Vol. 3 No. 12 April 1963

April 1963

Editor looking over the work of our linotype operator

In the interest of accuracy – our watchword here in the offices of Once Upon a Time in the Vest - we have to start by making a correction regarding Henry Carr's successive 220 yard world records described in last month's issue. It seems that his 20.4 will not be submitted for a record, because his lane measured 18 inches short. A surveyor got to work on that right away and the measurement was correct four days later when he ran 20.3.

March 30 finds us in San Angelo, Texas for the appropriately named San Angelo Relays where once again Jerry Dyes displays his amazing range of talents. He wins both the javelin at 248-11 and the broad jump at 24-10½'w, places fourth in the shot put at 50-5 and leads off the winning Abilene Christian 440 relay. Thanks to Jerry, ACC nearly doubles the point total of Texas A&M, 60-30 ½.

Jerry Dyes, An American Hero

On the same page there is a photo the multi-talented Jerry Dyes. That's the good news. The bad news is that he is misidentified. There are two closeups, side by side. On the left is a swarthy gentleman with a hammer and sickle badge on his singlet.  

could this be Bulishev?

He is identified as “Jerry Dyes, versatile Abilene Christian field event ace”. On the right is a bright eyed bespectacled youngster, just the sort of young man you would feel good about having your daughter date, gripping a javelin, who is identified as Valeriy Bulishev, Russian 800m star who made the indoor tour”. After a lengthy conference of editors, reporters, staff assistants, correspondents and outside experts, we here at OUTV have come to the conclusion that the photos are reversed.

In early April, Stanford, San Jose St. and Oklahoma had a triangular meet at Stanford.  In reality it was a dual meet between Stanford and San Jose, with Oklahoma caught in the middle.  The Sooners had run at Arizona St. on the previous Tuesday night, then at Arizona on Thursday night , and finally at Stanford on Saturday afternoon.  A bit much in anybody's book.  That's the way   Spring break was spent in those days.  The youtube site shows a bit of the 2 mile run that included Jeff Fishback and Danny Murphy of SJS and Harry McCAlla of Stanford.   McCalla had won the mile that day in 4:04, went on to win the 2 mile in about 9:04 over Murphy and Fishback.  You can see in one brief moment Payton Jordan running over to the pack to encourage the Stanford runners.  I don't know who the other Stanford runners are. The two Oklahoma runners were David Hayes and John English.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn0EMjVl7Z0&feature=youtu.be

Also on April 30 the Easter Relays are held in Santa Barbara where Arizona State takes a determined shot at the college mile relay record of 3:07.2 it set last week. This time everyone is fresh. This is each runner's only race of the day. Mike Barrick leads off in 47.9. The pace picks up on the second leg as Henry Carr tours the track in 45.3. Ron Freeman and Ulis Williams finish up in 47.1 and 46.0 and the new record is 3:06.3. Makes one wonder what April, May and June might hold. C.K. Yang tops George Davis and Dave Tork in the vault 16-0½ to 15-6 both and is named the outstanding performer. Dave Davis is back on the scene. His 61-3 tops the 59-8 of Jay Silvester in the shot. Silvester doesn't go away empty handed as he wins the discus with a toss of 194-2½, ll feet ahead of Rink Babka.

The following weekend, April 6, sees the Texas Relays befouled by bad weather. Three inches of rain fall in 24 hours and the Friday night portion of the meet is moved to Saturday. Times suffer as the track is slow and the sprints and hurdles are run into an 8 mph wind. Fred Hansen is not discouraged, however, as he chalks up his first 16 foot vault. The surprise of the meet comes in the mile where Dyrol Burleson follows Bill Dotson for three laps then bursts into the lead only to be passed in the home straight by Emporia State sophomore John Camien whose 56.2 last lap brings him home three yards ahead of the 1960 Olympian in 4:02.6. 

See the finish of this mile by clicking on this address  on the youtube link that follows. 

http://youtu.be/1i6EtzHNSuo     John Camien defeats Dyrol Burleson in Mile at Texas Relays 1963   4:02

     Even John Camien has never seen this clip, as fuzzy as it is.  It has been in my home movie collection for 50 years.  I've set it on slow motion as it is just the last 40 or so yards.  Bill Dotson can be seen following in the all white uniform.  If anyone knows John, perhaps they can inform him of this site.  Ed.   

  

No report of this meet would  be complete if it didn't mention the dominance of Texas Southern University in the college division. The Tigers win the 440 relay, 880 relay, mile relay, two mile relay, sprint medley and the distance medley. There are no others. The first three are faster than run in the university division.

John Pennel's outdoor PV world record of 16-3 reported last month in the “Late News” section is the front page story along with Carr's 220 record. The smiling Pennel is pictured with a pole on his shoulder, wearing the distinctive – okay I'll say it, ugly - Northeast Louisiana State tee shirt type top. (Frankly, this reporter thinks those shirts may have been the reason the Styron twins transferred.) for more on the Styron's see story at the end of this post.   ed.  

  Pennel's performance that day is fleshed out a bit in this story. It seems that the previous week he had vaulted 15-9, but had cracked his pole in the doing. No pole is available from the factory so his coach, Bob Groseclose, called Rice assistant, Augie Erfurth, who shipped him one of Fred Hansen's poles. (Coach, I can't find my extra pole..... You did what?)

At the bottom of the page is a brief story entitled “Pennel Ups Mark to 16-4”. The story is only eight lines. The meet was in Natchitoches, Louisiana on April 10. The only additional information is the John P'Red in the broad jump as well that day, going 23-4¾ and hurting his back in the process.

Five pages of this issue are devoted to the US Report, a listing of the top ten marks for each event. We'll give you the top one or two. 100: Dennis Richardson of ACC 9.3, 220: Henry Carr 20.3, Bob Hayes 20.5, 440: Ulis Williams 46.4, Rex Cawley and Bob Tobler 46.5, 880: Ernie Cunliffe 1:49.0. Mile: Keith Forman' 4:00.1, Harry McCalla 4:01.5 Two Mile: Charley Clark 8:49.0; 120 HH: Willie May 13.8, Ralph Boston and Brian Polkinghorne 13.9; 330 IH: Jim Miller 36.2, Dee Andrews 36.5; HJ: John Thomas 7-2, Lou Hoyt 7-0½, Joe Faust 7-0¼; PV: John Pennel 16-4, Fred Hansen 16-1, Gerald Pratt and CK Yang 16-0½; BJ: Ralph Boston 26-6; TJ: Pete Danna 51-2¾ (Boston 5^th at 49-6½); SP: Dave Steen 61-8¾, Dave Davis 61-8½ (O'Brien 6^th at 58-11¼); JT: Larry Stuart 267-3; HT: George Frenn 196-4; 440R: Texas Southern 40.7, Arizona State 40.8, Kirkland State (now Truman State) 40.9; 880R: USC 1:24.9, Arizona State, So Cal Striders and Texas Southern 1:25.0; Mile Relay: Arizona State 3:05.9 note: this breaks ASU's WR of 3:06.3 covered in this report, but there is no reference to where or when this was run. We do have splits: Barrick 47.8, Carr 45.5, Freeman 46.6, Williams 46.0. No other information is available. 2MR: Occidental 7:29.0, USC 7:29.2; Sprint Medley: Texas Southern 7:20.1; Distance Medley: San Jose State 9:47.6, LATC 9:48.0, Stanford 9:48.2; The 3 Mile only has one time, Ned Sargent's 13:53.8 and the 440IH (yes, yards) have only 4 times with the note that they are 440 times less 0.3. Go figure.

Many of our loyal readers are of an age that we remember baseball and football without Rotisserie, Hot Stove or Fantasy Leagues. When did this sort of nonsense begin? Perhaps it was circa 1962 and the sport was our own beloved track and field. In Cordner Nelson's Track Talk, the editor writes, “Most of you are missing out on one of the most enjoyable games I know, and I feel it my duty to tell you about it. Nine of us play it and we call it simply 'The Game'. In brief, we choose up sides among the active athletes in the nation and our teams score exactly as those athletes do in the National AAU and NCAA meets.”

The initial draft produces a permanent team which is supplemented by additional monthly or yearly drafts. Players can draft high school kids and potentially reap the benefit years down the road. There is a limit that each player can have although this appears to be variable depending on the league. When you draft an athlete, you have to drop one. More guideline minutia is involved, but you get the idea. You also get the feeling that Cordner doesn't get out a lot.

A couple notes from here and there: Bob Hayes' 9.2 will not be submitted for world record status. The starting pistol was of too small a caliber. No further information is supplied. Bet someone is embarrassed....20 year old Joe Faust is retiring and giving up his spot on the Pan Am team roster....Remember when colleges had dual meets that really mattered? This reporter remembers numerous runs with a buddy over the years that were spent doping out the UCLA – USC dual meets. Here are a couple duals reported in this issue that must have been fun. USC wins the mile relay to top Stanford 73-72. Despite CK Yang's 16-0, 14.1, 226-4½ and 24-5½, Oxy tops UCLA 74½ to 70½......These meets are close, but we can give you even closer. How about the 72-72 tie between Abilene Christian and New Mexico? That only adds up to 144 points, one short. What happened? It seems that only the two ACC vaulters made the unmentioned opening height. Had the Lobos had a vaulter just clear a height, the meet would have been theirs. This is where OUTV's vast source of expert correspondents comes into play, specifically Pete Brown of Plano, Texas, who as alert readers are aware, has furnished us with his copies of T&FN for 1963. Pete ran in this meet. He tells us that the Lobos' vaulter, Don Beattie, would have easily cleared the opening height of 12-6, but he was sidelined with a sprained his knee. The two teams will meet again May 20 and we will be there to record the action.

"Hey, Old Henry Carr"

We will close with Henry Carr's comments in the Quotable Quotes column. “My name is just plain Henry Carr. When you're the ninth of twelve children your parents don't have many choices left........It's real funny about the world record. As a kid I dreamed of such things. Now it has come true and it doesn't seem real. At night I wake up and realize what has happened and tell myself, 'Hey, old Henry Carr, how about that?'”

Whoa Hoss, we're not done yet.  In the words above there was mention of one Gerald Pratt whom I clearly remember from these times as a top pole vaulter, and he was an African American, and he was a lefthander.  It was nice as well to read that Pratt received some early encouragement from my Oklahoma teammates.   Following is an article on Pratt, from 'The Defender' by   Max Edison

By: Max Edison

The 58th  Annual TSU Relays are right around the corner (March 20-21) at the Alexander Durley Sports Complex on the campus of Texan Southern University. Just the mere thought of the relays conjures thoughts of years gone by when the event was one of the nation’s premiere track & field meets, featuring some of the fastest athletes in the country. From Olympians to world record-setters they all came to Third Ward to race at TSU. Names like: Bob Hayes, Charles Frazier, Homer Jones, Jim Hines, Rod Milburn, Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrell and countless all competed at the TSU relays. The TSU Relays.
Throughout the sixties and seventies, the men’s track teams at Texas Southern, under the direction of track coach Stan Wright, were some of the most prolific teams in the country.
The TSU track team was known as the Flying Tigers, but in 1961 a unique element was added to the Tiger repertoire, that truly legitimized that moniker. Galveston born and Los Angeles raised, Gerald Pratt came to Texas Southern and began to compete for the Tigers in 1962. What made Pratt so unique? He was an African-American who excelled in the pole vault!
Pratt arrived to the Cleburne street campus after making a name for himself nationally at Los Angeles City College. Of course, regardless to where he was, Coach Wright had an eye for talent.
“I was participating in the National AAU meet in New York (1961) when Coach approached me about a scholarship to Texas Southern,” Pratt recalled. “I had run across Texas Southern at meets in Modesto and Fresno (California). I didn’t know much about the school, only that they had a track team that traveled.”
The fact that Pratt was Black and one of the world’s top vaulters is itself somewhat of a miracle and a testament to African-American ingenuity.
“We started in my backyard in Los Angeles. Myself, my brother Matt and some neighbors started off high jumping,” Gerald explained. “We got to a point where we had jumped as high as we could go, so we grabbed a metal pole in the garage and started using it to see how high we could go.
“I attended Dorsey High School and high jumped for the track team. I would wander over to the pole vault guys and play around with them and soon discovered I could do better than them. After winning more meets in the pole vault than I did high jumping or running the high hurdles, I just stuck with it. I never really had any real formal training.”
A coincidental brush with athletes from the University of Oklahoma sealed the pole vaulting deal for an impressionable young Gerald Pratt.
“One year during the Coliseum Relays (L.A.) a couple of guys from the Oklahoma track team came over to Dorsey to practice before the meet. Their vaulters were using fiberglass poles and they gave me one. I had been using bamboo and metals poles, which were the standard back then (1959). I was winning meets with a metal pole at 12’4″. The first time I used fiberglass in a meet I went 13’9″. As a matter of fact I still hold the pole vault record at Dorsey High.”
Gerald Pratt attended L.A. City College and his dominance in his event continued, amazingly enough, with little to no formal pole vault training and being left handed, which was extremely unorthodox for the event.
“At City College the training was very basic, essentially what you could read from a book,” Pratt continued. “There was no pole vault specialty training or coach. I got a few tips from the guys from Oklahoma, but that was pretty much it. Even later when I got to TSU I was pretty much on my own. At City College I set the National Jr. College record jumping around 14’6″ during my second year (1961).”
At Texas Southern, Pratt was an integral part of the TSU track juggernaut in the’60′s, a team that was second to none.

“We took a back seat to no one nationally or internationally if we ran against them,” Gerald proudly recalled. “We had a tremendous group of athletes. Guys like Homer Jones, Charles Frazier, Barney Allen, Overton Williams and Ray Saddler just to name a few. We always represented the University well. We had our TSU blazers, shirt and ties. We always strived to be professional.”
Pratt recalls the TSU Relays in the sixties as being a meet that attracted star power from all over the country.
“It was 1963 at the TSU Relays when I went over 16 feet and they were measuring it for a world record jump. Unfortunately the meet did not follow the correct procedure to accurately measure for a record, but I knew I was really close.”

Pratt became the first person in state history to ever pole vault 16 feet and at one time was ranked as high as No. 7 in the world, all while representing Texas Southern. An unfortunate back injury curtailed his 1964 season, yet he was still selected as an alternate for the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. A subsequent back surgery ended Pratt’s track and field career. 

Max Edison

from the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

Don and Dave Styron or is it Dave and Don?

Don Styron

Sport: Track and Field

Induction Year: 1977

When he won three gold medals in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, sprinter Bobby Morrow relied on getting 11 hours’ sleep a night to keep up his strength.

Four years later, twin brothers Don Styron and Dave Styron used the same strategy to rank among the world’s best athletes in the specialties.

They might have a combined total of 11 hours’ sleep before major meets – 5 1/2 apiece for Don and Dave.

“If they got three or four hours sleep,” recalled former teammate Jerry Dyes, “they could run with anybody in the world.”

Former LSU track and field coach Murrell “Boots” Garland, who considered himself somewhat of an authority on the subject, said the Styrons’ reputation for being world class drinkers was greatly exaggerated. “They did plenty of carousing, but not much drinking,” Garland said. “I’ve spilled more liquor on the bar than they ever drank.”

Lew Hartzog, who coached the Styrons at Wheat Ridge, Colo., High School and Northeast State College (Northeast Louisiana University, Univ. of Louisiana-Monroe) was a great track coach, but he didn’t exactly run a tight ship. Any of his athletes would’ve had a hard time matching their coach’s reputation as a free spirit.

When Hartzog took the Styrons and Dyes to the 1960 Olympic Trials at Stanford by automobile, they were on the road for four weeks – with a two-day layover in Juarez, Mexico, highlighted by Hartzog’s leap from a second-floor balcony into a motel swimming pool.

“Looking back,” Dyes recalled when the Styrons were inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 1977, “I don’t think stopping in Juarez was a very good idea."

In the Olympic Trials, the field for the 400-meter intermediate hurdles was the fastest ever assembled.

It included world record holder Glenn Davis, the defending Olympic champion, and the other two medalists in the Melbourne Game – Eddie Southern and Josh Culbreath. Whoever qualified for the U.S. team would be part of another 1-2-3 sweep in Rome.

Don Styron, running the event for only the sixth time in his life, had a personal best of 49.9. Leading the pack at 300 meters, he hit the eighth hurdler and lost his balance for a few strides.

“I lost my concentration, and wasn’t able to get my rhythm back,” he recalled. Despite the mishap, he finished sixth with 50.3 – one-tenth behind Culbreath. Davis won in 49.5 and the next three broke 50 seconds – but Southern, Culbreath and Styron didn’t make the team.

The following spring, Northeast won the Florida Relays as Dave Styron won the 100, Don Styron won the high hurdles and both ran on winning 440-yard and mile relay teams. The Indians rolled up 50 1/2 points to 28 for runner-up Florida.

When Northeast beat LSU’s Southeastern Conference champions 55-53, the Styrons accounted for 36 points. Don Styron had a personal best in the high hurdles that day, beating Dickie Durham of LSU with 13.9.

Later in the 22-yard low hurdles, he lowered the world record to 21.9 seconds.

The 220-yard low hurdles was a standard collegiate event at that time, but it was dropped in favor of the 440-yard intermediate hurdles.

Two years in a row, Track and Field News selected Don Styron as the world’s best triple hurdler – combining the 120-yard highs, 220-yard lows ad 440-yard intermediate hurdles. He was the national AAU champion in the 220-yard lows in 1961, the next-to-last time the event was held in a national meet.

Don Styron won his first race with his younger brother on March 18, 1940, when he was born 20 minutes before Dave.

The twins played football and basketball at Wheat Ridge, Colo., and also participated in track and field. But they enjoyed only modest success. In the 1957 state meet, Don Styron was second in the 180-yard low hurdles and Dave Styron was third in the broad jump (now the long jump).

When Hartzog got the Northeast job a couple of months later, he located the Styrons working on a summer job at hay and cattle ranches near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and gave them the only scholarship offer they received from a four-year school.

At Northeast, they had to build a track before they could build one of the nation’s best collegiate teams. “We had to borrow hurdles from Neville High and practice on the football field,” Don Styron recalled.

Social barriers also blocked their development as world-class athletes, because a Louisiana law did not allow state schools to participate in integrated events at that time. That prevented Northeast from winning national titles, and cut down on its athletes’ opportunities for top competition.

The Styrons shared Gulf States Conference “Athlete of the Year” honors three years, leading the school to its first three conference titles in any sport.

Two years after he completed his collegiate eligibility, Don Styron tried to come back and win a berth on the 1964 U.S. Olympic team. In the 400-meter intermediate hurdles, he was runner-up to Eddie Southern in the Texas Relays and runner-up to Cliff Cushman in the Kansas Relays. But the Amateur Athletic Union offered little of no help to world class athletes after their collegiate eligibility expired, and his comeback bid ended in frustration and failure.

He was able to fly to Corvallis, Oregon, for a qualifying meet, and finished second. But he ran out of money, and the AAU officials – who promised per diem expenses to the top three in each event – said they would mail a check.

Meanwhile, Don had to hitchhike to Los Angeles – where Southern Cal coach Jess Mortensen allowed him to stay in the athletic dorm while he trained with USC athletes, and then hitchhike across the nation to compete in the Olympic Trials at New Brunswick, N.J. But the time he arrived in New Brunswick, he had lost his conditioning and finished last in a qualifying heat.

More than 25 years later, he was still waiting for the check.