Vol. 1 No. 74 February, 1960

FEBRUARY 1960
Al Lawrence, John Thomas and JD Martin are the big names in this issue. Lawrence has a magic week, producing a world best 8:46.0 two mile in the LA Times meet on Feb. 13 and then running three miles in 13:26.4 on Feb. 20 in the AAU meet to better Bill Dellinger’s WR by 10.6 seconds. As good as Lawrence is in this meet, he has to share the glory with 19 year old John Thomas who breaks his own WR, becoming the first to jump 7’2”. Seven days later in the Big Eight championships Martin vaults 15’7¼ for an NCAA record.
Let’s dwell on Martin, his Oklahoma Sooner teammates and their opposite numbers at the University of Kansas. The date is Feb. 8, the site is Lawrence, Kansas and it is the much awaited dual meet between these Big Eight juggernauts. Kansas has dominated Big Eight competition during the 1950s. Oklahoma has been closing the gap and maybe now is the time to dethrone the Jayhawks. With two events yet in the scorebook, it appears the Sooners are going to do it. Then Paul Williams of Kansas leaps 23’8” to take the long jump. With only the mile relay left, the Sooners lead 61-56. Details are not given, but apparently Oklahoma doesn’t have much left and Kansas salvages a tie with a 3:24.4 performance.

Stimmie Wilcox of Oklahoma being edged by Kansas runner in mile relay at Lawrence

In three weeks these two will go at it again in the conference meet in Kansas City.
In Kansas City Martin’s vault is the best mark of the Big Eight meet, but stars abound and the competition is fierce. The Jayhawks are defending NCAA champs and have won the last eight Big Eight indoor championships. Kansas wins the battle of top sprinters with Charlie Tidwell besting Dee Givens in the 60 and the 60 lows. Gail Hodgson wins the mile for Oklahoma over Billy Mills of Kansas.

Hodgson leading mile at Kansas City, Mills second from left, Dodson extreme left
Both race again with Mills getting second behind OSU’s Miles Eisenman in the two mile and Hodgson a third in the 1000 behind Kansas’s Cliff Cushman, who, after taking second behind Joe Mullins of Nebraska in the 600, turns the tables on Mullins in this one. Bob Tague adds to the Kansas total with a 1:53.4 win in the 880. The Sooners Mike Lindsay counters by winning the shot with a 57’10½” effort.

Mike Lindsay throwing at KU

As mentioned, JD Martin takes the PV. Teammate Larry Neeley takes third at 14’4” to put the Sooners in the lead with the mile relay left.

J.D. Martin


But this is not the first event for either. Neeley has won the HJ at 6’3½” and Martin has placed second behind Curt McClinton of the Jayhawks in the high hurdles. These efforts have put the Sooners within a point and a half at the start of the mile relay. Can the boys from Norman pull off what they failed to do three weeks earlier? The Sooners’ Bill Noble, Hi Gernert and Bob Ringo give anchor Bob Wilcox a yard lead over the Jayhawks.

bob Ringo

Hial Genert

But look who is anchoring for Kansas. Cliff Cushman, that’s who. Cushman and Wilcox have tangled earlier in the 600 where Cushman was second and Wilcox third. Cushman follows until the backstretch of the second lap where he makes his move, pulling even just before the curve. This is where fate plays a role. As they go into the turn, Cushman’s baton brushes against Wilcox’s leg, falls and is kicked over the edge of the track. Oklahoma wins in 3:21.7 and takes the meet 61.5 to 58, ending Kansas’ streak. The king is dead. Long live the king. Euphoria breaks out in Norman. The town comes alive. Rioting erupts. Cars are turned over, store windows are broken and trash cans are set on fire. Okay, I lied about the last part, but still it was a pretty big deal. I’ll bet Boomer Sooner was sung multiple times on the bus ride home.

The Long Ride Home

Gleaned from various columns. NCAA champ Dick Howard of New Mexico is a hard guy to beat in the 400 intermediates. He is also a hard guy to beat up on. To fill time between track seasons Howard has taken up boxing. He recently won the light heavyweight title for his region of the Golden Gloves…..Germany’s Armin Hary, last reported getting his education at Bakersfield JC, has now joined Dutch long jumper Henk Visser at UC Santa Barbara…..Jim Beatty who edged Dyrol Burleson Feb. 13 in the New York AC Games mile, 4:06.2 for both, is now a statistical clerk at Lockheed Aircraft in Sunnyvale, California.
Among the many ads is one extolling Puma as “the foreign track shoes with all the features’’. Pacific Laminates’ Sky Pole has a “power-thrust….when added inches count”. Having been raised with high moral values, I won’t comment, but feel free to insert your own tasteless double entendre.

Vol. 1 No. 73 January, 1960

January, 1960
Indoor season is going full blast and the biggest name in the news is John Thomas. On Jan. 16 in Boston's Massachusetts Knights of Columbus meet he soars 7'0 ½”. Two weeks later in New York's Millrose Games he defeats last year's top ranked high jumper, Olympic champ Charlie Dumas, with a world record leap of 7'1½”. After losing last year to a foot injury, the Boston University sophomore is back.
In the K of C meet Don Bragg vaults 15'4” to erase Bob Richard's indoor record by ¼ inch. To make sure, he does it again in the Millrose meet.
The best mark on the track belongs to Houston's Australian, Al Lawrence, who runs in tandem with teammate John Macy before breaking loose in the last quarter mile to clock 13:38.0 for the three mile at Millrose.
In the week between these east coast meets there is action on the west coast, the Los Angeles Invitational, held in “the beautiful new Sports Arena”. Parry O'Brien sends the message that he is still the man to beat in the shot, throwing an almost-sort of-could have been world record of 63'1”. When his shot is weighed initially it comes up light. Additional pellets are added to bring it up to standard, but apparently they leaked out during the competition and the implement is four ounces shy when weighed for WR purposes. O'Brien doesn't worry. The challenge has been issued. Don Bragg continues his WR vaulting, this time clearing 15'5 1/2”.
The east coasters are not idle the weekend of the LA Invitational for the Washington Evening Star Games are held and Dave Sime is back. Well, sort of. This is the meet that has the 70, 80 and 100 yard sprint series that he dominated last year. Not so much this year. After tying his meet record of 7.0 for the 70, he feels a twinge and calls it a day. Ed Moran, now with the NYAC, wins the mile in a meet record 4:08.3. Before you say that isn't all that fast, please be reminded that this is the fastest time ever run on a flat track. The lack of banked curves makes John Macy's 14:01.3 three mile pretty impressive also.
This is not to say there was no outdoor action. December 30 was the date of the Sugar Bowl meet in New Orleans and many of the big guys were there. Dave Sime wins a 10.4 100 over Bill Woodhouse on a slow track. How slow it was is emphasized by Eddie Southern's winning 48.5 (Bobby Morrow 3rd in 50.0) and Rex Cawley's 14.6 hurdle win. Dyrol Burleson holds of Jim Grelle in the 1500, 3:48.5 to 3:49.0.
Speaking of Burleson, he is featured in Profiles of Champions. Notation is made of his his nickname being “Burly”. He “trains nine months a year, six to seven days a week. Does some weight training with light weights. Runs fartlek all year round mixed with cross country in the fall, some interval training in the winter and interval training and pace work in the spring and summer.”
Phil Coleman is also profiled. His program is detailed more closely than “Burly's”. I won't go into it more than to note that he trains 12 months a year, seven days a week. This would seem to parallel his academic endeavors. After graduating with a BA in English, he earned his masters in '57 and is currently working on his PhD. Coleman's athletic achievements reflect hard work, not great talent. His best high school mile was 5:00.1. As a freshman at So. Illinois he ran only 4:45. By the time he graduated he had run 4:15 and 9:27. It wasn't until he enlisted in the army that he began his steeplechasing career that led to a spot on the '56 Olympic team and national records in the steeple and two mile.
Ralph Higgins of Oklahoma State is featured in the Meet the Coach column. He is a Cowboy through and through, having graduated from Okie State (then Oklahoma A&M) in 1925 where he was Southwest Conference champion in the 100 and 440. After serving the Oklahoma City school system for eight years, he took over the XC and track reigns in Stillwater and the rest is history. His track teams won 17 consecutive Missouri Valley Conference championships and his XC team won the 1954 NCAA meet.
Bob Mathias is in the news. The 1948 and 1952 Olympic decathlon champion would like to compete in the 1960 games. He recently threw the discus 176 feet. Dan Ferris, the AAU secretary says no. He has been tainted by filthy lucre earned by his athletic fame. No big deal. An old guy like that probably wouldn't have a chance. Wait a minute, Mathias is only 29. His Olympic gold came at the tender ages of 17 and 21.
And from the It was a Simpler Time folder: Stanislaw Sawatowski, Poland's 46.9 400 man, has been suspended for six months. His offense is ….are you ready?.....drinking.
Track and Field News appears to be turning the financial corner. This issue of the magazine – still $3 for the year – has 4¾ of its 16 pages consumed with advertising.

Vol. 1 No. 72 December 1959

DECEMBER 1959
Front page photos are of Ray Norton, winner of the top US trackman award, Parry O’Brien, the top field event man, and Martin Lauer, the Athlete of the Year. Vasiliy Kuznyetsov, the Russian decathlon WR holder, is named the best field event performer, but doesn’t rate a photo.
Let’s run through the events. Norton edges Kansas’ Charlie Tidwell for first in the 100. Bobby Morrow is sixth. Norton repeats in the 200, this time beating out Italy’s Livio Berruti. Eddie Southern certainly did not have a dominant year, losing four of his ten races, but somehow he beats out undefeated George Kerr who won their only match up. Chuck Carlson, who had the year’s fastest time, 45.9, is third.
Stefan Lewandowski of Poland is the 800 winner. As in the 400, it could have been one of several. His 1:46.5 is the second fastest time of the year and his victory over WR holder Roger Moens apparently is enough to rank him one spot above. But wait a minute, neither of them won that race. They were beaten by five meters by Sweden’s Dan Waern. Waern is only seventh. The fastest time of the year, 1:46.2, belongs to sixth ranked Paul Schmidt of Germany. If there is any truth to the adage that 88% of success is showing up then Schmidt got screwed. He ran an amazing 23 800’s in 1959.
Istvan Rozsavolgi of Hungary is the clear number one in the 1500. He has the year’s fastest time, 3:38.9, and is undefeated. Dan Waern is second. Where is Herb Elliot you may ask? That would be sixth. He concluded his season on March 14 and raced only four times, all miles, with a best of 3:58.9, never leaving Australia. Poland’s Kazimierz Zimny tops an exclusively European top ten in the 5000/3M. Third ranked Pyotr Bolotnikov of Russia tops the 6M/10K rankings which, with the exception of the eighth placer, Pan Am winner Osvaldo Suarez of Argentina, are also all-European.
Although Americans fill seven of the ten places in the high hurdle rankings, the top spot is taken by Martin Lauer of Germany, based primarily on his questionable 13.2 WR, four tenths better than his next fastest time. He lost only once, but never ran against the Americans. Hayes Jones and Lee Calhoun are second and third. High schooler Rex Cawley makes the list in tenth.
An undefeated season and the year’s fastest time, 50.1, puts South Africa’s Gert Potgieter atop the 400 hurdles list. Dick Howard is second and Olympic champion and WR holder Glenn Davis is sixth. And here is Rex Cawley again, this time ranked 8th. The kid may have a future in this sport.
The achievement of the seven foot high jump hasn’t seemed to have had a lasting effect. It has been done only once in 1959, appropriately enough by Charlie Dumas who jumped exactly 7’0”. This jump combined with an undefeated season up to a lackluster 4th in the dual meet with the Soviet Union is enough to rank him first.
The pole vault belongs to the U.S. Don Bragg, Jim Graham and Aubrey Dooley all have vaulted 15’5”, but Bragg’s consistency earns him the #1 ranking. Other Americans are Graham, 2nd, Bob Gutowski, 3rd, Mel Schwarz, 4th, Dooley, 6th, Ron Morris, 8th, George Mattos, 9th, and J.D. Martin, 10th.
As good as we are in the PV, we aren’t in the Hop-Step-Jump. No American makes the list. Russia’s Oleg Fyedoseyev wins 8 of 10 competitions and has the best mark, 54-9½, to take first in the rankings.
Our guys do better in the broad jump. Greg Bell, whose 26-7 is only an inch off Jesse Owen’s WR, takes first. The soon-to-be-great Igor Ter-Ovanesyan of the USSR is second. Irv Robertson is third. Not to be over looked in the soon-to-be-great department is 8th placer Ralph Boston.
If there is an event that looks rosy for the US in next year’s Olympics it is the shot put. Only seven putters have bested 60’ and five of them are Americans. Parry O’Brien’s first place ranking is the seventh of his storied career. He is followed by Dallas Long, Bill Nieder and Dave Davis in the 2-3-4 spots. Charlie Butts is 7th.
The hammer throw rankings are a pick ‘em sort of thing. Vasiliy Rudenkov of the Soviet Union has thrown 222-10 and lost only once. Olympic Champ Harold Connolly has thrown 222-8½ and lost twice (once being a lackluster effort in the Pan Am games). More significant is his other loss, a 219-0 to 216-7 defeat at the hands of Rudenkov in the USSR-USA dual. It is enough to give the Russian the first place ranking.
The great Janusz Sidlo of Poland takes the javelin title. His 280’8½ best is short of fourth placer Al Cantello’s WR 282’3½, but though they never met, Sidlo has a better competitive record. Kansas’ Bill Alley is fifth.
The decision as to who is the best decathlete in the world is perhaps the easiest of all. World record holder Vasiliy Kuznyetsov of Russia has had a dominate season. His 8357 total leaves second place in the dust by 362 points. Does that mean he is a shoo-in for the Olympic gold? Maybe not. That second placer is Athlete of the Year Martin Lauer who competed only once, but it is enough to rank him second. C.K. Yang and Dave Edstrom are 3rd and 4th. Wait a minute, where is Rafer Johnson? Not on the top ten list, that’s where. Injuries have made this an off year for the Olympic champion.
But what of the Stanford Fall Championships you may be asking? Sure enough, there is a short story with the lead paragraph, “Ernie Cunliffe, noted as a half miler, switched to the two mile today and ran 9:18.8 at the Stanford Fall Championships”.
The following has been gleaned from various columns. Dyrol Burleson “in a recent attempt to run four quarters in 60 seconds each” “with George Larson and Dick Miller pacing him. His first quarter was 59.5, the half in 1:59.5 and three quarters in 2:58. He was timed a 3:26 with a 220 to go.” The reporter goes on to say that Burleson was losing ground to Miller, didn’t realize how fast the time was and quit. Does this sound right to you? Me, neither. He runs 59.5, 60, then accelerates to 57.5, throws down a 28.5 220……and then quits? First, he had to have timers yelling his splits. This is a time trial set up for specifically for him to run fast. He knows his splits. Secondly, unless it is an extremely slow pace, milers don’t get faster on the third lap. He has accelerated dramatically on the third lap. He continues this pace (actually slightly increases) through the first half of the last lap. He is on world record pace…..and he quits? Something doesn’t ring true here. (Sorry, I couldn’t suppress that; it just popped out.) …….Of the 49 WRs existing in on Jan. 1, 1950, only one remains, Mel Patton’s much-tied 9.3 for 100 yards…….The greatest distance runner of all time? That’s easy, Emil Zatopek. At one time he held every WR above 2 miles, ten in all.
There are three “Profiles of Champions”, Dave Davis, John Macy and Ray Norton. Macy’s is particularly interesting. Thank God he shortened his name from the Jan Miecznikowski he was stuck with at birth in Poland. As a 14 year old, he fought in WWII in which his mother, brother and two sisters were killed. He was a 22 year old senior at an army school when he began his running career after realizing that he was faster than anyone else in the Polish army. In 1954, while in Bern, Switzerland for a meet, he requested and received asylum at the American embassy. He came to the US in 1956 and received a scholarship from the University of Houston.
A sample of his training is included. He trains six days a week, ll months a year. Mon: “trot” six miles; Tues: 12x120, a total of five miles; Weds: 5-7 miles; Thurs: 8-12x440; Fri: trot, exercise, hurdles; Sat: 6x60, total of 8 miles. Doesn’t seem much for a 5000-10,000 guy does it?
The shoe war has heated up. Cliff Severn’s 3/8 page Adidas ad has been countered by a half page Puma ad. Puma now has a dealer in the US, the aptly named Sports Equipment Corp out of Urbana, Illinois. Gill has also bought a half page ad: starting blocks and jump standards.

Vol. 1 No. 71 Oklahoma Clippings Supplied by Jayhawk

Kansas Relays Clippings supplied by Bob Tague U. of Kansas
Thanks to Bob for sending these pictures of the Sooners. These are probably from 1960.
Below is Bob's email

George,

Ray Wyatt forwarded me your e-mail and websites. I was a half-miler at KU from 57 thru 60. Your pictures and articles brought back old memories. I was a physical education major and one of the requirements was a course in track and field which naturally was taught by Bill Easton. The major project for the class was to make a scrapbook of as many newspaper clippings on track as we could find. I kept that assignment for all these years and found some pictures of OU track men that you might want put in your OU website. I am not sure that the attached scans are of good enough quality to use. If they are not, let me know and I will send you the original clippings.

Thanks for putting together your websites and sharing them with us.

Bob Tague

According to Bob Tague this is probably 1959

Vol. 1 No. 70 November, 1959

NOVEMBER 1959

Al Lawrence

Crawford 'Forddy' Kennedy


The cover has photos of Forddy Kennedy leading the field en route to leading Michigan State to the Big Ten championship and Al Lawrence of Houston crossing the finish line in the NCAA meet. Lawrence also wins the AAU meet three days later.
The NCAA meet is held in East Lansing, a good thing because Michigan State puts on a show for the home folks, scoring 44 points to win easily over Houston with 120. In six previous races Lawrence has tied with teammate John Macy. This time he puts 150 yards between them. Macy edges Kennedy for second. Houston also picks up a sixth in the team scoring as Pat Clohessy finishes 8th. Unfortunately for the Cougars, their next scorers are 52 and 59. The Spartans bunch their runners within 50 seconds in the 3-4-9-12-16 positions. Iowa (134), Notre Dame (141) and Western Michigan (148) take the next three spots. Apparently word of a national cross country meet has not reached the South or West, as, aside from Houston and Air Force, the other scoring teams are from the Midwest or East.
Three days later the AAU meet is held in Louisville. This time the Cougars do better. Buoyed by the addition of Barrie Almond and Jerry Smart, they crush a less than stellar field, scoring 30 points to outdistance the NYAC (64), Idaho University TC (68) and University of Chicago TC (74). The three other scoring teams are the High Point TC, Kentuckiana Cinder Club and Berea College. Once again Macy takes second, this time only five seconds behind Lawrence, but 23 seconds ahead of third place Billy Mills.
`The Big Eight runs only three miles, but it is enough for Miles Eisenman of Okie State to establish his dominance over Billy Mills and Gail Hodgson. Cliff Cushman, the number seven ranked intermediate hurdler in the world, just to fill the time until track season is Kansas’ number two man, finishing 8th as the Jayhawks win their 13th consecutive league title. Michigan State of course wins the Big Ten.
The US Report, a compilation of the top 50 or so times in each event, fills five pages. On the first page is a photo of LSU’s Billy Cannon who has the 11th best 100 time (9.5), the sixth best 220 (20.6 straightaway) and the 33rd best shot put (54-4). He might develop into something. Oddly, though next month’s world issue will include the 400 IH and the HSJ, they are not included in this national list.
The Meet the Coach column features Bill Easton of Kansas who has had a pretty successful run in Lawrence. He ran the quarter at Indiana. His first coaching job was at Hammond, Indiana. He then coached at Drake where his cross country teams won three NCAA titles in the 40’s. Kansas called in 1947 and it has been all sunshine and bright lights ever since. His Jayhawks have won 15 indoor and outdoor Big Eight track championships and the aforementioned 13 consecutive league cross country titles. His 1953 XC team won the NCAA meet as did this year’s track team.
Other tidbits gleaned from various columns include the news that Ira Murchison now weighs 135 pounds. This is significant because he was operated on this summer for complications arising from amoebic dysentery. His weight had dropped to 84 pounds. He is running again and hopes to compete for a spot on next year’s Olympic team……Colorado half miler Mike Peake and North Carolina miler Jim Beatty are now training with the newly formed Santa Clara Valley Youth Village in California…….What are the odds of Bakersfield Junior College having next year’s Olympic 100 meter champion? Pretty good, apparently as there is a notation that Armin Hary has relocated from Germany to the southern region of the Central Valley.
Puma has a quarter page ad. So does the Adidas interloper in Lansing, Michigan. Not to worry, Clifford Severn has them both beat. His ad covers 3/8 of the back page.
Dyslexia rules the day once again. Above the Severn ad is a photo of Gene Venzke edging Glenn Cunningham in a 4:13.4 mile in Princeton, NJ in 1936. It is the third that I can remember the magazine has reversed. The curb is on the right and letters on the shirts are backwards. I wonder whether Cordner yells at Nelson or vice versa.

Vol. 1 No. 69 A Gold Mine on the Kansas Plains

Last night while working on this blog I stumbled across a website set up by Ray Wyatt, a 440 runner from U. of Kansas in the mid to late 50's. There are some wonderful pictures of KU teams, of Ray, and Bill Nieder, Al Oerter, Billy Mills, scenes from the KU track hall of fame, including one of Jim Ryun, Billy Mills, and Glenn Cunningham running side by side on the Lawrence track. You can see Ray's site at  Ray Wyatt and his picture just below. KU obviously stacked the deck in this race. That's the old board track at Kansas City. You didn't step off that one, you fell off it.

Ray Wyatt  Big 8 Indoor 

The Sooners got on with the Jayhawks a little less infamously than the Tigers of Missouri, but it was always a big rivalry.

In my junior year we traveled to Lawrence for a midweek meeting with the Jayhawks in Fog Allen Fieldhouse. Pre meet publicity talked only of the impending 60 yard dash, first running event of the night, between Kansas' All American footballer, Gayle Sayers and the OU All American Joe Don Looney, fullback and leading punter in the past football season. And it came to pass there was a huge crowd for an indoor track meet. As we milers were warming up for our event which followed the 60 yards, we were thinking that for once we would finally have a crowd to run before.

The 60 was almost a non-event as Sayers left Looney picking the roostertail of dirt from Sayers' spikes out of his mouth. We milers kept up our preparations, tightened up our spikes, and made our way to the starting line, as a vast majority of the spectators made their way to the door, going back to whatever else was on that night in Lawrence. They weren't there to see a track meet, only their hero devour Looney which he did. Sayers went into the Big 8 indoor meet with leading times in the 60, long jump , and low hurdles, and did poorly in all. three events.

Gayle Sayers U. of Kansas

Joe Don Looney U. of Oklahoma

This is the 1957 KU team picture featuring Wilt Chamberlain and Al Oerter just to Wilt's right

Cliff Cushman Olympic Silver 400IH 1960
MIA Viet Nam

Al Oerter

Bill Nieder

Coach Bill Easton

Visit Ray's site for a lot of other great pictures and info.

Vol. 1 No. 68 October, 1959

1959 Rambler Cross Country

Sorry guys, I had to throw in this picture of a 1959 Rambler just to put things in perspective. Mitt Romney's father George was CEO of American Motors in 1959 and later a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. As you may also remember, everybody ran together in those days, the NCAA small schools and big schools were not separated. In 1948, Quentin Brelsford of Ohio Wesleyan University was individual champ. I also recall that in 78 the top finishers in division 2 and 3 could run in the Div. 1 championships on one day's rest (correct me if I'm wrong on the rest period). A runner from Wheaton College Dan Henderson placed 10th that day against Salazar, Chapa, Hunt, and others. In the 1959 race Warren Hall of Wabash College, the leader in the photo ended up 27th. Also of note were two runners from Alfred College in upstate New York finishing 23 and 37th. Billy Mills who can be seen in the middle of the picture finished 6th in 1959.

OCTOBER 1959
With the US season over and cross country just getting underway, this issue is devoted to the conclusion of the European season. The front page has a photo of Germany’s Carl Kaufmann who has just set the European 400 meter record of 45.8 and thus become a major contender for next year’s Olympics.

News traveled slowly in 1959. The European report carried marks made by Oct. 20, but results from other parts of the world were made in August. One page is devoted to the World Report. Nineteen year old Kunaki Watanabe becomes the Japanese and Asian record holder in the 800 and 1500 with clockings of 1:50.9 and 3:52.1. China has a world class HSJer in Tien Chao-chung who sets the national record of 51-11. The British West Indies Championship held in Georgetown, British Guiana furnishes us with more familiar names. George Kerr doubled in 1:53.6 over Tony Seth and 46.8 over the Spence twins. Non-winning times have yet to arrive. Kenya dominated the inter-territorial Championships, scoring 109 points to beat Uganda’s 60 and Tanganyika’s 5. We are still years from East African distance domination. The winning six mile time is 30:52. In the Kenyan Championships a 9:30.5 steeplechase and 1:52.3 800 are reported.
Remember Dick Bank’s criticism of the organization of the USSR-USA meet? Meet director Ken Dorherty has replied with both barrels blazing. Unfortunately, he is shooting blanks, as he fails to address some of Bank’s points. His main argument seems to be that, hey, putting on a meet of this sort is really hard. On the following page Cordner Nelson, in his column, Track Talk, takes him to task: No altimeter for the jumps, only one tape over 50’, miscounting of laps in the 10K, poor announcing, the list goes on.
Brother Bert Nelson’s column has a quote by Hal Higdon regarding Martin Lauer’s questionable 13.2 in the highs. Hal feels the IAAF should have a rule regulating the time between “set” and the gun. It seems that “Fertig” and “Bang!” are joined at the hip in European meets and that the starter for that race is notorious for pulling the trigger before the last syllable has left his mouth.
T&FNews appears to becoming a paying operation if the amount of space devoted to advertising in this issue is a measure. Cliff Severn’s Adidas ad is dwarfed by the adjacent Gill ad for the “Vaultmaster” – the red pole with the snap action that places your vaulter nearer the blue sky. (Honest. I’m not bright enough to make up stuff like this.) This is countered by Pacific Laminates “Skypole” – when inches count….use Skypole’s “power-thrust”. Dick Held has javelins for sale. Another ad touts the wisdom of giving T&FN as Christmas gifts. A weighted training jacket can be obtained from The Don Canham Co. for only $9.95. There are photos of young men, whom I assume to be students at the University of Michigan, who are running, high jumping, vaulting and broad jumping. The thing weighs ten pounds with all four weights, but you can buy additional weights to slip in the pockets. Great concept that never caught on department: You can purchase a clipboard attachment that hold the clipboard on your arm so that you have use of both hands. Even now that seems like a hell of an idea.