Vol. 3 No. 43 Frank Budd

 We previously posted a piece by Dave D'Alessandro about  Milt Campbell . 

Here is a recent one by  Dave about Frank Budd from the Star Ledger in New Jersey. 

Thanks to Dennis Kavanaugh for bringing this piece to our attention. Also attached is the obituary of one of Frank Budd's lesser known teammates Joe Manion  ed.

Frank Budd, the former world record holder in the 100-yard dash, will take part in the eighth annual Frank Budd Track Meet today at his alma mater, Asbury Park High School (Tony Kurdzuk/Star-Ledger)

By Dave D'Alessandro/Star-Ledger Columnist 
Email the author
on July 06, 2013 at 5:00 AM, updated July 06, 2013 at 5:01 AM

His life began with polio, the paralytic curse of three generations, and the fact that he became the fastest man on the planet is not so much an irony to Frank Budd as it was a lesson of what an iron will can do for a man.

His wife of 50 years, Barbara, tells him this almost every day. She’s a critical care specialist, and this isn’t something they teach you in nursing school, but she applauded the stories from her mother-in-law — notably, how Frank’s mom applied a concoction of goose grease, nutmeg, mutton fat and witch hazel to a slightly deformed right leg, and transformed this limping child into arguably the greatest sprinter New Jersey has ever produced.

“She believed it was going to help Frank, and it obviously didn’t hurt,” Barbara said the other day. “But I think it was more about will and determination. I still believe it’s about having a positive attitude, and having a strong family around you, and Frank has both.”

“And keep in mind,” Frank Budd added, “that polio was more of a theory than medically proven. The doctors said it was ‘probably’ polio because my left leg was stronger, and the calf was an inch larger in circumference than the right. When I got to Villanova in 1958, a coach told me I was limping as I ran — I guess I just didn’t notice — but it gradually grew stronger.”

How strong?

There is a long and distinguished thread of world-class sprinters that binds the fabric of our state’s track and field history, including many men who carried the title of World’s Fastest Human – from Eulace Peacock in the 1930s to Dave Sime in the 1950s to Carl Lewis in the 1980s.

And along the way, there was Frank Budd.

“New Jersey has been home to a long line of incredible track and field athletes,” said Elliott Denman, the track historian and 1956 Olympian, “and Frank Budd surely ranks as one of the best of the best.”

We get another reminder of this today, when he hands out some medals at the eighth annual Frank Budd Track and Field Meet, an open USATF-sanctioned event at his alma mater, Asbury Park High School.

Some impressive athletes got their starts at this meet. Ajeé Wilson of Neptune, who is winning gold medals all over the world now, won the women’s mile here in 2006 at age 12.

It is but a small tribute to the man who broke the world record for the 100-yard dash at the AAU Championships at Randalls Island on June 24, 1961.

The extraordinary part of that achievement is that the previous mark of 9.3 seconds (held by USC’s Mel Patton) had stood since 1948. Nowadays, sprint records seem to last as long as it takes for Usain Bolt or Asafa Powell to lace up their shoes.

Budd, of course, ran on a cinder track, not the rubberized ovals that bounce Bolt and Justin Gatlin along at speeds that were unimaginable 52 years ago.

“And that day, I was in the first lane, where everyone runs during the distance races, so it was chewed up more than usual,” Budd recalled.

The WR

“But that 9.3 stood for a long time, and my theory is that it was because timers were just reluctant to give out a 9.2. But that day, just before I got in the block (Villanova coach) Jumbo Elliott said, ‘I want a 9.2 today.’ And I think the only reason they gave it to me was because the guys who came in second and third were timed at 9.3.”

In Sports Illustrated’s recap of that historic race, Roy Terrell wrote, “Patton himself always said that the first man to run 9.2 would be tall and strong and quick, a young giant with the reflexes of a cat. Budd is completely middle-size — 5-feet-10 inches, 172 pounds — and he never seems to be in a hurry until he runs. He lacks the effortless grace of a Patton . . . the catapult start . . . (and) he has none of the incredible finishing power. He just hustles along.”

It had been a year since his disappointment at the Rome Olympics, where his 4x100 relay team thought it set the record, only to be disqualified for an illegal handoff, but the 21-year-old from Villanova was now immortal. And though Budd’s 9.2 wouldn’t hold up long (Bob Hayes ran a wind-aided 9.1 the following year), he continued to dominate indoors and out, setting another record for the 220-yard dash.

By 1963, he was in the NFL, even though he hadn’t picked up a football since high school. He caught 27 passes over two seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins, then played three years in the CFL. When he returned to Jersey, he had positions with the Department of Corrections and at the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City.

He is 73 now and lives in Mount Laurel. For the past four years, Budd has been in a wheelchair, fighting multiple sclerosis, which was diagnosed in 1996. Twice he also experienced acute renal failure and was given long odds to beat it, yet he did.

“This is a man who walked both our girls down the aisle, which was very important to him — he put aside his walker in 2003 to dance with one of them,” said Barbara, who has three kids, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren with her husband.

“But that’s Frank. He’s still the most remarkable man I’ve known, considering where he was as a young man and where he is today, remarkable in that he doesn’t let MS get him down. I like to think that’s why he was a champion.”

   Ron Raemore, Joe Manion, Paul Drayton, Frank Budd

Joe Manion  R.I.P.  (from Villanova Track Website)Joe Manion, a stalwart of the short relays for Jumbo Elliott in the late 1950s and early 1960s, died yesterday at his home in West Chester, PA. Manion was a team captain while at Villanova and won four Penn Relays championships: as part of three consecutive mile relays in 1959, 1960, and 1961, and another in the 1961 880 yard relay. He is a member of the Villanova athletics Hall of Fame and received the Villanova Alumni Medal for outstanding service to the university's alumni association. Below is his obituary as it appears in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. The Villanova track and field community offers condolences to his family. 

JOSEPH J. MANION, age 72, of West Chester, PA, formerly of Media, PA, died peacefully on May 22, 2012 at his home.

Born and raised in St. Barnabas parish, Joe graduated from West Catholic Boys High School in 1957 and Villanova University in 1961. He was captain of the track team at West Catholic and Villanova - where he ran for the legendary Jumbo Elliott - and is in the Hall of Fame for both schools.

"What a nice article about Frank Budd, both in the past and the  present.  It is interesting that Villanova and Oregon are both noted for distance running, yet their sprint and field events are nearly as good with WRs all over.  At Villanova's fieldhouse there are about 100 Penn Relay plaques on the wall from nearly every event. The DMR probably has the most but the 4 x 400 has plenty as well. "    
 Bill Schnier



George

I had the pleasure of running in the 1961 NCAA Meet at Franklin Field when Frank Budd won both the 100 and the 220.

But, I did not have the pleasure of meeting him. He is a class guy.

I never knew that he had polio as a boy. - Quite like the story of Wilma Rudolph!

They are both lucky to have had great Mom's!

John Bork

Vol. 2 No. 80 Milt Campbell, All But Forgotten

I mentioned in an earlier blog that Milt Campbell was shown on the Olympic Trials broadcast for about two seconds in June.  Milt was the Decathlon Gold Medalist in 1956 in Melbourne, defeated two of the world's best in Rafer Johnson and Vasily Kuznetzov.  After Melbourne, Milt went on to play in the NFL for the Cleveland Browns.  His comments in this article by Dave D'Alessandro of the Star-Ledger in New Jersey are a great tribute to Milt's achievements.  ed.

               Rafer Johnson, Milt Campbell, Vasily Kuznetsov at Melbourne

Milt Campbell still a champion 55 years after he made history at the Olympics

Published: Wednesday, November 30, 2011, 4:30 AM     Updated: Wednesday, November 30, 2011, 5:01 PM

By   Dave D'Alessandro/Star-Ledger Columnist
To this day, one of the most vivid memories of the greatest adventure of his life involves hanging up on his mother, then snarling at the phone.
Milt Campbell — age 22, Seaman Apprentice and a world-class athlete to boot — was in San Diego, about to catch the plane to Melbourne. It was 1956, but mothers were pretty much like they are today, only more so: “Now don’t over-exert yourself,” Edith Campbell said from Plainfield. “Remember, you had a heart murmur, so don’t ...”
“Ma,” he shouted into the phone, “let me warn you now that if I don’t win this thing, I’m coming back in a box.”
Slam.
Nothing personal — he adored his mother. But this was just Campbell’s way: Positive thinking wasn’t so much a winning strategy as it was a religion, and to this day it sets him a breed apart from anyone you’ll ever meet — athlete or non-athlete. He could will himself to do anything, and this is one reason we still celebrate his life and his magnum opus, which took place 55 years ago today.
It was on Nov. 30, 1956, that the man we call the greatest athlete in New Jersey history earned that distinction, and it wouldn’t surprise us in the least if it took another 55 years before it is removed from the first line of Milt Campbell’s biography.
It was the day Campbell, who grew up in Plainfield, completed his two-day rout of the world’s greatest athletes by winning the gold medal in the decathlon at the Melbourne Olympics, and if this is the first time you’ve ever read about this, you are forgiven.
Because in many respects, the ’56 Olympics remain the games time forgot.
“It was in November, during the Australian summer, on the other side of the world, and there was hardly any media coverage at all,” recalls Elliott Denman, a U.S. Olympic walker who would become the longtime columnist for the Asbury Park Press. “So everything about those Games seemed like an afterthought, and people just didn’t relate to it. For that reason, Milt never achieved the national stardom that he deserved.”
Australia had just begun television broadcasting two months earlier. So the best footage is from the late documentarian, the legendary Bud Greenspan, who told The Star-Ledger in 2000 that “Campbell was, to me, the greatest athlete who ever lived.”
He was, at least, ahead of his time. Campbell treated athletic competition like Jackie Robinson treated baseball. It wasn’t only about possessing multiple tools, it was about crashing through the artifice to flaunt the art. There was little pretense: Yes, he brought a full arsenal to the competition, and would dare you to match it; but he also had an attitude uncommon among his contemporaries, connecting the mythic power of a champion’s vision and an incendiary passion to beat whoever strode beside him.
Today, as he recovers from the effects of cancer and diabetes at age 78 at his home in Gainesville, Ga., Campbell says he “wasn’t nasty-arrogant — it’s just that I’d have told you I was going to win if you asked me.
“I didn’t come for second or third. I honestly thought I put in more time than anyone in the world. If my head wasn’t right, how am I going to deal with the physical part of it?”
To some extent, the ’56 gold was actually won in 1952, he tells you. His stellar international debut was at the Helsinki Games, where as an 18-year-old high school senior he finished second to Bob Mathias, even though the first decathlon he had ever attempted was at the Olympic Trials just weeks earlier.
So by the time Melbourne came around, he was not only ready, he made sure everyone else knew it. This is how Milt Campbell became the first black man to win the decathlon gold, and the greatest athlete our state ever produced.
• • • 
We have cloudy mental images about November of ’56, but it was a heady time. It was the month Soviet tanks smashed Budapest to quell the Hungarian Revolution. It was the month Britain and France bombed Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal to their oil tankers. It was the month Fidel Castro and Che Guevera — six weeks out of Veracruz — could now see the coastline of the Cuban island they would soon take by revolution. It was the month that the Montgomery Bus Boycott, spawned by the courage of a tiny woman from Tuskegee named Rosa Parks, neared the end of its historic 381-day triumph against segregation.
On the other side of the world, in the Olympic Village not far from the Melbourne Cricket Grounds, Campbell received a visit two days before the competition began from Rafer Johnson, the UCLA sophomore who was favored to win the gold.
“Rafer sat on the bed and said, ‘So how do you think this is going to turn out?’” Campbell says. “And I just said, ‘This is a bad year for you to show up. Because this could be your two best days, but I’m still going to walk away with it.’
“And Rafer looked at me like I had hit him with a bat.”

Johnson did not return calls to share his recollection, but it was often reported that he arrived in Australia with a knee injury, and then a pulled stomach muscle early in the competition. He would get no sympathy from his chief rival.

“It was nothing personal,” Campbell says. “But I was getting a little tired of hearing that Rafer would prove he was the best athlete, and that wasn’t going to happen. I thanked him for being there, because the motivation was right for me.”
“That sounds a little over the top,” Denman says, “but if anyone would say that, it would be Milt. Rafer was a great athlete. But he wasn’t going to beat Milt that year even if he was healthy.”
And the speed by which Campbell dismissed the competition was historic.
The opening event on Nov. 29 was the 100 meters, which he ran in 10.8 seconds — one-tenth better than Johnson — to grab the lead in the standings. Then came the long jump, when Johnson reportedly suffered his stomach pull.
“I probably had the best long jump of my life (7.33 meters) and Rafer had probably the worst of his life (7.34),” Campbell says. “So I kept the lead, which was important.”
He completed the first day by finishing first in the shot put, second in the high jump to C.K. Yang of Taiwan (with Johnson placing sixth, a big slip), and second in the 400 meter. At the halfway point, Campbell led by 149 points, and on Friday, he would go for the kill.
The first event on Nov. 30 was the 110-meter hurdles. Take a look on YouTube sometime: Campbell covered it in 14 seconds flat, with a smooth efficiency that could only be described as machine-like. That time, in fact, would have been good enough to earn the bronze in the open event.
“Well, it was always my best event,” Campbell says. “And in fact, about a year later, I would set the world (indoor) record.”
With Johnson finishing fifth in the high hurdles, the rout was on. There were four events left, and they hardly mattered: Campbell finished second in the discus to stretch his lead, making the pole vault, javelin and 1,500 meters almost unnecessary. He would finish with a record 7,937 points, beating Johnson by 350 and Soviet Vasily Kuznetsov by 472.
• • • 
In the years ahead, he would presage the civil rights movement, becoming as uncompromising and fiercely independent as he is today. Campbell speaks of it more with irony than anger: As a black man in 1957, he knew he’d be less appreciated than other celebrated sportsmen of his era, but he never thought he’d have trouble getting a job in America.
His peers became American icons: Mathias, who won the decathlon in 1948 and ’52, went to Hollywood and landed in the halls of Congress; Johnson, who won the gold in 1960, went to Hollywood and landed inside the Kennedy family’s inner circle.

Manning/For The Star-LedgerMilt Campbell posses with his wife Linda Rusch at their home in Gainesville, Ga.

But there was no Wheaties box cover for Campbell, whose path was different. He was the Cleveland Browns’ fifth-round draft pick in ’57, but played only one season in the NFL — after which he claims he was blacklisted by owner Paul Brown for marrying a white woman — and then played in the Canadian Football League for eight.
His third act was almost preordained. He returned home to help Newark recover from the 1967 riots, he founded the Chad School and a community center, he talked thousands of kids in off the streets and into the classrooms, ran unsuccessfully for the state Senate in 2001, and became a highly valued motivational speaker.
In the end, that might be as big a part of Milt Campbell’s legacy as the Olympic gold.
But it’s not what we commemorate today. This is the day we salute an athletic master who coaxed astral-quality bursts of speed and power from his body — the only man who is in both the Track and Field and Swimming Halls of Fame, but somehow is still absent from the New Jersey Hall of Fame, though it has taken three years to get him on the ballot.
“Someone has to explain that to me,” Denman says.
Explain Milt Campbell, and his rightful place in history?
You find that only one man can do that.
“I remember a conversation I had when I was 14 with the track coach at Plainfield High,” Campbell says, referring to the great Harold Bruguiere. “And he asked me what I wanted to be. I told him, ‘The best athlete in Plainfield.’ Then it became ‘The best in New Jersey,’ and ‘The best in America’ and ‘The best in the world.’
“So I got a book on Jim Thorpe, we read through it and I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ And from that moment I was determined to be the greatest.”
Fifty-five years later, that hasn’t changed.
Dave D'Alessandro: ddalessandro@starledger.com

Members of the New Jersey Hall of Fame are voted on by the public, which can make selections by visiting http://www.njhalloffame.org/