V 14 N. 65 Thoughts and Musings About Promoting Track and Field

This week I was almost intrigued by the promotion of the meet called Athlos, in the old Randall's Island stadium now called the Icahn Stadium in NYC.   However I wasn't intrigued enough to remember to watch it.  Gettin' old, I guess.  But I did read about it  and wondered how someone dreamed up this promotion.  Personally I'm on burn out after the Olympics and Diamond League wrap ups.  This concept of sharing a waning sportlight with Megan Thee Stallion or whomever to draw in the non-track fans reminds me of TV shows like Dancing With The Stars or The Masked Singer or America's Got Talent.  Throw in some B celebrity, add a bit of  pizazz with fireworks and try to get athletes already well on the downward slope after a hard season of competition to race for money.  That's probably the answer,  money.  If the sponsor had thrown in a million dollars or so for a world record performance and scheduled the meet a week or two before or after the Paris Olympics, it might have gotten some traction with me.  Consider when some kids in college can do much better on the current NIL revenues than world class athletes could do at Athlos ($60,000 for a win). In comparison, players in the WNBA receive an average annual pay of $119,590 or   ($2,989.75/game in a forty game season) with the highest-earning players in the WNBA receiving around $252,000 or $6,250/game.   Men in the NBA have a minimum salary of $1,157,153 for an 82 game season or an average of $14,111.62 per game.   The median NBA salary is a wopping $6,696,429.00.   You're right, women's sport pay sucks, but in track and field, men's pay sucks equally.    A noble effort by the Athlos organizers, but they were working with a tired product at a time when football, Major League Baseball, and even cross country might be of more interest to a lot of the the track and field public.  My mistake, they were going after people who had little or no knowledge in the sport by promoting it with Megan T S.  You're right again, the Super Bowl at half time does that too.  Maybe they could have gotten Snoop Dog going against Jay Zee in a pole vault competition  or better still Sean Diddy Combs against  R. Kelly both out on  recognisance bonds for a go at a broad jump. 

 This also reminds me of some past attempts to promote the sport in a somewhat unconventional way linked to other activities.  In 1954 in Toronto, Canada, an organization supporting track and field for young athletes held a training camp and brought in some American coaching talent including Fred Wilt, Ken Doherty,  and Brutus Hamilton to conduct a clinic.  In conjunction a track meet was put on at the Canadian National Exposition grounds while a circus was camped in the infield for a performance later that evening.  

Several well known athletes were brought in to run some exhibition races.  Among them was Wes Santee there to race a mile.  Indeed it was special.  When the gun went off several elephants got excited and bolted from their handlers.  As Wes was rounding the last turn of the race he found the elephants blocking his path and had to run around them.  He won the race in  a pedestrian 4:25 obviously not going all out, or perhaps he stepped in something.  After this elephantine performance Wes came back in an equally slow 880 in 1:58. Sort like the old saying of 'all of a sudden there was a piano or an elephant on his back'.

Another event that I recall where Track and Field was promoted on television in the 1950's

was a decathlon dual mano a mano between Rev. Bob Richards the 1952 and 1956 Olympic

pole vault champ and Bob Mathias the 1948 and 1952 Olympic decathlon champion.

Richards was also a noted decathlete, so the event was somewhat evenly matched, although

Mathias may have had to come out of retirement. I recall that the meet was televised and

held indoors at the Naval Academy. Correct me if I'm wrong on this as I have not been able

to find a report on the event. I do recall that Richards won the 1500 meters and the decathlon.

The whole thing was a promotion by one of the major TV networks possibly with a Wheaties

sponsorship.

I've never promoted a track meet but I have some ideas in case you are wondering.

This link will give you a hint of what I have in mind for an opening 'act'.

https://youtu.be/l3w4I-KElxQ We would try to arrange for elephants on this one as they did

in Toronto. That was 70 years ago. Some of those elephants might still be alive and living in

nursing homes. The Italians took this event a step or two further in Verona. Check this out

as well as the first violinst.

https://youtu.be/QDLOOpCEvo8

But couldn't you see Noah Lyles being inspired to come out in a tunic and 'perform' in

an event like this? The athletic ballet dancers in the second show leave little to the

imagination.

I rest my case.

George Brose

.George, George, George,

    You and I know that track will never be a spectator sport that people will pay money to see.  There are people I know here in EUGENE that don't know about the Diamond league.  The only time a significant number of people in this country watch track is the olympic trials .    

  We're a ball sport country         

Mike  Waters

..brings to mind the 4th place in the 1941 NAAU at Randall's Island that my mentor--the late  Bob Wingo of Wayne University, my alma mater--clocked with a 47.3 at 400 meters.  

Dr. John Telford

George:  Re: ways to generate interest in track and field:

I have always thought that having a mini track meet at halftime of a football game would not only be exciting, but could create some interesting competitions on a continuing basis for the school involved.  Consider:  a 4 by 100 relay, a half mile race, and a 4x400 relay with runners from the schools with the two teams playing football-- to kill that otherwise dead time filled by boring bands with mediocre music, performing meaningless maneuvers on the gridiron.  It could be extended to even more interesting field events, say pole vault and high and triple jump, which could go in simultaneously with the running events.  Kind of a mini Texas Relays in the 30 minutes between halves.  I don't think longer races would work.  The attention span of the average football fan might not tolerate it.    Oops I left out the 4 x 200 which is a real crowd pleaser.  And I realize that some schools, like the U. of Texas took out their tracks around their football field and moved them to a separate stadium.  So the only relays they could run would be the shuttle hurdles, which are somewhat of an oddity..   But for schools with tracks in their football stadium---and there are still lots of them around---it would be an exciting half-time show, and give those otherwise obscure runners, a chance to runbefore the largest crowd imaginable.     Walt 

Okay for high school I suppose, Walt.  But I'd hate for you to be present at the meeting of the Band Parents Club when your suggestion is put out there.  And the cheerleader moms are some of the most brutal people in the world. They make the Taliban look like a 4H Club.    Careful where you mention this idea.  Of course there probably is not a DI stadium with a track anymore, so it's not an option at college games.

When I was in high school in Dayton in the 1950s/60s we sometimes had a 2 mile cross country meet that started in the stadium a few minutes into halftime and finished ten minutes or so later.  We circled the track once and went out into the night along a highway basically in the dark and back to the stadium.  Started having problems when one of the schools finished ten runners after starting only seven.  The coach had three waiting out on the highway in the dark and they joined the race in the last mile.  But they forgot to remove their last three guys and got caught out.  George

V 14 N. 64 Darryl Taylor Tells Us About His Own Beach Run And A Lookback at the Good Old Daze

 A few weeks ago we published an article about a cross country race in Corpus Christi, Texas.   Darryl Taylor had his own story about an afternoon of racing in Long Beach, California back in the winter of 1962 on February 10.   First will be Darryl's explanation from memory then the newspaper clipping from the event as well as track news that occurred that same day in the indoor meet in Los Angeles.

Here is Darryl's note:  

Hello George & Roy-just a small addition to your "Beach Run" topic. Long Beach Press-Telegram

Double Duty:

This is winter of 1961/62, my first year at LBSC. This was a 4xMile relay between Long Beach's

Rainbow Pier and Belmont Pier. My team mates gave me a nice lead and we won. That same

night, I ran my first ever indoor meet at the Los Angeles Times Indoor Games. We won the

College division Mile Relay and took home an ELGIN Gold Watch! All great fun. This was an   

annual event that our coach, JACK ROSE, put on. More information if you are interested.

BTW-After the incredible Oly 800m, I do believe that I will live long enough to see a sub 1:40 800.

If the Gods are willing, perhaps at the '28 Games in LA. Just a thought. 

Darryl sent three photos, which I also found in that Press Telegram story and copy here.

Then that day there was additional news about the L.A. Times Indoor Games that night, two world records.

In two years this writer would have no trouble remembering "Rex" Cawley's first name.  Then if that wasn't enough for one sports page, this story on Don Bragg challenging John Uelses when the 

firberglass pole was just starting to appear at meets. 

All this in one edition of a newspaper in 1962.  What has become of the print media?   

V 14 N. 63 "Moses - Thirteen Steps" Documentary of Edwin Moses Debuted This Weekend

 

Scanning my hometown newspaper  The Dayton Daily News  yesterday I saw a story about Edwin Moses,  Dayton's third most famous, home towner after Orville and Wilbur Wright.  And most track nuts will give me a hard time about that statement.   A documentary on his life debuted last night at Moses' alma mater Morehouse College.  The title is  "Moses  -  Thirteen Steps" signifying his taking the 400 meter hurdles to a new level by reducing the number of steps between hurdles from fourteen to thirteen.  As you probably already know,  Edwin Moses was not sought after by college coaches as an athlete.  His accomplishments were modest at Fairview High School.  But his academics were not modest, they were outstanding.  Tom Archdeacon, a long time sports writer with The 'News covered the story in his usual manner, very well.  Tom tells the story much better than me, so....  Here is the link:

Moses - Thirteen Steps

Thirteen Steps Trailer

In the the article there is a picture of Edwin Moses sitting in a car with another person in a parade.  I believe that person is the actor Rob Lowe, another Dayton native.  

I watched Edwin Moses and a teammate clean up on our T-M (Trotwood-Madison HS) hurdlers at a meet at Trotwood in 1973.  He had ability but was uncoordinated.  He never qualified for the state meet in Ohio.  The next I heard of him was after spring break in 1976 when Fairview distance runner, Harvey Woodard, said he was tearing up the track at Morehouse College in Atlanta, running 13 steps between hurdles.  I saw him run at the Dogwood Relays in Knoxville that April and carefully counted his steps, and they were indeed 13.  This remarkable transformation catapulted him to an NCAA championship in Philadelphia in June and the Olympic gold in Montreal in July of 1976, following his freshman year in college.  

   What he said about the West Dayton of the 1960s was true.  It seemed as if all the kids were dressed up on Sundays after church in the morning and before more church in the evening.  Both Dunbar and Roosevelt had Ph.Ds on their faculties.  Many were disadvantaged but many were not including the Moses family.  A feeling of despair and eventually hate surfaced under the veneer of happiness as blacks tried to emerge and whites tried to keep them down.  The result was a devastation of both cultures.  Today both the black West Dayton and the white East Dayton are now a shell of their former selves, both a victim of racism but Edwin Moses and many like him continue to stand tall.   Bill Schnier   U. of Cincinnati

Bill,

I can't remember that he ever came back to Dayton to run after he won the O's.   You might have thought that the track folks of the time would have set up some kind of meet and draw a few names in to run against him.  But I don't think that ever happened.  They were capable as they had hosted the 1953  and 1957 national AAU meet there.  George

I don't think he ever came back to run in Dayton because he was always elsewhere and there were no meets in Welcome Stadium to challenge him.  He has been back from time to time but always for visiting family and friends or the usual activities related to one's hometown.  However, last year they renamed the Dayton Relays the Edwin C. Moses Relays and he was back for that, talking with the athletes and giving out awards.  The article you sent talked about a sold-out Dayton Relays when he ran (a bit of an exaggeration) but the one he attended last year was just one more track meet with him present.  The winners of the hurdles were short and looked slow, a far cry from the heyday of Dayton high school T&F.

V 14 N. 62 What Happened to C.K. Yang? Find Out Here.

 

A few weeks ago, thanks to Bob Darling, I was made aware of a Taiwanese produced documentary on C.K. Yang.  As you may recall,  C.K. was a native of Taiwan and competed for UCLA alongside his teammate Rafer Johnson.  The two of them were the best decathletes in the world in the early 1960's.  C.K. was also a world class pole vaulter when the fiberglass poles were coming into play in that era.  For a short time he held the indoor world record.  But together the two athletes are probably best remembered for their epic battle in the decathlon at the Rome Olympics in 1960.

The documentary is  about C.K.   and his friendship with Rafer Johnson.  It explains a bit about Taiwanese culture and its relationship to China. It also talks about the Cold War era when their rivalry took place.    I did not realise that some Taiwanese consider themselves an indigenous culture surrounded and threatened by assimilation from the mainland Chinese culture.   As you may know, a lot of ethnic Chinese retreated to Taiwan when Mao Tse Tung took over the rule of mainland China.  It's not just a question of land as we are led to believe in the press.  It goes deeper to the roots of the original people of Taiwan of which C.K Yang felt he was part.  

Here is the link to the documentary..  The C.K. Yang, Rafer Johnson Story

In an online intoduction to the film   C.K. is referred to as having Austronesian hertiage.  I had never heard the term and found this definition.

The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak Austronesian languages.

For more information I refer you to the following Wikipedia link  Austronesian People

My only criticism of the film is that sometimes when people are speaking Chinese or another language there is not a complete translation in subtitles.  And sometimes some of the cartoon like drawings are used a bit too much.  

Another point that grabbed my attention was that the former CNN correspondent Mike Chinoy is seen in the opening of the film and in several other parts.  When my family was living in Beijing in 1989 if we could get to a TV with an international feed we often saw him on the CNN reports from the city during the Tianamen Student Movement.   We would be in the Square in the morning or afternoon and then go back to our apartment block and hope to catch what was being said about the movement overseas.  At one point when being evacuated from Beijing after the crackdown, we were asked to smuggle out some news film by an Australian crew.  Our fight however got cancelled and we had to give back the film.  But two days later when we finally got to Tokyo we saw ourselves on TV there loading up our bags on a truck   In the following link Mike Chinoy describes some of the ways efforts were made to get the story out of Beijing.\

Mike Chinoy Video

George,

I pole vaulted against C.K. Yang when we (OU) went to Texas during the indoor season.  I believe it was in 1962 or 1963.  On one jump he missed the pit and landed on the concrete floor. He landed on his back and I thought he was hurt  badly.  However, he got up and shrugged a bit and kept on going.  What he lacked in form in vaulting, he made up in toughness.  I am not sure but I think Fred Hansen won that indoor meet at Texas Tech.  You probably remember that meet better than me.  

Your old roommate,

Pat Hennessee

Pat, 

I do remember that meet at Texas Tech.   I don't recall his bad landing , but I remember that he lost the World Record to someone who was jumping at another meet that same night.  I gave C.K. the newspaper at breakfast the next morning with the story.  He didn't smile when he saw that headline.  

I found the clippings of him getting the record and then losing it a week or so later.  Saw OU won the 2 mile relay, my first varsity race.  It was an unbelievably slow old board 11 lap to the mile track that was transported around the Southwest for various indoor meets.

George

                              This is where he got the record

                                               This is where he lost it.

Hey, George, 

Re: CK Yang and his interest in his racial origins 

I’m right now reading a book by Hampton Sides about sea captain James Cook, who discovered, among a lot of places, Polynesia. 

On p. 22-23 the author talks about supposed sources of the people who inhabited Polynesia   (Tahiti). He repeats the theory that by the time Cook got there, those that inhabited that area were thought to have migrated by maritime voyages from the island of Taiwan. 

So we have parallel beliefs:  That Tahitians came from Taiwan, and that Taiwanese came from Tahiti!

Walt Mizell

DNA doesn't lie.   Thor Hyerdahl tried to prove that maybe Inca's sailed from Peru to Tahiti and made the voyage on a raft with a sail 'the Kon Tiki'   only to learn fifty years later the DNA evidence proved the contrary.   George

I suspect Austoasian culture is fading away, just as 90% of the world becomes homogenized.

Meb Keflizegi is in town this evening for a talk at a brewery, 5k philantropy to provide beds to kids who sleep on floors. Plan to give him a copy of  Maura’s book with interviews of Eritrian refugees.  Bruce\

All of that is awesome.  You will enjoy Meb and he will enjoy Maura's book.  What a treat it will be to be present.

   I am about to head to UC for the Hall of Fame induction which will include three Olympians including hammer thrower, Annette Echiconwoke.  Kathy is about to head to the Shakespeare Theater so both of us will be where we need to be.

   I'll watch the C.K. Yang video tomorrow.  Bill Schnier

What ever happened to C.K. Yang?

C.K. now resides in Ventura, CA under a very (surprisingly) modest gravestone only noting his date of birth and death.

The cemetery is next to the 101 Freeway 

Tom Trumpler

V 14 N. 61 Carl Kaufmann , Born in the USA? Sang Opera? Won an Olympic Silver.

 

The previous post on the passing of Otis Davis, Olympic 400 champion and world record holder brought to our attention that the man who came in second in that race, with an almost identical time,  Carl Kaufmann, running for the combined East and West German teams was actually born in the USA and sang opera later in life.  Most of us remember that photo of the finish and Kaufmann reaching in vain for the tape but his chest a frog hair behind Davis.  It even looks as if his foot was over the line but that could be photographic deception and is not allowed by the rules in determining winners of races.  

Anyway it looks as if Herr Kaufmann was born in Brooklyn, New York. The fact that his first name is spelled with a C  rather than a K might be a giveaway that his family was in the process of americanizing in 1936.   But just prior to the outbreak of WWII he and family were visiting or gone back to Germany and thus spent the war years and the rest of his life in Karlsruhe, West Germany.  In his adult years he got into opera both as an impressario and as a singer having owned an opera house in his adopted hometown of Karlsruhe and as a performer.   I do not know if he got into singing Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA".  

Carl died relatively early at age 72 in 2008.

Carl Kaufmann the Tenor

World Athletics has this info:

Carl (Charly) Kaufmann (GER) born 25 Mar 1936 Brooklyn, New York, died on 1 September 2008 at the age of 72.

Kaufmann had his greatest day in the Olympic 400m final in Rome 1960 when he won the silver medal, producing a sensational finish to come from behind the American Otis Davis (32.6 to 33.3) at 300m to almost catch him on the line, both men being given a hand time of 44.9 to smash the four year-old World record of 45.2. The auto-timing showed that Davis had won 45.07 to 45.08.

Mal Spence, South Africa 3rd, Otis Davis USA 1st, Earl Young USA 6th, Carl Kaufmann Ger 2nd and

does not look like the fastest of tracks with a lot of spike marks already on it.

Kaufmann then won a silver medal at 4x400m, running a 44.86 anchor leg.

After the Games Davis and Kaufmann tied in Cologne and Kaufmann won in Wuppertal but Kaufmann did not better 46.6 after that year.

Kaufmann had begun to concentrate on 400m from 1958, when he was 4th in the Europeans (and 2nd at 4x400m) and had a best of 46.9. He ran a European record 45.8 on 19 Sep 1959 in Cologne and improved that to 45.7 on 15 Jun 1960 and to 45.4 to win the German title in Berlin on 24 Jul 1960. He also won German titles at 200m 1955 and 400m 1958-9. pbs: 100m 10.5 (1955), 200m 20.9 (1960), and became a famous opera tenor, actor and theatre director.

Peter Matthews and Mel Watman - Athletics International - for the IAAF

I'm reminded that Kaufmann was not the only Olympic medallist who became a performer in the arts. Micheline Ostermeyer of France won three medals in the 1948 Olympics in the Shot Put, Discus, and High Jump and then became a concert pianist. George

And Martin Lauer West German WR holder in 110HH at 13.2 had almost 40 hits in Country and Western music singing in German. Not sure he made it to Nashville however.

Thank you George,

In the summer of 1972, my parents gave my wife Debby and me a belated honeymoon present by taking us to Europe, including a stop in Rome.  While in Rome, I remembered the 1960 Olympics and my dad and I drove out to the Olympic stadium.  Surprisingly, the gates to the track were wide open!   I walked down to the track; it had a reddish, all-weather Tartan surface instead of the cinder track from 1960.   I took off for a lap around the track and visualized that I was running on the same site as Otis Davis in 1960 when he won his gold medal.  It was a breathtakingly beautiful memory.

Sincerely,

Bruce Geelhoed
Muncie, IN

12:12 PM (3 hours ago)

Great Story, and very interesting history.

Thanks.

Joseph Rogers

V 19 N. 60 Otis Davis , R.I.P.

               Otis Davis Takes the 400 Meters World Record Over Karl Kaufmann at Rome  44.9 

Former World Record Holder at 400 meters, Otis Davis of the University of Oregon has passed away at the age of 92 .  I saw the news yesterday on Walt Murphy's   "This Day in Track and Field" today.  Walt is always on top of Track news.  Otis Davis ran that astonishing 44.9 to win the Olympic gold medal in Rome in 1960. It was only his 11th 400 race of his career.   He was an Air Force veteran who initially went to the U of O to play basketball, then walked on to the track team and became arguably Bill Bowerman's greatest ever coaching achievement.  He was the first Duck ever to win an Olympic gold.  He also anchored the US team to a win in the 4x400.  

Here is a piece we have in this blog talking about all time great walk ons:

Rick Lower suggested that  Otis Davis should be considered a walk on.
Otis Davis transferred over from basketball at U. of Oregon to the track program and went on to win the Olympic 400 meters in Rome in World Record time in only the tenth 400m of his career.

the following from wikipedia
 at the age of 28, Davis made the U.S. Olympic team. He ran his fastest time to date one week before participating in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome as one of the oldest members of the track team, where he was nicknamed "Pops" by his teammates. According to Davis, "I was still learning how to turn with the staggered starts and all. I was still learning the strategy involved. I was still learning how to run in the lanes."   Wiki also relates that on his first day on the track he high jumped 6'0' and long jumped over 23'.  Won the PCC meet that year in the 220 and 440. 

  No info whether he was on an athletic scholarship coming from basketball to track, but it is likely his being a four year Air Force veteran, he was probably getting G.I. Bill money and it cost neither the basketball program nor the track program very much if anything.  

Here is a youtube link to that 400m in Rome:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_dHu-X9KtE

The only video I could locate on the 4xx400 race does not play well and could cause your computer to have some restart problems, 

Our colleague Roy Mason wrote this synopsis of the 4x400 relay at Rome based on the T&FN story.

4 X 400 FINAL

A light rain is falling as the teams line up. South Africa is in lane one, Germany in two and Switzerland in three. The US is in four and Great Britain in five. On the outside is the West Indies with a team composed of American college students. Trials winner Jack Yerman will lead off for the US, followed by 400 sixth place finisher Earl Young. Intermediate hurdle champion Glenn Davis will take the baton for the third tour of the track and 400 meter champion and world record holder Otis Davis is on the anchor leg.

Yerman, who has been ill and ran poorly in the 400 semis, is the potential weak link. If he runs another 48, what looks like a sure US victory will be in serious doubt. His performance on the opening leg casts those reservations aside. He powers down the straight to give the US the lead at the exchange. It is a come through 46.2 by the Cal Bear.

The margin is three meters over the West Indies’ Mal Spence, but more importantly, it gives the US a seven meter lead over Germany, their prime competition.

The second leg belongs to Germany’s Manfred Kinder who closes on Young with a brilliant 44.9 carry, negating Young’s 45.6 and putting the Germans only a meter back at the exchange.

Glenn Davis on the third leg is money in the bank any day and today is no exception. After gaining a couple meters on the exchange, he allows Johannes Kaiser to come up on his shoulder and attempt to pass on the backstretch. The double gold medalist holds the German off around the curve and then turns it on up the straight. The gap opens, one meter…..two.....three…..four and finally five at the exchange. Davis has run 45.4 to Kinder’s 45.9. Unnoticed behind them, Nebraska hurdler Keith Gardner runs a surprising 45.8 to move the West Indies into medal position over South Africa.

Now it is the match up that everyone has been waiting for, the dual of the 400 gold and silver medalists, the co-world record holders at 44.9, Otis Davis and Carl Kaufmann. The US adds a meter at the exchange and Davis is flying. But so is Kaufmann. In the middle of the final curve he is on Davis’ heels. Cordner Nelson writes, “Davis made one of the quickest pick-ups in quarter mile history.

Almost instantly Davis added two yards to his lead and before Kaufmann could rally, Davis added another yard for a four yard lead to hold down that long, long stretch. Now it was up to Kaufmann and the Brooklyn born German”…(who knew?)… “was game, but he couldn’t cut the US victory margin.” Davis is clocked in 45.0 with Kaufmann tying teammate Kinder for the fastest split of the day at 44.9.

The Germans have taken over a second off Jamaica’s WR, but have only silver to show for it. The US has the gold and a new world record, 3:02.2. Germany is timed in 3:02.7. George Kerr’s 45.4 carry is more than enough to hold off South Africa’s Mal Spence’s 45.6 and the West Indies takes the bronze 3:04.0 to 3:05.0.

This note came in from 400  and relay teammate Earl Young:   

I heard of Otis passing just a bit earlier today. I probably could identify Otis from the back quicker than from the front. We had some great races and he difinently was my superior. RIP Otis!

Earl Young

Saving the best for last another memory of Otis Davis came from the late Jon Hendershott, who allowed us to publish a work about his most memorable track and field moments.   Jon you may recall was a long time writer and  editor of Track and Field News.   Here is his very personal memory of Otis Davis.

Like many other of life’s firsts—first love, first kiss, to name two—for a track fan like me (lifelong, in other words), meeting one’s first Olympic champion is always ultra-special.

For me, that moment came in late June of 1961 in Everett, Washington. As a 15-year-old hyper-fan, my dad and a friend had ventured north of Seattle to the Pacific Northwest AAU title meet, precisely because the 220 was going to feature none other than 1960 Olympic 400 champion Otis Davis.

Otis Davis

Davis was an early hero of mine, being a graduate of the University of Oregon (my dad’s alma mater;  he pole vaulted for coach Bill Hayward in the late 1930s) and also because he won a pulsating Rome final the previous year in a World Record 44.9—at age 28, ancient for world-level competing in those days.

In the waning twilight in Everett, Davis easily won the district AAU 220. I believe his time was in the mid-21s but I am relying for that stat on my memory (also waning).

After the race, my friend Fletcher and I ventured onto the infield and approached Davis, who was sitting on the grass and pulling on his warmup flats.  We congratulated him, he said thanks and we were thrilled to speak with the Olympic champion, however briefly.

Flash forward 55 (really) years to the summer of 2016.  I was a guest at a banquet of many Olympians attending the Olympic Trials in Eugene. Included among the plethora of athletes was, yes, Otis Davis. Even at age 84, Davis still was trim and erect.  He looked like he could almost challenge some of the younger sprint stars in attendance.

After many of the younger Olympians had paid their respects to Davis, I approached him as he stood on a patio overlooking beautiful vineyards in the hills west of Eugene.  I introduced myself and briefly told him of the 1961 race in Everett and having shook his hand those many years ago.

Otis Davis

He smiled and replied simply, “That’s nice—but did I win the race?” I said he did indeed win and he said, “Ah, good.” Ever the competitor.

From Jack Yerman:

Otis Davis Story

Otis showed up at University of Oregon at 27, fresh out of a tour in the Army.  He went out for the basketball team, his sport.  It was soon apparent that it wasn't going to work out.  Otis was too fast and upset the plays called.  The coaches said try the track team.  

The first meet came up soon and Otis was to run versus Terry Tabacco.  Terry was an Olympian and Champion of Cananda.  Otis, who had never run a race asked Coach Bowerman, "how do I run the 400 meters?".  Coach said "Tabacco will be in lane 5 and you in lane 8".  You need to watch him all the way to the end.  Otis did just that, looking behind him, running his first 400 m and winning easily.  Two years later he set the world record in the 400 m and won two gold metals.  

Terry Tobacco, mentioned in Jack Yerman's story was from the village of Cumberland on Vancouver Island about 7 miles from where I live.   George Brose