Vol. 1 No. 75 L.A. Indoors 1960 Revisited by Ernie Cunliffe

Figured I should correct the story (See Below) before either Pete or Dennis call me out on it. Obviously it was the 2 mile relay so each
runner would do 5 1/2 laps. Thus the lst runner did do 5.5 laps as did the second runner. The 3rd runner was the one who
ended up a lap short and only ran 4.5 laps while I did the extra lap and ran 6.5 laps. The rest of the story is correct.

I was wondering 1) if Dennis went to the meet and also 2) Did Dixon run in the meet. I think it might have been called the
LA Indoor Invitational but I don't recall the exact name. It was the lst time I had run indoors and I learned a little about
a banked wooden track which would help me alot much later in the 1961 Indoor season but not the following meet LA Times in
February when Michigan got us. But we did run the correct number of laps in that meet.

I have corrected the lst rendition below.



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Most of you do not know that Stanford set a "world indoor" record for the 2 mile relay in January 1960 at the lst LA indoor meet, not
the LA Times Meet in Feb. 1960.

Here's the rest of the story. This was an 11 lap to the mile track. Each runner thus would (should) run 5 and 1/2 laps. Since this
was the lst ever indoor meet in LA the officials had a hard time keeping track of the laps for each runner. Our lst runner ran the
proper 5.5 laps, the 2nd did the same, but the 3rd runner only did 4.5 laps and handed the baton off to me with a fairly good
lead. I ran 5.5 laps and the time was announced as a world record and I knew something was fishy so I ran another lap to be
sure. Thus the team did run a 2 mile with a hodge podge of distances. I almost didn't take the baton on the last exchange but an
official sort of pushed me out on the track so I grabbed the baton and took off on my 6.5 lap journey. I have no idea what the
other teams did or if they ran the right laps. Stanford was declared the winner. We got our butts kicked in the LA Times meet in
February as Michigan with Ergas Leps kicked by me on the last lap which illustrated that those with indoor experience were alot
better prepared than we were for indoor running. Oh yeah, the officials got it right this time and everyone for Stanford ran the 5.5 laps
correctly, just not fast enough to win.