John A. Kelley in 1945.  Young Kelley would be runner-up at Boston on five occasions.
His eight consecutive national marathon titles at Yonkers (1956 to 1963) are unprecedented.   

52 Years Ago
Hal Higdon – An Original Running Renaissance Man
4/20/64 Hal Higdon was the first American finisher at the Boston Marathon placing 5th in 2:21:55.
Hal Higdon’s career spans all aspects of the sport of running’s development.  He was one of original architects that helped invent the sport.  He was a competitive athlete, running administrator and is a prolific writer. 

47 Years Ago
Sara Mae Berman
4/21/69 Sara Mae Berman finishes the Boston Marathon hand-in-hand with husband Larry.  She was the first female finisher in 3:22:46.  She would go on to win the Boston Marathon the next two years bettering the course record by 16 minutes in 1970 with a 3:05:07.
Sara Mae and Larry Berman were one of the country’s original running couples.  They were one of the original road race course measurers in the New England area.  Sara Mae was the first female officer for the Road Runners Club of America (1966-1967).

Sara Mae competed in her first road race in June 1964 as an unofficial entrant.  Her outstanding life was acknowledged in 2015 with an induction in the Road Runners Club of American Hall of Fame. 

Women Boston Marathon Champions:
1966: Roberta Gibb – 3:21:40
1967: Roberta Gibb – 3:27:17
1968: Roberta Gibb – 3:30:00
1969: Sara Mae Berman – 3:22:46
1970: Sara Mae Berman – 3:05:07
1971: Sara Mae Berman – 3:08:30
1972: Nina Kuscsik – 3:10:26

To learn more running history:
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V 6 N 28 Photo Request, Earl Young, and Support Your Local Shoe Store

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You probably noted that last week we made an appeal for photos of  Dr. Otto Peltzer's indoor race tour in 1928.   We are also sending out a request for photo information on another event,  the Coliseum Compton Invitational  5000 meters of 1968.   The request comes from Rich Elliott, editor of the book Runners on Running, one of the best running books on the market.  Rich actually ran in that 5000.  Here is his request.

George,
I see where you sometimes make announcements about those of us who are searching for photos.
I was wondering if you can help me with this one:
I am writing an article about distance running in 1968.
I am wondering if anyone might have photos of the Coliseum-Compton Invitational of June 7, 1968.
In particular, photos of the 5000 meters race.
If photos exist, people can contact me at:  richkelliott1@comcast.net.
Here is a list of the runners in that race:
1. Ron Clarke
2. Bob Day
3. Tracy Smith
4. Van Nelson
5. Juan Martinez
6. Mario Perez
7. Alvaro Mejia
8. John Kennedy
9. Tim Danielson
10. Rich Elliott (yours truly)
11. Ed Norris 
 Joe Lynch and Lou Scott may have also competed in the race.
Thanks for your help!
Rich Elliott


This week we will most likely get our   250,000th hit on our little blog.  Never thought it would get to this level, even though cute puppy or animal rescue sites get those numbers in a matter of hours.   Of course Roy and Steve and I have probably accounted for 100,000 of those hits ourselves.  We enjoy all the connections this work has created not just for ourselves but for others who have been able to reconnect without going through the machinations of Facebook.  

A  few other things to note:

Earl Young has become the face on a book cover.  Check those quads.  He says it is probably a 4x100 at Penn Relays.   He held off Frank Budd on the last leg and the team clocked 40.1 (cinders).  


The book is a novel by a member of the British band,  The Smiths.  Reviews not that great.  However Earl's kids are impressed.  Earl doesn't even  know the band.  He was told by the publisher that the photo is part of the public domain and he wouldn't have the legal right to contest the use of the photo.  They did however offer to make a contribution to Earl's foundation for Bone Marrow Transplant Research and Registration.  We found reference to the book on the blog  Go Feet, you can find a rather less than positive review of the novel on that site.

Support Your Local Shoe Store
           Ryan and Amanda King

End of March first of April I made a trip back to my roots in Dayton, Ohio.  Had a chance to reconnect with old friends, Steve Price, Bill Schnier, Phil Scott, Tim Buckman and many others.  Met Ryan and Amanda King the owners of a great little running store   Can't Stop Running in Piqua , Ohio.  

  Phil Scott had a few items from his running shoe collection on display in the store  including Joe Deloach's Mizunos,  that   along with Joe's legs and heart,  kept  Carl Lewis off the top of the 200 meters podium in 1988 in Seoul.   To see some of Phil's collection including that DeLoach heartbreaker, click on the link  below:

Phil said he got those shoes on E bay for less than the cost of shipping them.


These little independent stores are the backbone of the running shoe market for people who really buy shoes to run, jog and race in.   The billions of dollars that Nike, New Balance, Brooks  and the rest make are from non runners who just like to be seen in stylish clothing and shoes and buy their stuff at Walmart, Target, Hudson's Bay, Discount Outlets and the like.  One of the challenges the small stores face is online purchasing.  People go to the small stores to try on shoes, get knowledgeable technical advice, then go home and order the shoes for a few bucks less online.  So if you as a runner want to see these stores stay in business, you need to support them by shopping and buying on site, that means in the store.   
Adam King with the Garby/Gorby Shoe

 Of special interest was another pair of shoes that belonged to 'Scott Garby' of Piqua who ran a 1:52+ 880 at the NCAA meet in 1926.    There is a  little discrepancy when I looked up the result on the TF&N  site.
The Scott Garby/John Gorby 1926 shoe


The 880 race in 1926 was  probably held  at Soldier Field.  The track was mismeasured and declared to be  23' 3" short.  The actual race distance was 872.25 yards or 797.6 meters.  
The winner was Alva Martin a Northwestern senior in a corrected time of 1:52.0. Actual time was 1:51.7.    Second was Walter Caine of Indiana in a corrected time of 1:52.8.   Scott Garby (listed in results as John Gorby) a Northwestern sophmore was third and no time given.    "No time" does not appear to be unusual in the 1920s for the also rans in NCAA results.    So if the listing on the shoes in the store of 1:52, is to be believed we can assume that John Gorby (Scott Garby) was right on the heels of the second place finisher.   

So next time you're tooling down the pike on I-75 north of Dayton and have a little time on your hands, pull into Piqua, do not stop at the Mall,  go downtown to 321 N. Main St.  Can't Stop Running, get some good advice, a pair of shoes and sign up for the next local race that the store is busy promoting.  On a good day you might even  get a free cup of coffee.  


V 6 N. 29 Info on Jamie Nieto Injury and Fundraiser

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Jamie Nieto

Some of you may already be aware of the spinal injury Jamie Nieto suffered while coaching a group of youngsters.  A funraising site has been set up to help him financially during his recovery.  Click on link above.


From The Daily Mail    Former US Olympic high jumper Jamie Nieto was paralyzed in a training accident Saturday - after he canceled his health insurance to save money.
Nieto, 39, was working with would-be Olympians at Azusa Pacific University in California when he landed on his head during a backflip, suffering a severe spinal injury. 


For anyone who does not know, Jamie is a two-time Olympian and four-time USA Champion in the high jump. He earned his place on the podium the right way, through hard work and dedication to his craft. He is now a private coach for an elite group of jumpers, in addition to an actor, writer, and producer. Those within the track world and beyond are fond of his regular interview series, Holla Athcha Boy, where he interviews world class and Olympic athletes.

V 6 N. 30 Merv Lincoln R.I.P.

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When you write about the good old days , you often have to mention the passing of old heroes.
Sunday  May 1, 2016  Merv Lincoln left us with memories that even the toughest guys don't always win the big race.  Merv was the epitome of a well disciplined gentlemen who put it all out on the fields of human performance.   If it hadn't been for a guy named Herb Elliott who was equally as gifted and maybe even a tad more tenacious on the track, we might be remembering Merv as the greatest of his day.  There were others as well in the early 1960s like John Landy,  Brian Hewson,  Derek Ibbotson, Ron Delany, and a host of others who might be considered the men of their times.

Merv was a disciple of the Franz Stampfl interval training school compared to Elliott's more unconventional mentor Percy Cerutty.    Both systems were effective though Cerutty's school may have been less practical to the urban runner.  There weren't sand dunes and weight rooms in every neighborhood in those days, but there were tracks  and stopwatches just about everywhere that could be used as a measuring board for one's progress on the cinders.

Last month I was able to obtain some seldom seen photos of athletes in the 50s and 60s in the archives of Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.  They come from files of the local newspaper The Dayton Daily News,  and Wright State graciously allowed me to copy what I wanted.   Photos appearing below are from those files.  Primary sources where known  are also cited.

Dayton Ohio National AAU Meet, June 23, 1957
overtaking Bob Seamon and Burr Grimm on last curve of mile run

Dayton, OH,  hitting the tape in 4:06.1


Newspaper editor's notes on back of photo


Lincoln and Franz Stampfl arriving in San Francisco for his US tour.

Finish of unknown race, probably Australia

All Photos are courstesy of Dayton Daily News Archive
at  Special Collections and Archives, Wright State University.
(not for sale or commercial reproduction by this blog)

Merv Lincoln , obit    provided by Dennis Kavanaugh.   Thanks Dennis.

the aussies ruled for a time then when their population was about what Ohio's is now.  the Hungarians were coming.   Richard Trace

V 6 N. 31 Robert Earl Johnson, Don't Know Him? Read This from Gary Corbitt

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Gary Corbitt's Latest Posting brings us the history of this incredible runner, long forgotten.

Celebrating African American Running History
African Running History Project (1880 – 1979)
Robert Earl Johnson (1891 – 1965)
The First Great Amateur African American Distance Runner
Running History July 12, 1924:
In the cross-country Paris Olympics in 1924, Johnson finished third behind the great Finland duet of Paavo Nurmi and Willie Ritola. Along with receiving the bronze medal and he also led the U.S. cross-country team to a second place silver medal. Johnson also placed 8th out of field of 43 in the Olympic 10,000 meters in 1924; setting a personal best time of 32:17.
Earl Johnson was a two time Olympian (1920 & 1924). History records him as the first internationally ranked African American long distance runner. He competed from 1914 to 1926 from distances of one mile to twenty-three miles. At the time Earl was the only Negro athlete to have made the Olympic team in a distance running event.
Earl Johnson’s U.S. National Championship titles are as follows:
1921 6 Mile Cross-Country
1921 – 1923 5 Mile Track
1921 – 10 Mile Road (victory over Ritola)
1924 10 Mile Road in 54:29 (victory over U.S. marathon Olympians Albert Michelson and James Hennigan)
He finished second to Willie Ritola in the 1922 Berwick Marathon; a distance of nine and three-quarter miles. His time of 48:36 was just three seconds off the previous course record. The Berwick race has a tremendous history of bringing top college track athletes to race the top road runners. Most of the great runners over the eras starting in 1908 have raced in Berwick, PA on Thanksgiving Day.
Johnson was also a marathon winner. In 1921 and 1923, he was first in the Detroit Marathon, a 22 mile event whose inadequate distance prevented Johnson’s name from appearing in official marathon histories. His time in 1923 was 2:09 which was 8 minutes faster than in 1921. An illness in 1924 prevented him from running the Boston Marathon that year.
Earl Johnson was born in Woodstock, Virginia and graduated from Morgan College in Baltimore. He competed for the Edgar Thompson Steel Works AA team near Pittsburgh. He became a sportswriter for the Pittsburgh Courier and managed an African American sandlot baseball team at Edgar Thomson Works.
To learn more running history:
Visit www.tedcorbitt.com
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Follow @corbittg on Twitter
Gary Corbitt's photo.

V 6 N. 32 May, 1966

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MAY 1966





    Bob Seagren, Tommie Smith and Jim Ryun, oh my. We've got the Kansas, Drake, Penn and Coliseum Relays, the Mt. SAC Invitational and “the greatest performance in the history of track and field” for you. Curl up in your recliner with a cup of hot cocoa and we'll tell you all about it.
  Kansas Relays
  April 21-23 finds us in Lawrence, Kansas for the Kansas Relays. On the first day Jim Ryun gives the crowd a reason to come back the next two days when he anchors the Kansas frosh distance medley with a 3:59.0 mile and a 53.6 last lap. On the 23rd here he is again, this time in the Glenn Cunningham Mile.
A faster pace puts him at 3:00.7 at the 1320 but leaves plenty in the tank for a 55.1 finish and a collegiate record of 3:55.8, breaking Bob Day's 3:56.4 set last year. You would think that would be enough, but Jim is a team guy. He rounds out his day with a 47.0 anchor on the Kansas frosh mile relay team. Jim turns 19 next week.
Penn Relays
    Marks at the Penn Relays the following week are depressed by the rain. Villanova sophomore, Dave Patrick provides excitement with a come from behind 4:04.6 mile in the distance medley to allow the Wildcats to take that trophy home.

Drake Relays
    On the same days, 1076 miles west, the sun is shining in Des Moines for the Drake Relays. Texas Southern upsets arch rival Southern in the 440 relay (40.2 to 40.6) but that's the only time Southern relay teams don't breast the tape. They come within a tenth of a second of Abilene Christian's WR in the 880 relay in 1:22.6 then add the mile (3:07.4), two mile (7:3l.2) and sprint medley (3:19.2) to their win total.
    The 480 yard shuttle hurdle relay isn't run often but this day's edition must be burned forever in the memory of Nebraska's Ray Harvey. Running the anchor with a two yard lead over Michigan State, he hits the last hurdle and goes down. MSU wins and sets a collegiate record of 57.4.
    Saint Cloud State may have found a distance runner in Van Nelson. The sophomore leaves two mile winner Oscar Moore ten seconds in arrears in winning the three mile in 13:29.2, then 19 hours later takes the six mile in 28:48.6, the fastest in the nation this year.
  

Mt. Sac  Relays
 Closing our eyes, clicking our heels together three times and repeating the phrase, “There's no place like Mt. SAC” and suddenly here we are on the very same weekend at the Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut, California.
    The running highlights are pretty much confined to “watch Tommie Smith on the anchor leg”. The San Jose junior puts on a jaw dropping exhibition of anchor leg running on both the 440 and 880 relays. He misses catching the Southern California Striders by a yard in the 440 but his acceleration stuns the fans. In the 880 relay he comes off the curve a yard behind USC's Fred Kuller then opens a staggering seven yards by the tape. In the world of sprinting at this moment there is Tommie Smith and then there is everybody else.
    The great marks are in the field events. USC's Gary Carlsen pulls the upset of the day, topping three time Olympic discus champion Al Oertner 195-0 to 194-8.
Dr Gary Carlsen,
now a dental surgeon in Huntington Beach , CA
would go on to make the US team in Mexico City
Ed Burke throws the hammer 223-11 to beat Hal Connolly by five and a half feet, only his second victory over the former Olympic champ and long time world record holder.
    Art Walker's 53-10 ¼ triple jump misses his American record by a mere ¾ inch. Ralph Boston takes the long jump at 26-4¼, but is pressed, as Gail Hopkins opens his outdoor season with a leap of 26-2 ¾ .
    John Pennel beats Sam Kirk in the vault on misses at 17-0 but it was Kirk who comes oh so close to clearing 17-5 and taking Bob Seagren's world record.
    The high jump provides a “how many times have you seen this?” moment. Terry Doe of San Jose State places ninth with a clearance of 6-10, the same height as the winner, Mike Lange of Arizona State. Something about attempts and misses.

Southwest Conference Championships
    The next weekend the Southwest Conference Championship, held in Austin, Texas, provides Texas fans with plenty to cheer about. Longhorns Richard Romo and Preston Davis take the mile and half mile in 4:05.9 and 1:48.9 and teammate Gil Smith wins both sprints, allowing Texas to upset Rice 58-55. If Romo's name sounds familiar it might be because he ran a sub four minute mile that was the school record for 42 years and has been the president of the University of Texas at San Antonio for the last 16 years.

Quantico Relays
    Kentucky State's Jim Kemp displays his versatility at the Quantico Relays, running a 1:49.4 anchor on the sprint medley (to beat Villanova), a 220 leg on the half mile relay and a 45.9 anchor on the mile relay as the Thoroughbreds win all three.
Mike Manley

Mike Manley last year in Eugene with your intrepid reporters

Mike Manley wins the steeplechase in a nation leading 8:52.4. Pat Pomphrey of Tennessee holds off Leon Coleman of Winston-Salem to win the high hurdles by a tenth in 13.7. Charlie Mays wins the long jump at 25-11 ½.

San Jose State All Comers Meet
And now for what Track and Field News terms “the greatest performance in all track and field”. Surprisingly it doesn't happen in a major competition, but a simple all comers meet. Perhaps “simple” is a misleading adjective as the meet takes place on the campus of San Jose State University, a major power in collegiate track. All the t's have been crossed and all the i's have been dotted as far as possible world record recognition is concerned.
    Although the 200 meters has been run on a curve for some time now, the straightaway 200 is still a ratified record race. That record is 20.0, set in 1956 by Dave Sime and equalled in 1962 by Frank Budd. It stood until the afternoon of May 7 when Tommie Smith settled in his blocks. Nineteen and one half seconds after the gun is fired the names of Sime and Budd are erased from the record books. The Portuguese Scoring Tables are consulted. Not only is this the greatest sprint race of all time, but it rates higher than Randy Matson's 70-7 shot put or Ron Clarke's 27:39.4 10,000.
Tommie Smith besting Lee Evans in 44.8
Smith comments, “I thought I had a good chance for the record, but it was my third race of the day and I hadn't concentrated on it or thought about it a lot.”
Coach Bud Winter says Tommie's increase in stride as the race progresses is significant. He has measured his stride from 120 yards out. How could this be possible? Here's how. It is a dirt track and no one has been permitted to step on the track in that portion of lane four all day. As soon as the race is over the tape measure comes out. His stride went from 8'5” at 120 yards to 8'7” at 200 to 8'9” for the last three strides.
    As other worldly as Tommie is as a sprinter, maybe this isn't his best event. He dabbles in the long jump, jumping a couple times in a few meets just to fill the time. His best mark is 25-11, but actually 26-10 from where he took off. Les Bond, his teammate and a 25-5 and 52-4 horizontal jumper says, “If Tommie concentrated on the long jump, he would certainly do 27 feet soon and 28 feet sometime.” Tommie's reply: “Les is a good friend.” Then he added, “But I do think it is possible”.
    As it stands at the moment, Tommie won't be entered in the AAU Nationals or any international meets this summer. He is committed to a summer camp in conjunction with his ROTC program. It begins the day after the NCAA meet.
    Note: In the Letters to the Editor column, reader George P. Meade vividly supports T&FNews' claim. “Tommie Smith's 19.5 200/220 seems valid with six watches showing 19.4 to 19.6 You advisedly class it as 'The greatest effort ever' in Track Newsletter, May 12. In one race Smith cut the furlong time by as much as all the great sprinters have been able to do in 40 years (Ronald Locke, 20.5 in 1926). In that 40 years, starting blocks have come into use and tracks have greatly improved.” Well put, George.

Coliseum Relays


John Tushaus

    Six days later and 400 miles south we are at the Coliseum Relays where fans see a world record and two American records. We should probably amend that to “a few fans”, as one AR is produced at 6:47 PM, before a mere thousand spectators. Arizona's John Tushaus, the NCAA champion, opens the javelin throw with a 241-10 effort. Nice throw, John, but no one is excited. That changes on his second throw which just keeps going and going and going....until it lands 284 feet away, an American record. Only three men have thrown further. He fouls on his next throw and, pretty sure he has won the event, retires for the evening.
   
 As great as Tushaus' throw is, it may not be the best field event performance of the evening. Randy Matson is back in form. He disposes of the possibility of a challenge by Neil Steinhauer with an opening throw of 69-2, a mark that only he has surpassed and then only twice. Steinhauer's 64-6, betters the 64-2¾ personal best of.....wait for it......Perry O'Brien, who demonstrates the possibility of potential in this event. Once the shot put competition is disposed of, Matson wins the discus at 195-11, especially impressive as he beats all the country's best throwers save the absent Al  Oerter.  Likely they will tangle soon.


The real fun takes place on the track. Four half milers at USC think they have a chance at Oklahoma State's 7:18.4 world record in the two mile relay. The competition – Texas and Villanova – is there and so is the tradition. The Coliseum Relays have produced a 2 mile relay world record four times in the last twelve years.

    John Link's 1:51.1 leg gives the Trojans a two yard lead on Villanova with Texas ten back on the first leg. The Wildcats and Longhorns close on Bruce Bess, but with 220 left, the Trojan accelerates and hands off with a nine yard lead after a 1:49.7 clocking. Dave Buck opens up twenty yards en route to a 1:48.8 split. But here comes Richard Romo of Texas, “the once great mile prospect now crippled with speed killing tendon injury”, who closes the margin to the original nine yards and moves the Longhorns past Villanova with the fastest non-anchor leg of 1:48.2.
Preston Davis
Ricardo Romo

     
Dave Patrick
Dennis Carr
 The record  is within sight. But here comes Villanova's Dave Patrick who passes Texas anchor, Preston Davis and pulls within six yards of SC's Dennis Carr, before Carr's steady pace pays off with a 1:47.8 split and gives the Trojans a 7:17.4 world record, a full second better than Okie State who set the mark two years earlier in this very meet. Davis rallies to give the Longhorns second in 7:18.6, two tenths ahead of Villanova.

As good as the two mile relay was, the open two mile may be even better. Let's see who is on the starting line. There is Bob Day. Next to him are former Oregon stars Dyrol Burleson and Jim Grelle. Here is the fast improving Tracy Smith. Nineteen year old Jim Ryun is waiting patiently for the competitors to be called to the starting line. Most of these guys are very effective wait and kick types. Someone has to set the pace. Not to worry, also in the mix is Kip Keino. No one in the stands is leaving to get popcorn.
    Will Keino set a fast enough pace to burn off America's four fastest milers? Well, sorta, kinda....no, not really. He leads through 3 laps in 3:09.3 with everyone in close attendance. The mile is reached in 4:13.6. Keino opens up a four yard lead on the next lap (5:17.8) but Day, Grelle, Burleson and Ryun, in that order, aren't going away. Smith has fallen back eight yards from Ryun. Keino allows the pace to drop to 66.4 on the sixth lap (6:24.2) and Grelle is on his heels followed by Ryun, Day and Burleson. A hundred yards later Day is on the infield grass writhing in pain. “I was feeling great. I was just ready to go. Something snapped in my right heel tendon. It just popped.”
    Day is gone and shortly thereafter Burleson falls off the pace. Now it is Keino, Grelle and Ryun. No time is given for the seventh lap but it had to be in the 64-65 range, playing into the hands of the big kickers. Keino has to drop Ryun and Grelle before it becomes flat out sprint. With 500 to go, he throws his orange cap to the infield and it is on. Ryun says he was thinking, “If he can keep up the kick from here in, he can have it.” Keino is flat out, but there isn't enough gas in the tank. Ryun strikes in the middle of the final curve. Grelle goes with him. Keino is done.
    With forty yards to go, Grelle pulls to within two feet of Ryun, but can gain no more. Their final lap is 56. 4. Both are credited with an American record of 8:25.2. No time is given for Keino, but his last lap is 61.5. Rudimentary math puts him at 8:30, give or take a few tenths. Smith passes Burleson for fourth as they finish in 8:37.4 and 8:39.6.
    The mile relay is significant as UCLA ends California's 34 meet winning streak in convincing fashion, 3:06.9 to 3:09.1.
    A day passes and we find ourselves 225 miles north on highway 99 in Ratcliffe Stadium on the campus of Fresno City College for the venerable West Coast Relays.
    The reward for driving our VW bus that far is Bob Seagren's world record vault of 17-5 ½ which removes Fred Hansen's name from the record books by 1½ inches. The 19 year old “ineligible Glendale JC sophomore” then tries the highest height ever attempted, 17-8. Doesn't happen, but we have the rest of the season to anticipate.
    Before Seagren's heroics, it appeared that Art Walker had the athlete of the meet award wrapped up. His 54-4 triple jump is an American record and tenth all time, a mere six inches out of second on the list.
    Remember those SC guys who set the two mile record last night? Well, they are at it again. Unfortunately Texas and Villanova aren't here to spur them on as Bruce Bess (1:49.7 last night) rips off a 1:47.8 on the second leg to put the Trojans in great shape to upgrade their record, but the competition is lacking. Dennis Carr (1:47.8 the previous evening) can manage only 1:49.6 on the anchor and the guys fall two tenths short of their Coliseum mark. Still and all, not a bad weekend for the cardinal and gold.
    As good as Seagren, Walker and the SC relay team are, the crowd has come to see Tommie Smith who has grown up in Lemoore, just 30 miles down the road. Smith will be running three relays. He anchors the San Jose State team to victory in the 440 relay, making up a deficit of eight yards on UCLA and New Mexico. The crowd anticipates his efforts in the 880 and mile relays but is disappointed as injuries to teammates cause the Spartans to scratch these events.

Big Eight Championship
    On the same weekend in Columbia, Missouri, Nebraska has a memorable Big Eight Championship meet. Led by Charlie Greene, who takes the sprints in 9.3 and 20.8, the Cornhuskers win their first league title in 16 years.
Charlie Greene




Boxed in the 100?  
Many of our readers are long time track guys, greatly experienced, tellers of great track and field stories. Okay, let's try this on for size. How many times have you seen someone lose a 100 yard dash because he was boxed?   See answer below?

Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association

     Return with us now to the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association meet in Petersburg, Virginia on this same weekend. Ed Roberts of North Carolina Central has won the 100 and 220 the previous three years. Doesn't happen this year.  For some unexplained reason, there are nine runners in the 100. That wouldn't be unusual except that there are eight lanes. Roberts is “boxed” and drops out so that he won't be injured. You can't make up stuff like this.

Northern Division Championships

    One might think that this weekend was already packed full with great achievements, but wait, there is one more. Gerry Lindgren has been down with the flu for the past month. He returned to competition last week with an 8:39.6 two mile, but that performance gave no indication what was to happen this week in the Northern Division Championships. On a cold, windy Saturday afternoon in Seattle, the Washington State sophomore passes two miles in 8:37 and keeps going for another mile, breaking his own American record of 13:04.2 and coming within six tenths of a second of Ron Clarke's three mile world record, clocking 12:53.0.

Pacific Athletic Conference Championships
    Another week has past and we are now at Stanford for the Pacific Athletic Conference Championship. UCLA doesn't have the injured Bob Day, but it matters little as the Bruins crush USC and defending NCAA champion Oregon 80-44-37. On this day Gerry Lindgren is feeling “tired all the way” but manages to take the three mile easily in 13:12.8 over UCLA's Geoff Pyne (13:20.6) and Oregon's Kenny Moore (13:26.2). The night before Moore took the steeplechase in 8:49.4 to become the favorite for the NCAA title. Teammate Bruce Mortensen also shaded nine minutes, finishing second in 8:59.8.


A Small Meet at Oxy
    A performance worth noting at a meet at Occidental College on that same day is a 45.2 anchor by Lee Evans of San Jose City College. We'll be watching to see if he develops.


We'll close with these signs of the time. The California Relays gifts winners of events – including all members of a relay team – a choice of a watch or a $75 radio. Wonder if anyone has one of those radios sitting on a mantle piece right now....... You may obtain sequence photos of technique of Jozeph Schmidt and Janis Lusis by sending a self-addressed envelope with ten cents postage to Dick Bank, 292 S. La Cienaga Blvd., Beverly Hills, Calif. 90211.

    Any of the above can and likely will be discussed when we gather at 6 o'clock Friday at the Dew Drop Inn. Last to arrive buys the second pitcher. Don't be late.

V 6 N. 33 Starting to get fired up for the Pre

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The Willamette River, Eugene, OR
Accent on the 'a' 



     In a couple of weeks Roy and I will be making our third consecutive trek to Eugene for the Prefontaine Meet.  This year  we've been accredited by no less than  the Diamond League  as free lance journalists.  Whoop Dee Doo!    I'll believe it when I see the badges at the press conference sign in on Friday afternoon. The first two trips culminated in visits  to Nike headquarters in Beaverton,   Bill Dellinger's home in Eugene , and attending a gathering with Pre's former UO team members at the bar where Pre once worked.  Interviews with Joe Kovacs and Renaud Lavillenie were face to face highlights with current world class athletes.

     Roy roads it up from Ukiah, California, and I drive down from the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island.  We're into our sixth year doing this blog now and sort of have a nonverbal deal of quitting when we hit the 1970 date of Roy's reviews of Track and Field News  fifty years after the fact.  We just put out the May, 1966 review.  Roy writes the review, I find the photos from various sources and our buddy Steve Price proofreads everything for accuracy.  The other stories come to us in a myriad of ways.  Readers send us ideas, some send us pieces they've written.  Sometimes looking for photos on Google Images leads us to other stories.

     Steve lives in Piqua, Ohio.  Yes, Virginia, there is a Piqua, Ohio.   Some of you may remember a fair to middln' road runner who hails from Piqua named Rick Callison.
I think he was an 8th place  Boston finisher back when.    How 'bout Bob Schul who grew up on a farm a few miles south of Piqua down Route 48 near West Milton?


Track Town Pizza,  a must stop when in Eugene.
One of the sites I'll be seeing the evening of May 28
     Back to the Pre,  some think that it may be the lesser of the three big meets in Eugene this year with the NCAA and Olympic Trials also on the menu.  That could be true.  It will lack the tradition of the college competition of the NCAA  and the drama of the Olympic Trials.   Some may also be questioning if the Pre is not a bit early for the world class athletes to be flexing their muscles with the Olympics coming in August.  Still the prize money offered by the Diamond League should draw in a few good aspirants.  Seeing twenty sub 4 minute miles in one afternoon though can  be more than  entertaining.   How many clear cut favorites to win medals in Rio will be there is yet to be determined.    One thing is sure ,  there will be a mob of appreciative fans and a gathering of some highly tuned athletes.   We can only wish the doping story was a non story but that's what the sport is today.  Yesterday the Russkies got slammed again in the world press with allegations that several of their  medallists at Sochi were proven to be doping.   We probably won't be seeing their athletes in Brazil this summer, but we won't miss too many big names except their hurdler Sergey Shubenkov. The Games have a recent history of abandonment, including the African boycott in Montreal, the US boycott in Moscow and the Russian reciprocity in Los Angeles, and  the US threat to abandon in Berlin.  But those were self imposed.  This one will be a withdrawl of an invite to the party.  Well, so it goes.   That's world politics.  Mankind just seems to always be trying to take advantage over one's neighbors, from  the first migrations out of Africa looking for easier prey to Homo Sapiens supplanting Neanderthal men in Europe, tipping their spears with bronze, to using long  bows at the battle of Agincourt,  to colonization of the world by Europe, and to modern recolonization by international corporations and agribusiness.  Corruption and cheating are more a way of life than we care to imagine.
One of first known cheaters using a bronze tipped spear.
      Greed seems to be what makes our world go round, not the love we are often led to believe.  Heard a politician say , "Love your neighbor" lately?  They he/she would get any votes with that campaign theme?

     Nevertheless we'll soldier on with this blog, because we get a lot of positive feedback from the people who read it.  Take care and have a great month of May.  

     Here is a piece on Pre sent to us by Ed Odeven who writes for the Japan Times.  We'll put some more of Ed's work on our blog in the future.  Thanks, Ed.

The Pre from Ed Odeven and Japan Times

V 6 N. 34 Reunions at Texas and Kansas Relays and some other stuff

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Last month a number of old timers  got together in Austin, TX   and Lawrence, KS to renew acquaintences, tell lies and remember what it was like to be young and fast and strong, not worried about professional careers, golf swings, and stock options.  Thanks to David Webb who led off some of UT's great relays in the mid 60s and Mike Solomon a transplanted SoCal runner in Lawrence who sent on these pictures.  Some are recognizable even today.  Others we provide names to go with the mugs.  Even a couple of interloping Aggies from Oklahoma State showed up in Austin, Dave and John Perry.   It's been great corresponding with some of these guys and they've contributed a lot of good stories and clippings to our blog the past few years.  Fleet feet to all of you.

Dave Perry (Oklahoma State 1:47) David Webb (1:51.7 U Texas)  John Perry(Oklahoma State 1:47)
George, 
Dave Perry to my right, John F Perry to my left (Texas had a John Perry also).  To my Upper right, Bill Elliott, 7'3+" high jump @ 1968 or 69 ( but not now).  Recall when asked by T&FN how Bill did it (took up the flop only ever in '68), he was quoted "I just run like hell and jump like hell." From Sonora in far West Texas, he was recruited only for LJ and HH.  I don't have a current photo of Jim Metcalf which is reason I posted the old news handoff to Perry.
Bob O'Bryan, Preston Davis, James Means all Longhorns
"John, please send these on to Dave, Arnold, Tom v and anyone else. Jim, John and Dave, I am so glad you came again to the Relays.  This is the first time I got to see you and visit and I hope we can do so again next year and for many years. I caption this photo "Two 1:47 guys trying to boost up a 1:54 guy!"  Still awes me how you guys came from hs quarter milers to world record half milers. I am really sorry you didn't get that 7:13 which you deserved in 1965."
   David Webb    

That weekend someone found a document crediting David with a 1:51 relay leg which made his day.  Dropped his PR. ed.
George, 
thank you so much for featuring us in your latest post.  Please edit a few corrections, if you don't mind.  First, it was me who found my time of 1:51.7 fifty years later in clippings I went through from a Bob O'Bryan scrapbook. The reason I didn't know about it in the first place  is that Kansas Relays had the only women's watches on a first come first serve basis. When we won, I dashed off to claim a watch for my girlfriend of the time. I never learned what my first leg of the relay time was until a few weeks ago going through those clippings. 
Second, you mention a quote I had with Jim Metcalf  (correction Dave Perry?) and John Perry and me in the picture. There are blanks and that they should be it should say "Two 1:47 guys boosting up a 1:52 guy."
Last, I did not improve my best by two seconds. In fact I had a 152.2 at the Southwest Conference meet the year before. However it was a delight to find after 50 years that I had actually been in a class like yourself, with a 151.7r!
Thanks again for all you do and all you write, George.  We really appreciate and enjoy you keeping 60s track ALIVE!

"Bob O'Bryan, MD, excelled at 220-440-880, anchored 440 relay, ran mile relay; Preston Davis,as you know, 880-mile-3 mile-CC Champ and, sorry you might disagree, but the greatest come-from-behind anchorman of his era!; and my permanent road trip roommate, James Means, 100-220 and superb 440 relay leadoff, did so for three Olympians on US Army team (including Charlie Greene of Nebraska)." David
Preston Davis and Ricardo Romo


Preston Davis and Ricardo Romo, others unidentified





KU Dudes  2016 KU Relays










Mike Solomon  (1973 Maccabiah  Games 1500 champion) ,  Jay Mason  (1972 O-Trials 5,000), Mickey Mathews (1968 O-Trials 100),  John Wilson (Long Jump)



Jim Neihouse,  Randy Julian(  WR DMR),  Thorn Bigley (WR DMR) ,  Jim Ryun (WR  4x880 indoor, 800, 1500, mile,  68, 72 Olympics)



Bob Bornkessel,  Gregg Vandaveer (13.5  110HH, pole vault),  Delario Robinson (NCAA finalist 110HH), Terry Porter (1976 Olympics PV)

Mike Solomon,  Mike Kearns,  Randy Julian,  George Byers (WR 60yd lows), Mickey Mathews, Rick Peterson



Jim  Metcalf from that OSU  WR two mile relay team sent the following photos and comments about the exchanges that they used.  These  were taken at the Texas Relays (1965?)

the photo of the hand off is between John Perry and Tom Von Ruden.  Tom ran the 3rd leg.   
The Mizzou guy is Charlie Conrad taking the baton from Bill Rawson.

Speaking of Bill Rawson , just out of this picture, in a few years he would lose his life in Viet Nam.  See link:
Several tributes written about him is you scroll down on the link.




close up of previous photo

Dave Perry finishes a step and a half ahead of Lingle.  Were the exchanges the difference?




What  do you think three of our hand offs like this...
see the Mizzou guy waiting...Tom is running.  we were all strong and always handed off in the last half of the zone...in  a smooth run... it was the difference in our world record and in many of our close sprint medley and two mile relays. The USA national team should use this hand off.  would never have a problem.

ed. They might not have time to practice together.  Often the teams aren't selected until the last minute with all the agents politicking to get their runners on the team.


I noticed the comment at the end of the bit on our hand offs.
I realize they don't have time to practice.  that is the beauty of this hand off.  It is such a natural running motion that it does not take more than a few minutes of practice to learn it.
In the modern pass the receivers hand is high up and wrist twisted and his hand is moving all over the place.  The hand off guy has to run with his baton hand held up high to put the baton into the moving hand.  Both are running in an unnatural way insofar as arm motion is concerned.
In out hand off , the receiver simply drops his open hand palm down to his side and holds it steady.   The hand off man slaps the baton into the receivers hand on the up stroke of a natural stride.  he never is looking for a moving target and his pumping motion of both arms is never compromised.
You can see that in the photo.
the only thing they have to get down, is when the receiver leaves his mark.
We did not spend time practicing hand offs.  that is how easy it is...
Please put my rebuttal at the end  of the story.
thanks

Jim Metcalf


More from Jim Metcalf:
yes...Dave was our anchor man.  This was 1963.
I ran lead off and John ran second.  John was one of the great relay runners in the country.  He was noted for breaking runners.  You can see how far he is ahead of Mizzou.   I gave him an even hand off with Bill Rawson.  Actually, John told me if it was going to be even, to drop back a couple of strides which I did.
He took the baton and ran right up beside Bill Rawson and got very close to him and looked him right in the eye for a few strides and then passed him and took off.
When we broke the world record, I gave John about a 5-8 yard lead over USC.  He ran his first 220 fast but not overly so, letting the USC guy catch him.  He then sped up so that he came thru the 440 at 52 and the USC guy must have been right at 50.  John was a very strong 3rd 220 runner and he broke USC in half and finished up in 1:47.5.  and was over 2 seconds ahead of USC.  They had been touted to beat us easily by the press.  The race was over.
Our senior year, John was anchor and he was incredible.  His record speaks for itself.  He was strong and he was tough.  He anchored us to victory in the sprint medley and two mile relay at Kansas and Drake against Preston Davis of Texas,  Charlie Christmas from ACC, and Peter  Scott from Nebraska who was national champion that year.  John also had a 46.5 on the anchor on the mile relay.
That summer at Compton, which was run in the Coliseum, he beat Bill Cruthers  and  George Kerr from Jamaica.

John was one of the greats.


George,

Would you post the following about Bill Rawson. By the way, I really wasn't staring him down.  I was just making sure that I wasn't cutting him off when I took the pace. 

Bill was a real gentleman and we were friendly competitors.  For some reason, Bill got really tired of track. It's my understanding that Marines wanted him to run on the Quantico Team but he chose Vietnam. 

"Bill Rawson taught me how to run a tough 880 back when I was a sophomore in 1964. In the Missouri Dual that year he led the race every step of the way, including the finish. He set the Missouri Stadium record with a 1:50.3 880. I was right there with a PR and a new appreciation of how to run a fast steady pace. We ran many times afterward.

He was a Marine Platoon leader just out of TBS in Quantico when he was killed in Vietnam, a  tragedy. I look at his name everytime I go to the Vietnam Memorial.


 I've attached a couple of photos from the Missouri yearbook."




Jim,

I was in the Marines and came in to run this DMR with the Pacific Coast Club at Mt Sac. First time that I ever handed off to John Mason. I supposed we practiced a couple of times on race day. Fastest DMR in the USA that year. 

John



From Ernie Cunliffe:  (A few of you may not remember Ernie if you are under the age of 60. However most of us do.  He ran for Stanford, set a WR for 1000  meters at the Knights of Columbus Games in Boston, and represented the US in the 800meters at the Rome Olympics and coached for many years at the Air Force Academy.

Ernie Cunliffe taking Dyrol Burleson to the first sub 4 mile on Oregon soil.

As all of you know I did not have a lot of natural speed.   Thus I was the 2nd leg on the Mile Relay due to my best
440 out of the blocks a pedestrian 49.2.   My theory was to receive the baton way up at the last part of the relay
zone, thus making my roommate Dick Lassen run a 450+ and I would hand off at the very lst part of the relay zone
giving me a great 420+ or - and make the 3rd guy also run about a 450.  This always gave me some pretty good relay times as the coaches timed the baton at the finish line for the relay legs.

For the 4 x 880 relay I always anchored so I took the 3rd runners baton way at the lst part of the relay zone since
my mile runs had given me a lot of strength.   Thus I ran about a 900+ or - and the 3rd guy a 860.

We never worried about the baton hand offs but I note that Okla State had some pretty slick exchanges.







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