Grace Butcher recently sent us a collection of photos from her scrapbook. Many of you will recall that Grace was one of the early national class women's runners at distances from 800 meters and up. She was on the US team in 1959 that competed against the Russians in the heat in Philadelphia where Bob Soth crashed into overheating problems and was running incoherently on the track during the 10,000 meters. It was one of the first national experiences we had to witness the effects and
hazards of heat injury. Grace was third in the 800 that day.
For a bit of background on the photos, Grace grew up thirty miles outside of Cleveland and wanted to run track like the boys, but her school like all schools in those days did not have girls' sports. So her mom drove her thirty miles each way several times a week to train with a Polish emigre coach Stella Walsh, the women's 100 meter champion in the 1932 Olympics. When Stella left town, Grace moved on to the tutelage of a recent Hungarian distance runner who had escaped in 1956 when the Russians moved tanks into that country to 'stabilize' the Communist government that they supported while a revolt was going on amongst these people. The Russians played hardball and soon controlled the country for the Hungarian Communist Party. For several years prior to these events, the Hungarians were busy establishing themselves as some of the top distance runners in the world. Sandor Iharos had set world records in 5,000 and 10,000 meters. Lazlo Tabori was the world's third man to run a sub four minute mile. Istvan Rozavolgyi was breaking records as well, and several of that group of men took down the 4x1500 meters three times. Their coach was the soon to be famous Mihaly Igloi. Igloi and Tabori would defect to America after the Olympics. Rozavolgyi and Iharos stayed home. In fact I'm not sure Iharos was allowed to go to Melbourne. He was a little suspect in the eyes of the state secret police. Grace's coach at the Cleveland Magyar AC was Julius
(Gyula) Penzes, another Hungarian who had run the 5,000 and 10,000 in the early 50s. He had the 6th fastest time in the world (29:48.6) in 1953, and though he was no longer running, he was not against leaving the country for a better life and ended up in Cleveland coaching the Magyar Athletic Club to which the young Grace now belonged. After things settled down in Hungary, Rozsavolgyi came to the US to compete indoors in New York and Cleveland. It was a time for reunion of those Hungarians including Igloi to see their old friend. Igloi formed the Santa Clara Youth Village track team which morphed into the L.A. Track Club and produced the great running group including Bob Schul, Jim Beatty, Jim Grelle, John Bork, and many others. Igloi spent his last years coaching in Greece.
So here are the photos Grace sent along.
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| Istvan Rozsavolgyi, Grace Butcher, Laszlo Tabori, Mihaly Igloi, and Julius Penzes |
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| Grace and Laszlo |
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| Grace, Igloi, Penzes at US men's indoor nationals NYC 1959 |
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| Grace, Tabori, Louise Mead, Jim Beatty, Igloi (headless) Mike Rawson, Brian Hewson after Cleveland K of C Meet 1960 |
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| Julius Penzes with Grace Butcher and Laszlo Tabori |
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| Rozsavolgyi, Iharos, with two other runners who helped them set the WR for 4x1500 meters |
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Grace and Rozsavolgyi. He has that
James Dean look.
Grace may look the ingenue in these photos. A young woman in awe of these incredibly gifted runners. But she went on to a long career of racing and bringing women into the world of distance running when there was no place on the roads or tracks in this nation. She also is a prolific writer and poet, raced motorcycles and wrote about in journals. She lives today on a small farm southeast of Cleveland near where she grew up, rides her horse Spencer daily and acts in local theater.
Sandor Iharos Interview clik here
In looking for some additional pictures from that time, I found this youtube clip of an interview with Iharos before his death in 1996. There is some very good footage of Iharos and Rosvavolgyi running a dual meet in Helsinki, Finland on the Olympic track. An incredible crowd on hand.
Here is a photo of Julius Penzes and Rozsavolgyi from another source that we used in an earlier story. It is in Cleveland in 1959.
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1 comment:
Thank you for posting these and to Grace Butcher for sending them to you. These Hungarian runners were almost mystical to me in those days. (I didn't start my T&FN subscription until 1964 and in the mid-'50s was not even aware of it). Iharos was especially mysterious. So fast yet so little published about him that I ever saw. Just his seemingly incredible times.
I was a sophomore in college at the time of the Hungarian Revolution. It was thrilling, then chilling to follow the news reports as the Hungarian people took back their own country - and then the Russians sent in the tanks. And the radioed pleas to the West became more desperate. And then went silent.
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