University
of University Archives
16
THE SATURDAY EVENING POST
July 11 .193 6
Not So Fast
PERCY C . MADEIR A
(Amateur One-Mile Champion of America, 1884 )
I
had come a long way to see that mile race . A
long way . that is, for a man seventy-three years
old . I had read about Cunningham, Bonthron ,
Venzke and Lovelock . I had read about 4 :1 0miles
and 4:O8 miles and even 4 :06 miles, and my curiosit y
had got the better of me . I wanted to see wha t
manner of men these were who were waggling thei r
fingers derisively at Father Time .
I have never lost interest in running . I could n ' t
have lost interest if I had wanted to . For, thirt y
years after I hung up my spiked shoes, my son Loui s
made the American Olympic Team in th e150-mtr
race . and to say that I was interested in following hi s
track care e r would be putting it mildly .
From my easy chair I had visualized them a
ing legs of piano wir e and rubber. and thighs
shav an d
bodies streamlined in some miraculous fashion .
"Maybe. " I thought, "there has been a New Deal i n
muscles and tendons, in endurance and coordination
and vital energy . Maybe young men nowadays hav e
bigger hearts and roomier lungs . Maybe they hav e
invented a new way of burning up fatigue poison .
Maybe they are just naturally born faster thes e
days . "
The starter ' s gun coughed a dry, hacking cough
down on the floor of the Palmer Stadium, an
.
dlong-musce bantoupsce
Cunningham was setting the pace, wit hLovelck
just back of his shoulder . Their spiked shoes didn ' t
leave marks on the track . In the old days, cup mark s
showed when the spikes went in . Sometimes . i n
those old days . the spikes would bend or break whe n
they struck a hard clinker or a big cinder.
They ran easily, well within themselves, for three
laps .
Looking Backwar d
HE gun coughed once more . This time for th e
"gun lap . " Lovelock finished first . The hands o f
T
the big electric clock at one end of the field showe d
approximately four minutes and twelve seconds . an d
the crowd muttered . They were disappointed . They
had come to see a world ' s record broken . They ha d
come to accept broken world ' s r ecords as a matter
of course .
I didn't see the runners walk off the track and Pic k
up their sweaters and sweat pants . I didn't see th e
barbered and manicured track with each wrinkl e
pressed out of it by a steam roller . I didn't see feet
reaching out spiked shoes of
kangaroo hide to pull in th e
cinders, limbs glistening wit h
wintergreen and oil from th e
rubbers' hands, and flat stom achs filled with the remnant s
of a scientifically prepared
meal eaten at just the prope r
interval before the rac e . I sa w
a different scene. There was no
Ted Husing in it . telling unseen millions of a close finish ,
through a portable sending set .
There were no 40,000 spectators sitting on the slope of a
a trotting-horse truck . I saw him running on a
dirt track in a pair of sneakers, and afterwar d
putting on his street clothes over the dirt an d
sweat, because there were no showers . Then h e
went home in the horsecar once more .
Sneaker Versus Spik e
THAT boy was myself . The time was 1879.
During the week when I couldn' t go to th e
horse tracks . I ran around city blocks to ge t
wind, and I developed my muscles in a gym ,
swinging Indian clubs and dumbbells . As fo r
diet, this was what I was told to do :
" Keep out of the dust, or. when you are in i t,
put a handkerchief over your nose and mouth .
so that you will not breathe dust . Little or n o
water . confine yourself if possible to a glas sa
day . Very rare beef and mutton ; go easy o n
vegetables and fruit . Cut out sugar, drink tea
instead of coffee at your meals, stale bread, o r
toast, without butter . "
Wendell F . Raker, Who Finished a Quarter Mile i n
That was my "scientific" diet, but I did no t
47 3/4 Seconds on a Dirt Track, Wearing On eSho
follow it .
Instead of the oval ribbon of pressed cinders i n
the Palmer Stadium, I saw the track marked out o n champions of a bygone day and the champions o f
the grass at the old Germantown Cricket Club, wher e t oday . But even knowing that . I'm going to take a
the University of Pennsylvania held a meet . Th e crack at it . We know how fast the present-day cro p
track was marked out on the cricket pitch by stakes of trackmen can run, and we know how fast the old and a rope . A lot of the contestants didn ' t hav e timers could run . or do we? That last question i s
spiked shoes . They ran in tennis shoes or sneakers . what I am getting at .
The fans stood up to look and walked around .
As far us the sports writers and track fans of toda y
That night when I reached home after watchin g are concerned, the debate is ended before it begins .
Lovelock's victory, I got out my pencil and paper an d
They say . "All you ' ve got to do is look at the records .
did some figuring . Lovelock, Cunningham . Venzk e Cunningham and Hornbostel and Eastman an d
and Bonthro n had not had piano-wire-and-rubbe r Peacock would make them all look as if they wer e
legs and streamlined bodies at all . Their legs were n o running in sand up to their ankles . "
longer, their muscles were no stronger, their lungs
To the people who talk like that, I have only on e
and hearts no bigger than the muscles and lungs an d
thing to say : "Sometimes they did run in sand up t o
hearts of the men I had run with fifty years before .
their ankles . " I ran a race on the old track of th e
Williamsburg Athletic Club, at Brooklyn, on SeptemThey lived no cleaner . They worked no harder to ge t
themselves into shape . I have checked on these ber 27, 1884. The Spirit of the Times said, in it s
points. "What have they got , " I asked myself, "tha t follow-up story of the meet, "The track in man y
places was nothing but sand, ankle deep, throug h
we didn ' t have? " After a while I figured it out .
The answers may not satisfy you . But they satis- which the runners had to wade . "
But what about the results of my paper and penci l
fied me, and I don't think that it is merely the wis h
and figuring ?
being father to the thought .
First, I told myself, they have faster tracks . Th e
I realize that if there is one thing more fruitles s
and futile in sports writing than another, it is on e tracks of today are constructed by track engineer s
with a base of heavy cinders, a layer of clay and a
of these imaginary contests on paper about the
conretbwl,kighrou
binoculars and holding expensive souvenir programs .
I saw a skinny boy with leg s
so long he seemed to be spli t
almost to his collar button .
was lugging a battered leathe r
satchel over cobblestones .H
e
climbed into a horsecar whic h
ran in the general direction of
He
The Muybridge Animal Locomotion Pictures of the Author Using His One Mile Pace. A Forerunner
.
THE SATURDAY EVENING POS T
Lon Myers . Who HeId Enough
Records for Three
Men . Ranging, All the Way From 100 Yards to One Mil e
layer of fine cinders on top . They are planned fo r
resilience and spring . They are planned to drai n
easily . They are swept and rolled before big races .
They are cared for constantly, every day, until the y
are like billiard tables .
According to Mr . William J. Bingham, Director of
Athletics at Harvard University . it has been estimated that the pr esent stadium track is about si x
seconds faster than the first Harvard stadium track ,
the one built in I897 .
Lawson Robertson, the Olympic coach, who know s
more about track athletics than any other man I
know, is of the opinion that the track in the Olympi c
Stadium at Los Angeles, which has a base of peat, is
some seconds faster than the Harvard track .
It was on a fifth-of-a-mile track, with two mor e
turns to the mile than the modern quarter-mil e
track, that the early Intercollegiate Association an d
the National Association held their meets .
Second, today we have tenth-of-a-second sto p
watches . Fifty years ago, the stop watches cut the
seconds into quarters, later into fifths, and now int o
tenths . If a man ran a hundred yards in nine an d
eight-tenths seconds fifty years ago, his time woul d
be recorded as ten seconds . In order to get a better
of
the Motion Picture . Above— William Byrd Page
record, he would have had to run fast enoug h
to register nine and three-fourths . and h emight
have had to run it in nine and six-tenths t o
have cut his official time down to nine an d
three-fourths seconds .
I asked Lawson Robertson what advantage
it would be fair to say the tenth-second sto p
watch gives the present-day runner, and h e
said, "The advantage would be about twotenths of a second . "
Third, the modern crouching start . All race s
used to start with a standing start when I wa s
running . Mike Murphy . who developed th e
crouch start . used to say it was worth a tent h
of a second to a runner . Robertson thinks it i s
worth more than a tenth of a second .
Fourth . the 220 used to be run around a curve ,
and the start was at the beginning of the curve .
The lanes were not staggered : in fact, there
were no lanes . The result was a crowding of th e
contestants, a jostling and pushing and elbowing, and an inability r e ally to get under wa y
until the straightaway was reached . A man on
the outside sometimes had to run yards farthe r
than a man on the pole . I asked Robertson t o
figure the time advantage the modern 22 0
straightaway gave a runner .
"One full second . " he said .
I asked him . " What about the elimination o f
one curve from the quarter mile? We used t o
run it around two curves . By the time the runners have hit the first curve now, they ar e
straightened out, and all scrambling and jockey ing has been eliminated . "
Robertson thinks that a man running a quarter around one curve instead of two has a tim e
advantage of eight-tenths of a second before he
even steps on the track .
In addition to these things . I thought of others .
no less important to my mind . As a matter of fact .
pe rhaps more important than improved tracks ,
crouching starts and tenth-secon d
watches .
First, expert coaching.Serond,cm
competition . Third, a new mental ceiling .
17
before, left off. as far as a knowledge of technique i s
concerned .
In my day . we taught ourselves . Or we comp e ted
untaught . We sailed over hurdles instead of clippin g
them scissorwise, because we didn't know any bet ter . We flung ourselves at a broad jump take-off o r
at the high jump and vaulting crossbars with a will .
but without the placing of colored pegs at certai n
mathematically spaced intervals along the runway .
worked out to a fraction of an inch by a coach . W e
didn ' t know about moving the vaulting standards
back from the pit when the bar climbed higher, s o
that our trajectory would lift : we hit the jumping
take-offs helter-skelter, either inches behind or foul ing, instead of so judging our run that every last inc h
would he utilized .
Stepchildren of the Cinders
UR old ash vaulting poles had no spring . The y
O were of heavy wood which was clumsy to manip-
ulate . and there was no box sunk into the ground int o
which to thrust your pole while vaulting, as is th e
case now . We didn ' t know that a pole of bamboo
would act as a catapult and throw a man inche s
higher in the air . We thought we were lucky if the
ash pole didn't break in midair and impale a vaulte r
on its jagged halves .
We had no trainers who made us check our weight s
on a chart before and after each practice, to se e
whether or not we were drawing our edge too fine .
Nobody told us what to do each day in order to approach a race at the peak of condition . No coach o r
manager took care of all the petty and annoying little details of buying tickets, arranging hotel accommodations . transportation to and from the meet . an d
of seeing that our baggage was in the dressing roo m
for us when we got there . No manager kept an ey e
on the progress of the meet and saw to it that we we r e
warmed up in time and out on the track to r e port t o
the clerk of the course .
(Continued on Pa te 7 7
Educating Feet
HE clubs, colleges, universities,
Thigh schools and prep schools o f
today employ men whose business i t
is to polish and perfect the form of th e
young men under them . They kno w
about rhythm, timing, co-ordinatio n
and obtaining a maximum r esul t
from the minimum effort . They mak e
sure that their teams will go into
compe tition knowing all that the
champions know, by the use of slo w
movies, charts, diagrams and measurements .
Their stars begin where th e
champions of last year. and the year
Who jumped Nine Inches Higher Than His Own Head
. to a World's Record
THE SATURDAY EVENING POS T
77
NOT SO FAS T
Continued from Page 1 7
And we paid our own expenses .
The following table gives th
number only about 500 were good
Competition today is sharply differethoricalpfmne186adthcu
l enough to enter a track-championshi p
ent from the competition of my day . performance of 1935 :
meet. Today . in Germany alone, there
The number of contestants in one o f
are upwards o f
our national championships of toda y
350,000 men ta king
would be about equal to the number
an active par t
Distance 1886 1935
of spectators in an average meet of
in track and fiel d
fifty years ago . The number of athletes
athletics, and i n
who competed in a fixture like the
220 yards
America ther e
440 yards straightaway
Penn Relays last year was greate r
must be 1,000,000
440 yards around track
than all the track athletes in the worl d
I suppose tha t
s 880 yard
when I first ran in a race . Th emodrn
only a few old 1 mile
Olympic Games were years away . The
timers like mysel f
number and quality of competitors t
have ever heard
No curves, eight-tenths second eliminated
odaycntbuforceahtle o
of Wendell Baker ,
faster and faster tim es by sheer presof Harvard : L . E .
sure of numbers, if by nothing else .
If these adjustments are correct, i t Myers, of the Manhattan Athleti c
And last, but not least, there is the would appear that the men of fift y Club : W . H . Goodman, of Harvard :
matter of a competitive mental ceiling . years ago ran nearly as fast as the me n H . S . Brooks, Jr . . of Yale : H . H . Lee ,
When a young man of today steps ou t of 1935 . The greatest discrepanc
of the University of Pennsylvania : and
onto the track to run a quarter mile, he
yap earstobeinthehalfmile,fortheme n W . G . George, of England . But thei r
does so with the knowledge that a of today run this relatively faster tha n names were magic names to conjur e
human being has run the distance i n the other distances . Robertson tell s with fifty years ago . Whenever me n
forty-six and a fraction seconds . I n me it was only about twenty yearsago
gathered for athletic conversation ,
his mind, consciously or subconsciously . that men really learned how to run th e their feats were hashed over and dishe tells himself, "If Bill Carr and Be n half mile .
cussed and rnarveled at .
Eastman can do it . I can do it . "
The rules under which the shot an d Horace Lee ran the hundred in te n
The dash man of today thinks i n hammer were thrown fifty years ago flat on grass, and he had a way of beatterms of nine and two-fifths and nine are entirely different from the rules i n ing the other ten-second men by a
and five-tenths seconds . The pole vault- forcetoday,sothatnocomparisoni
s couple of yards . An old professiona l
er ' s goal is fourteen feet, and i
possible in these events .
runner, Scotty McMasters, told me h e
limbing toward fifteen feet inch by
sc inch .
The hurdles are now run over indi- had frequently timed Lee in bette r
Even prep-school hurdlers have at mar k vidual barriers and in individual lanes . than ten seconds, and that with a watc h
of fourteen and a half second sburned
Each hurdle is built so that it tips over that cut a quarter of a second . "Eve n
into their brains . They don ' t allo w when it is touched, without necessaril y time " for the hundred was reached a s
themselves to aim at anything less .
breaking a hurdler ' s stride . In my day , early as 1878 . The ten-second mar k
If, as most coaches will tell you ,90
there was one stiff bar all the way acros s acted as a sort of barrier . I t was uniper cent of being a champion is abov e the track . held by rigid supports a t versally agreed that no man could ru n
the ears, such a mental attitude canno t each end, so that if a hurdler tipped i t faster than that, and many a docke r
help but put wings on a runner's feet . he went down on his face . With no holding a watch on men lik eLand
When I was running . our ideas of lanes marked and no individual hurdle s Baker and Wendell could not believ e
a competitive limit were a four-thirt y for each man . crowding and jostling his own eyes when the hands showed a
mile, a fifty-second quarter, or a two- was the usual thing . Hurdlers . know- fraction less than ten flat . and, rather
minute half . And the men we ra n ing the fate in store for them if they hi t than be laughed to scorn and put dow n
against had the same mental ceiling . a hurdle, cleared it with plenty t o as incompetent timers . announced th e
I have tried to work out a compara- spare . They saile d
tive chart showing the advantagein
through the air a t
seconds which the changes that hav e it, and not unti l
100 yards
10 sec.
Held by a number of men .
taken place in the bare mechanics o f the individua l
220 yards 22 sec. Wendell B aker in 1886
.
track athletics give the athlete of t
hurdle came int o
440 yards straightaway . Wendell Baker in 1886 .
440
yards
(two
turns)
odayverhisboterfityearsgo . use did
Alvi n
L
.
E. Myers in 1881 .
12 mile
1 min., sec . L. E. Myers in 1885 .
I have had them checked by Lawso n Kraenzlein inven t
1 mile (professional)
4 min ., 12 3/4 sec.
W. G. George in 1883.
Robertson, who agrees that I hav e the step-over tech1 mile (amateur)
4 min . . 21 2 5 sec .
W . G . George in 1882 .
been fair in my allowances and that my nique whic hmade
basis of comparative times is sound .
hurdle jumpin g
I have not taken into consideratio n nothing more o r
such intangibles as more expert coach- less than an extra long stride with the result as ten seconds flat in loud, dete
ing, more intense competition and a hurdle in the middle of it . With the old
. I n England, any time orminedvocs f
new mental ceiling .
sail the hurdler didn ' t come down ru
less than ten and one-fifth seconds wa s
n i g,ashedoes viewed with dark suspicion .
today
. There was
The world's records as they existe d
a distinct pause in 1886 are given in the table a fe w
WatchesCuing1/0teadof5scn
Crouching Start FASTER TRACK TOT
AL
ADVAN
TAGEOHLFDAY
after each hurdle linesabov
IN
.
REDUCTION IN CURVES
while he gathered
Take that mile mark, for example .
himself for th e Literally . thousands of milers have
100 yards
run to the nex t made assaults upon it, and in fifty-thre e
220 yards
hurdle .
years we have only been able to lowe r
440 yards
Track athletic s the record a litt le more than five seconds.
880s yard
fifty years ag o
A description of Baker's famou s
1 mil
e
were confined t o shoeless quarter-mile race in which h e
a few Easter n established a world's record of forty colleges . Ne w seven and three-quarters seconds wa s
Repeating the old re c ords for these York amateurs, Oxford an dCambrige
printed in The Spirit of the Times . Th e
distances and deducting the adjust- universities in England . the Iris h
shoe, by the way, is now in the troph y
ments referred to, it is found :
universities, the harriers and the pro- case at Harvard . The laces have neve r
fessionals o f just been untied since Baker tied the m
England . The before the race .
186 total number
186
Distance 1886 RECORDS
The description of the race follows :
THEORICAL ADJUSTMEN Records
ofPERFOMANC track athTHE
FASTEST
IN
THE
WORLD
letes in th e
100 yards
At Beacon Park . Boston . Mass . . July 1 .
world i n180
220 yards
The track was laid out on one of th e
probabl
y
440 yards
straight sides of Beacon Park . which is a
would no
440 yards (curves)
trotting track, the portion use d
t exceed 1500 or one-mile
880 yards
being perfectly level .
1 mile (professional
2000
)
. and i t
440-yard run—W . Baker, 220 yards .
1 milers (amateur)
is probabl e
that of tha t 440 yards,
F he won 't clean his pipe and give
I up that coal-gas tobacco, clip thi s
ad and lay it beside his easy chai r
along with a pack of pipe cleaner s
and a tin of Sir Walter Raleigh . ' Ti s
thus many a loving wife has freed he r
home from tobacco far too strong and
odorous for this sensitive world, Si r
Walter Raleigh is a fascinating blen d
of extra-mild and extra-fragrant Kentucky Burleys . Smoked regularly i n
a well-kept briar, it makes the ai r
dearer and sweeter, and sour curtain s
stay fresher . Sir Walter is a sure cure
for nose-bite and tongue-bite . And
how men are buying it at onl y15cents
a tin! Now it' s your move !
FREE
Brown and Wil iamson Tobacco Company Louisvil e, Kentucky
.
said,
78
J u ly 11, 1936
THE SATURDAY EVENING POST
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Sani-Flush
KEEPS RADIATORS CLEA N
Makes 10 BIG, COO L
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FOR picnics, at meals and in-between ,
Kool-Aid makes the perfect summer
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Kool-Aid Ice Cream Sherbet is delicious. Kool-Aid ice cubes add a touc h
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fruit flavors. Recipes are on each package .
The quarter-mile track was measured by
Mr . Goldie and Mr . Avery, assisted by
several Harvard students . and there is n o
possibility of error in their length .
Mr . Goldie noticed that Baker's left
shoe was split down a little at the heel . and
inbge called his attention to it . but th er
no means at hand of repairing it . h e
thought he would risk it in the quarte r
mile . At the start of the quarter, Goldie
said, " I do not think you will get throug h
with that shoe " ; but Baker answered, " I
can't help myself, and must try it ." A t
the 220-yard mark, it was evident to th e
timekeepers that Baker was in trouble
with his shoe. At 250 yards he began to try
to kick it off . and suceeeded at little furthe r
down, measurement subsequently made t o
where the shoe fell after he thr e w it of
f
showing it to have been just 285 yard s
from the start, so that he ran the final 155
yards with one shoe and one bare foot . Th e
track was not as severe on the bare ski n
as a cinder path is, but there was som e
fine gravel on the surface, and when Bake r
re finished . some portions of his foo twe
raw and bleeding .
At the finish, J . M . Giibbons, not an official, caught 47 ., F . B . Fisk, an official .
47 ;s., and G. M . Avery 47s ., and a hair' s
breadth over
. Taking the longest time,
as usual, in record matters, it was give n
as43/47s
.
Yeomans on scratch . I was give n
twenty yards on Yeomans . The others
were given from sixty to eighty yards .
Yeomans caught up with me in the
first hundred yards . and together w e
caught up with the others . I kept waiting for Yeomans to dash ahead an d
make that advertised new world's rec ord, but when we were 150 yards fro m
home and Yeomans hadn't left me
be hind, it occurred to me that perhap s
he was tired, too, and his mouth wa s
full of cotton wool just as mine was .
The thought acted upon me like a stim ulant . and I speeded up . Yeoman s
only went one-half of the way an d
stopped . There was still one of th e
eighty-yard-handicap men in front of
me ; but, having passed Yeomans, I ha d
little trouble in passing him, and I cam e
in first . We were the only ones who finished the race . One man had dropped
on the track and we had run wide t o
avoid him . The time was tour minute s
thirty-two and one-fifth seconds .
I can remember only one occasion i n
which I was mor e nervous than before
that race with Yeomans . Burr W .
McIntosh organized the Keystone
Athletic Club, of Pittsburgh . and inThis clipping brings home the poin t vited various trackmen from the Eas t
that the old system of tinting was t o to the inaugural meet . When I arrived I
take the slowest time if the watche s found that they had no opponents for
disagreed . Nowadays it is customary me and that I was supposed to do a n
to take the middle watch if three o r exhibition run, either the mile or hal f
more watches are stopped with varyin g mile . I was further told that I was t o
figures .
referee a two-mile walking match .I
refused as firmly as I could . since I
A Great Athlete's Speed Formul a
knew nothing of heel-and-to e walking .
But McIntosh waved the program i n
L . E . Myers was at the top of the front of my eyes and said that m y
athletic ladder in those days, or at leas t name was printed in it as walkin g
he was until Wendell Baker east hi s judge and 1 couldn't let him down .
440 into a shadow . Myers won twentyThe two contestants were bitter rieight national championships in hi s vals . One represented the gashouse ,
time . Fifteen in the United States, te n the other the steel works . So bitte r
in Canada and three in England .
were they that they had refused to le t
Like all of the stars of his day, he
a Pittsburgh man referee their match .
worked out his own theories on
I told McIntosh that I wouldn't jo g
running . He had no one to tell him, n o two miles around that horse trac k
highly paid coach to figure things ou t watching two pair of feet heeling an d
for hint . One day he let me in on hi s to e ing after I had given my exhibitio n
secret . It still has the ring of geniu s run, so he arranged to have me drive n
to me .
after the walkers in a horse and buggy .
He said : "Don't run on the ground :
run over it . Lengthen your stride an d
A Race for Bloo d
reach for the ground in front of you, so
that you pull yourself over the groun d
McIntosh told me in confidence tha t
instead of pushing yourself over it . when I reached the last lap of the race ,
You must develop your body muscles . about a hundred yards from the finish ,
for you cannot lift your leg with an y two or three of his friends would mee t
muscle in your leg . The lift mus tcome
me with revolvers in their pockets an d
from the body . Spend next winter i n would protect my exit through a sid e
the gymnasium jogging—lifting you r gate . A little colored boy clucked to th e
knees as high as possible in front of you , horse, and the race for blood was on .
throwing your feet as far in advanc e Hicky and Beltzhoover's walking wa s
as you comfortably can. This will de- more like a run than any walking I hav e
velop the body muscles and incr ease ever seen before or since . I leaned from
the stride, for the fewer steps you take, the buggy, cautioning them every fe w
the shorter the distance . "
feet, but my hints fell upon deaf ears .
After working out Myers ' trainin g Occasionally they would take time ou t
ideas in the gym all winter, I found I
from hating each other to give me
a
could run easier and faster. In the firs t
black look . When we r eached the las t
race I ran ten seconds faster than I ha d lap . I hopped out of the buggy as fas t
ever run before, and the following Sa
as I could and disappeared .
turdayIchimeowntscd s
I never heard the r esult of that race .
more . I entered the New York Ath- Somehow I was glad to forget al l
letic Club's Spring Handica pGames
about it .
on June 7, 1884 . It was the first time Having given it picture of Baker i n
I had ever run in New York . I can stil l action, it is only fair to say something
feel the lost and lonely sensation tha t of Lon Myers, who, with W . G . George ,
engulfed me on the elevated train t o Baker and William Byrd Page, was
the Mott Haven grounds a t150h
one of the gr eatest stars of my time .
Street . I can still r e call how sear ed I
When Myers retired, the sports writers
was when I saw huge posters at ever y laid them se lves out to pay him tribute .
station advertising the fact that E .M
.
And he deserved it .
Yeomans would attempt to h eat th e
American record for the mile run tha t n In the history of athletic sports ,Lo
Myers is and always will be pre-eminent .
afternoon . The letters on those poster s No
man before him made a record tha t
seemed ten feet high to me . There will compare with his, and th
couldn ' t be any larger letters in th e .ie(sTahrytdn'omwil
eprobailt
t
world, as far as I was concerned . There counted on Baker .) In seven years he ha s
were eight entries for the mile, with proved himself the greatest runner at all
distances b etween 100 yards and threequarters of a mile that the world ever
saw . . . : He has done what no other ma n
ever did . i . e . . hold records front 100 yard s
to 1000 yards .
Ile also holds the following records :
50 yards
75 yards
100 yards
110 yards
120 yards
Mm yards
300 yards
400 yards . .
440 yards
500 yards
600 yards
880 yards
1000 yards
mile
1 mile
7 3 4 seconds
. 10 seconds
. .
. . . .
2Q
seconds
.
3 min ., 13 seconds
4 min ., 27 3 seconds
Those records at : 50..71205
.
200 .300. 400 . 440, 500, 600 , 8 80 and 100 0
yards were the best ever made by an amateur . Those at three-quarters and one
mile were the best made by an America n
amateur .
I submit that Lon Myers was quit e
an athlete .
A Place in the Su n
in these days of indoor meets whic h
pack Madison Square Garden . of running tracks laid in armories and on th e
athletic fields of our colleges and universities in the winter months, of
Y . M . C . A . board tracks and eve n
prep-school board tracks. of fiel d
houses and gymnasiums all over th e
country, it is hard to visualize the conditions brought out in the foreword t o
the program of the sixteenth annua l
spring games of the New York Athletic
Club held on June 7, 1884 .
The New York
ATHLETICClubhose
I t is remarkable that most of our large
cities have . as yet . nothing worthy of th e
name of a first-class gymnasium . Th e
principal gymnasium of New York today
is down in a cellar . and so shut in by build ings that the sun has to make violent ef forts to get in at all, while the accommodations are indifferent—nothing to wha t
they should b e . . . . It is not too muc h
to say that attractive and well-equipped
gymnasia scattered through the wards o f
our cities . . . would . . . not only pa y
roundly in money, but would save man y
youths from moral and physical ruin .
whose evenings are now spent in wasting
their strength instead of recruiting it .
The New York Athletic clu b
proposed to remedy this sad state of affairs by er ecting a new clubhouse a t
the southwest corner of Fifth A venu e
and 55th Street .
I cannot leave that program withou t
quoting from a remarkable bit of
writing which appeared there, called
A Woman's Vie w of
ATHLETIC S
No wonder the old Greeks worshiped
the perfect human form . No wonder th e
women on the grandstand of the Ne w
York Athletic Club stole admiring glances
with their cheeks flushing as the game s
progressed ..Curse,notldb
t
deep . rang up from the crowd of bettin g
men below the grandstand, making th e
women turn pale and flush by turns wit h
the wild excitement of the moment .
Training innovations were slow i n
coming
.
In an old copy of Outing . th
esandivtgofhesw
eadvntg
r
bath for athletes are described :
Before going further, it may be well t o
discuss the merits of shower baths for dis tance runners. An athlete will be foolish t o
take them if they are repulsive . They d o
more harm than good if the subject does
not take kindly to them, for there is n o
(Continued o n Page 80
80
THE SATURDAY EVENING POST
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A few drops of 'Vaseline' Hair Toni c
rubbed into the scalp every mornin g
during the summer will counterac t
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water . . . protect and supplement th e
natural scalp oils . . . keep the hair i n
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a bottle handy at home and one i n
your locker, and use them regularly .
STOP AT THE DRUG STORE and lay in a supply
of 'Vaseline' Hair Tonic today . Read the folder o n
scalp and hair care that comes 'round the bottle .
too, will you? Made by Chesebrough Manufacturing Co., Cons'd ., 17 State Street, New York.
Vaseline HAIR TONI
Reg. U.S. PAT. OFF Copr. 1936 .
C
July 11 . 193 6
(Continued from Page 78 ,
mixed up with my part in the making
question about them being a sh oc k to suc h of one of the first motion pictures eve r
an athlete . and continued indulgence i n made .
them will affect his vitality . . . .
It was photographed at the UniverSome professional trainers forbid showe r sity of Pennsylvania in 1884 by a Mr .
baths under any consideration, other s
Eadwear d Muybridge, and part of th e
.
allow them in moderation
cast was myself . Which makes me on e
I
think William Byrd Page was on e of the earliest movie performers . An d
of the most remarkable athletes I this is how it all came about :
ever saw .
Mr . Muybridge, who was a Swiss .
I knew him from the time when h e was commissioned to perfect experiw as a little boy, when his ankle an d ments he had just begun at Lelan d
knee joints were not strong and he was Stanford University in photographin g
obliged to wear heavy iron braces fro m motion in animal life . The studio i n
his waist to his feet . When he was which these early pictures weremad
about eleven he was given a bicycle . was nothing more than a shed withou t
He practically lived on it . and it de- any roof . It was painted black inside .
veloped the most beautifully muscled Opposite the wall was the camera shel f
legs I ever saw .
holding twenty-four cameras . Anothe r
As soonashilegbcamuf,
e row of cameras was placeed so as t o
began to high-jump . He fitted up cross- take a fore-and-aft view . his intricat e
bars in his back yard an dpractie
arrangement gave a record of th e
for hours .
mode l ' s movements, when th eamrs
By the time he went to college in th e photgras were set off in rotation by an electri c
C lass of '87, he was jumping more tha n
.
five feet . He raised this height until h e Mr. Muybridge got out a prospectu s
cleared the bar at six feet . four inches — of his work, in an effort to sell sets of
nine inches over his height, and the his plates.
world's record .
The prospectus was called :
He had worked out his ow
An
Electro-Photographic investigation o f
ique . His take-off was from fiventech to si x Consecutive
Phases of Animal Movements
feet from the bar . He approached it i n
a series of bounds, running straight a t
The 781 plates described in the c atait . then gathering himself under th e logue comprise more than 20.000 figures
shadow of the bar itself . bounding of men, women, children . animals an d
straight up in the air like a rubber ball . birds, all actively engaged in walking ,
twisting his feet and body in the ai r galloping, flying . working, playing ,
and landing facing the bar .
fighting, dancing, or other actions incidental to everyday life . which illustrate motion and the play of muscles .
A Grasshopper of the 80's
The photographs were taken at inHow high he cold have gone wit h tervals of one-fiftieth of a second, wit h
this natural spring using th emodrn
an exposure not exceeding one fiv e
W estern rol -over, or live, and with a coac
h thousandth part of a second .Mr
.
to help him who could teach him al l Muybridge announced with justifiabl e
the modern refinements and econom y pride, "The author believes that wit h
of clearage when clearing the bar . I the facilities at his command he will be
can ' t say . My guess would be that h e able, in the completeness of his work, t o
could have clear ed twelve inches ove r satisfy the diversified requirements o f
his head instead of nine . I defy the Art, of Science and of popular interest . "
present crop of grasshoppers to bette r
I high-jumped, ran, did a hitch an d
that .
kick, started from a standing start ,
A recent letter from him says that h e broad-jumped, did a standing broa d
made a study of eat movements an d jump, and cleared a hurdle for hi m
jumped from a catlike crouch . Whe n while the cameras buzzed and clicked
he was jumping. a mental picture of a like hornets on their shelves.
leaping cat was always in his mind .
He says . "When I was about twelv e
The Dream Track Mee t
years old and studying to develop a
style. I experimented long with th e
One of the things Muybridge discovright-hand run to give me a right-sid e ered with his rapid photography wa s
jump . I went higher that way than i n that the front foot of a moving horse i s
any other. This style would, of course , not pointed with toe down . but wit h
have developed into the present 'roll - heel down . so that all the painting s
over . ' However, I was told that this and statues of horses from the beginstyle would be ruled out as a dive . since ning of time had been wrong. His first
the head or one shoulder or arm, or per - photographs were made with wet
haps all three, preceded the last leg
, plates, then with dry plates . and finally
over . Therefore . I developed the fron t with film and then came the movies .
run with the twist . "
All of which is probably aside fro m
Paige held one record that has never the point .
been challenged : The horse jump . H e
Although I spoke further back in
jumped over two horses seventee n this article about the futility and utte r
hands high from a level, dead take-off waste of time involved in writing abou t
indoors.
one of those imaginary contests o n
In talking of the jump . Page says , paper between athletes of a bygone da y
This obstacle being about seven fee t and the athletes of today, I guess tha t
wide and five feet eight inches high . re- is what has been really working insid e
quired a much stronger push than th e of me like yeast all along . My legs are
ordinary high jump . The distance fro m not so strong and supple as theyonce
take-off to landing was twenty-one were, but I would travel to the ends of
feet . six inches.
the earth to see a match race between
"I used to practice for the horse W . G . George and Venzke or C unningjump by jumping over two sets of hig h ham, a quarter-mile contest betwee n
parallel bars, an ugly obstacle to go a t Ben Eastman and Wendell Baker on
in cold blood . "
the Los Angeles Olympic track or th e
I shudder when I think of those par- Princeton track . and a high-jumping
allel bars . . fraction of an inch mistake event in which William Byrd Page an d
in judgment and a toe caught in one o f Walter Marty met, with the roll legal ,
the parallel bars, and the man wh o as it is today .
tries it will never jump again .
Perhaps it ' s just as well that no suc h
Perhaps the most c herished memory track meet will ever be held . I don' t
of my days as a competitive athlete is think my arteries could stand it .