Sometimes I caught sight of his inner warmth when he attended my sporting events. I loved track and field and started competing in elementary school. My father and mother tried to attend every track meet. Even when I was in college, my dad would take off the afternoon from work and drive sixty miles to watch me run and jump. Often he’d be the only spectator there. He would stand shivering in the wet and cold until almost dark watching me take my final high jump. I remember the ‘Oh, what the hell?’ shrug he’d give me when things didn’t go so well. I remember the “Well done.” handshakes when I won. I loved having him there. I appreciate it more now than I did then.
When I look back on those special times, none sticks in my memory more than one competition during my senior year in high school, 1968. My track coach suggested I enter a decathlon being held in a nearby town. Visions raced through my head of becoming “the world’s greatest athlete” like Jim Thorpe, Bob Mathias, or Rafer Johnson -- all Olympic decathlon champions from the USA. I quivered with excitement when I told my parents about the possibility.
My hopes dimmed the next day when my coach handed me the entry forms while telling me that my school would not sponsor me for the event. He would lend me the school’s vaulting pole and let me use their shot and discus, but I was on my own for all arrangements and expenses. I was crushed. I didn’t think my dad would pay for me to go. It would mean a night in a motel, a two hour drive each way, meals, and the entry fee itself. It seemed like a lot to me. I told my dad the bad news that night. He said, “You want to go? Let’s go.” He went back to reading his newspaper like it was no big deal. I was elated.
In a decathlon each contestant competes in ten track and field events over the course of two days. Points are awarded, not for how you do against other competitors, but against a table of times, heights, and distances for each event. A shot put toss of 30’ might give the contestant 100 points while a toss of 60’ might earn him 600 points. It was far better to finish in fourth or fifth place with a time close to the winner’s than to get badly beaten in second place. If you were far ahead in an event, you couldn’t ease up. You had to try for an even better time which put more points between you and second place. Every event counted, but you had to pace yourself to avoid burning too much energy in one event which could hurt your effort in the next event.
High school decathlons back then consisted of 100 yard dash, 120 yard low hurdles, 220 yard dash, 660 yard run, high jump, long jump, pole vault, discus, javelin, and shot put. I was my school’s top high jumper and hurdler. Earlier that year I had set school records in those events. I wasn’t a good sprinter and didn’t have stamina for long distances. What I did have was mental toughness for the middle distances like the 440 yard run. I think those races are won on heart and I had the will to win. What I didn’t have was upper body strength. I could hardly pick up a shot put. I knew I would struggle in the strength events.
I had only two weeks to prepare. In that time I managed to get in a little practice on those events I didn’t normally do such as shot put, discus, and pole vault. My buddies on the track team tried to help me, but mostly just laughed at my efforts. Still at least I thought I wouldn’t be too embarrassed by my efforts when I got to the meet.
Finally the Friday afternoon of the competition arrived. I drove Dad’s car to my high school gym and loaded the shot put and discus into the trunk. The vaulting pole was a problem. It obviously wouldn’t fit inside the car and we had no roof racks. I decided to tie it to the car’s door handles. Thankfully it was back in the day when cars still had external handles. I borrowed some towels from the locker room to keep the pole from scratching the paint.
As I was tying the pole to the car, one of our football coaches wandered up. He asked if I was using the school’s gym towels. When I said “yes”, he ripped them off the car, not bothering to untie the pole and bouncing it against the car’s paint. I’m not even sure he knew, or cared, why I had the pole at all. He didn’t question my ‘stealing’ the vaulting pole, but was frantic about me taking the towels. I asked the coach what he suggested I use to pad the pole. He told me, “That’s your problem.”, turned on his heel, and walked away without so much as a “Good luck”. I don’t think I ever told my dad about the scratch the coach put in the car’s paint. I do remember that up to that point Dad always said, “If a person has good sense, he isn’t going to be a coach. So don’t expect much.” I certainly had that proved to me that day.
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I picked up my dad at home and he drove us for ninety minutes through the flat Illinois landscape. We reached Northwestern High School near Macomb, Illinois in mid-afternoon, arriving an hour before the competition was scheduled to begin. It was a beautiful, Midwestern day in May. Sun shining in a light blue sky. The air crisp and fresh.
I had a terrible case of nerves as we parked the car. My dad sensed it, slapped me on the thigh, and said, “Well, let’s see what’s up.” I slowed my pace to his and walked shoulder to shoulder with him to the officials’ table in the middle of the football field with its surrounding running track. Coaches and athletes from the twelve competing high schools milled around table.
When it was our turn, the official at the table said, “I have your registration, but not your fee.”
My dad said “I know. How much is it?”
I don’t remember the answer, but it may have been $40 or so. It seemed like a lot of money to me, and I guess it was. That $40 in 1968 dollars is probably more like $170 in today’s dollars. Remember that gasoline only sold for about 33¢ per gallon. Dad flipped open his personal checkbook and started making out the check.
The guy at the table asked, “Are you his father?”
Dad nodded and kept writing.
The official told him, “You can wait until your coach gets here.”
Dad looked up, “He’s not coming. It’s just my son and me.”
The coach sponsoring the event was standing near the table and overheard that. “You mean your school’s not paying your fee?” he asked.
I looked down and shook my head. Dad said, “No.”
The coach said, “Forget it. Put your money away. If your school’s too cheap to sponsor you, I’m not going to charge you for it.”
Dad kept writing and replied, “Really, it’s no problem.”
The coach walked away shaking his head and refused Dad’s money. At which point Dad discarded his theory about coaches and lack of common sense. This guy clearly had it.
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The meet got underway in the late afternoon. All these years later I remember the excitement. My worst events were that first evening: shot put, pole vault, and javelin. Luckily for me, the hurdle race was also that first day.
I was in the first group to compete in shot put. I was the third or fourth person to put. Dad always told me: you don’t “throw” the shot; you “put” it. I didn’t watch the guys in front of me take their first attempts. I was warming up and practicing with an overweight shot I’d borrowed from one of my friends before we’d left home. When it was my turn I did my best imitation of a shot putter. I stepped into the throwing circle, turned my back to the landing area, wiggled my feet for grip on the concrete surface, tucked the shot under my chin, thrust out my elbow, bent at the waist, flew across the ring with my back to the target, pivoted, and pushed the shot away from me with a grunt. The steel ball flew from my hand and fell a reasonable distance away. I had not disqualified myself by stepping outside the circle. I had my first decathlon points. I felt good -- for about a minute.
The next competitor was twice my size. His arms were as thick as my legs. He didn’t bother with any pre-throw routine. He just picked up the shot in his paw, stood at the front of the ring, and threw it. I’m sorry, Dad: he didn’t “put” it; he “threw” it. The thought briefly crossed my mind that the shot would join the weather satellites that had started orbiting above us the year before. The ball didn’t quite reach escape velocity and thumped down roughly twice as far from the ring as mine had gone. I slunk off into the lengthening shadows, dreading my next turn. When that turn came, I repeated my previous effort but with less bravado this time. I told the official I wouldn’t take my final two attempts, outwardly saying I wanted to conserve my strength -- inwardly knowing I wasn’t going to do any better and not wanting any more embarrassment. Little did I know that I would look back on the shot put event as a relative success that evening.
The competition moved to the pole vault. I had hardly practiced the pole vault. I had a fiberglass vaulting pole. I did not have a clue what to do with it. It was a cinch I wasn’t going to bend it like the vaulters on our team back home. My best hope was to not get too badly hurt while trying to use it.
The first height we had to clear was 5’. I routinely warmed up for the high jump at a height six inches higher than this, but when I high jumped I wasn’t burdened by carrying twelve feet of plastic pole. Somehow I managed to get over the 5’ height. I’d scored points again. I should have taken those points, and my remaining dignity, and walked away.
Instead I attempted the next height of 5’6”. I made it by holding the pole in my left hand and awkwardly hurdling over the bar. It was ugly but legal. The behemoth from the shot put failed to clear 5’6”. I felt somewhat redeemed.
The officials moved the bar up to 6’. I’d high jumped this height before. It was roughly head-high for me. I gripped the vaulting pole, charged down the runway, slammed the pole into the sloping box in the ground between the uprights, and leaped into the air. Unfortunately instead of swinging gracefully at the center of the crossbar, I caromed to the right directly at one of the standards. Most of my body missed the foam landing pit and I knocked over the standard holding the bar. The falling steel upright missed an innocent spectator by a fraction. There was general laughter all around -- myself included -- and encouragement to give it another try.
So I went at it again: a sprint down the runway, a launch into the air, and, my god, everything worked. I easily cleared the height. The pole tipped slowly away from the bar into waiting hands on the runway as I lay on my back in the center of the foam landing pit. For that briefest instant I understood the thrill of pole vaulting. It was easy! I could do it!
When all competitors completed that height, we moved on to 6’6”. I felt good. I’d cleared the 6’ height with room to spare. 6’6” should be within reach. I went at it again: a sprint down the runway, a launch into the air, and nothing worked. I hadn’t generated enough speed on my approach to swing up over the pole. I wasn’t even going to make it to the pit. Worse yet, I’d gotten sideways again. I was shooting straight at the left-hand standard this time. Someone grabbed me as I fell. Someone else grabbed my falling pole. Another grabbed the standard before it crashed onto anyone. More laughter. It seemed a bit strained this time.
I tried again and again. Run. Jump. Hold tight. Not fast enough. Off center. I hit both standards multiple times. After a few jumps I started to hear, “It’s him again. Catch him if he comes your way. Watch your heads.”
I kept after it. My dad alternated saying “You can do it.” and “Don’t get hurt.” Three misses at one height meant you were out of the vaulting competition. I’d miss once then flounder over. At the next height, I’d miss twice and somehow squeak over on the third try. Eventually I cleared 8’ before going out at 8’6”. I was bruised and exhausted, but I’d gotten a few points. As we walked toward the javelin toss, Dad put his arm around me, smiled, and said, “You never gave up.” And then he smiled even bigger and said, “Those officials are REALLY glad you’re done.” Even I had to laugh at that.
The shot put event didn’t seem so bad now.
I seldom practiced the pole vault, but I had never practiced the javelin. I had read everything I could about it. I knew how to hold it even though the correct grip felt backwards in my hand. I knew the proper technique required converting momentum from the approach run into the flight of the spear. I knew the secret to that transition lay in something called the crossover step. I’d seen pictures of that. I’d practiced it in my mind and on the football field at home, but without the actual javelin.
My first throws failed to land point down -- a requirement for a legal attempt. The trick was to release the javelin so that it would spin in just the right way for it to remain stable in the air -- arcing gracefully over to stick nose down in the earth. My throws fluttered and wobbled. One almost turned end for end.
On my fifth and final try the gods smiled on me. A lucky puff of air came from the now star-lit sky and the spear ended sticking up from the sod of the football field. I had scored again -- scored at least a few points in each of my three worst events.
But after three events, I suspect I was close to last among the 22 boys competing that weekend. I was embarrassed and sorry I hadn’t done better. After all, Dad had left work early and driven all this way just so I could compete. My first three events had been more circus than sport. I was worried that the rest of my events would continue in the same sad way. Head down, I left the javelin area to get ready for the hurdles, the fourth and last competition of the first day. Dad walked beside me and said, “Here’s where you’ll show them.” So I lifted my chin up and got ready to run.
In most track and field events it only matters where you finish with respect to your competitors. If you beat everyone, you are first whether your time is fast or slow. The distance, height, or time you receive is interesting only with respect to any existing records for that event. In most races officials time only the first three to five places.
A decathlon, on the other hand, is decided on points. Each distance, height, and time in every event is associated with a certain number of points. In the field events this is not an issue. Officials measure each distance or height, convert your best result to points, and record that score for you for that event. Not a lot of room for controversy.
Timing and scoring in decathlon running events are more complicated. Each participant must get a time for each race so that his or her point score can be computed. Officials must accurately time each participant. This makes the timers’ jobs on the finish line much more exacting. A timer is assigned to each runner. A separate set of officials determine finishing positions. Sometimes the timers come up with a different result than the finishing judges, as our next event was about to prove.
I ran a good hurdle race. I finished second in my heat, a fraction behind the winner. Then the controversy began. The person timing me had a time for me that was fifth fastest in the heat ... not second. The official responsible for picking finish positions said I was clearly second. So what time should I be given? How many points should I get? Heated discussions ensued among the officials about how to score the event. Dad spoke up for me -- an island of calm in a sea of confusion.
In the end I was awarded the third best time a few tenths of a second behind the second place time. It was not what I deserved but better than the fifth place time they were trying to give me. I was unhappy, grumbling. Dad hugged me around the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry about it. A couple points are not going to be the difference here.” And with that, the first day of competition was over.
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It was after 9pm. The meet sponsors had made reservations for us at a motel. They had described it as, “Not fancy, but comfortable, and at a good price.” We drove all around Macomb looking for it, not asking directions of anyone, of course. Finally we saw it. It had a gravel parking lot and fading blue paint. One letter was out in the neon “Open” sign in the office window. A guy behind that window with a cigarette dangling from his lip gave Dad the key. We checked out the room with some trepidation. It was small, dimly lit, and smelled like a cigar store. The good news was it had two twin beds that looked like they were serviceable. We were too tired to look for somewhere else. We took the room.
I brought in the equipment from the car. We discovered that the vaulting pole would not fit on the floor in the room. In fact, it would not fit diagonally from floor to ceiling against one wall. The only way to get it into the room was diagonally across the center of the room from the floor at one corner to the ceiling at the opposite corner. We had to duck under it to move around the room. It was late. We were hungry. We locked the room and went in search of food.
Most of the restaurants were either closed or were serving big meals that neither of us felt like eating. Eventually we found a Kentucky Fried Chicken that was open. It wouldn’t provide the perfect training meal, but it would have to do. The sweating, pot-bellied man behind the counter said, “Sorry, fellas, they’ve bucketed and barreled us right out.” KFC was out of chicken. More was cooking in the fryers, but wouldn’t be ready for half an hour. We got back in the car and continued to search, but never found a better place to eat. In thirty minutes we were back at KFC, and got our boxes of chicken. We ate them in a hurry and headed back to the motel.
It was nearly midnight by the time we got there. We’d had a long day. We peeled back our bed covers finding burn holes in the spreads. The sheets smelled as though the Marlboro Man had slept in them. We were too tired to care. I climbed in and was sound asleep in a minute.
Three hours later I was awake again with aches and pains everywhere. Some were reminders of hitting my body against the vaulting standards. Some were muscles complaining about having competed in events I’d never tried before. No matter their origin, even an 18 year old couldn’t sleep through them. I got out of bed in the darkened room to find some aspirin, but forgot about the vaulting pole. I walked into it at full tilt. Fortunately it caught me in the stomach and not the face. The crash and my sleepy curses woke up Dad. I stumbled back to bed saying I needed aspirin, but I couldn’t deal with finding it. A few moments later Dad tapped me on the shoulder with water and some aspirin. I took them with mumbled thanks, and slept until morning.
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We were up at 7am. We pulled back the shabby curtains to discover it had started raining hard during the night. We came prepared. I had rain gear. Dad had a long raincoat and big umbrella. The track was ‘all weather’. Things were going to be OK.
We loaded the car and headed into town for breakfast. We found a diner near the event. The restaurant had two rows of booths separated by corridor running from the kitchen for the servers. We picked a booth and sat down. Dad slid to the far side of the booth with his back to the service corridor. He didn’t see our plus-size waitress in a dirty uniform walk up behind him. Suddenly she started coughing as if she had the worst case of TB on the planet. She ended the coughing fit by sniffing back something that, by the sound alone, was yellow and slimy. She leaned over, putting her head close to Dad’s, and gurgled, “Whaddalya have, boys?”
Dad ducked away from her and slid to the open side of the booth attempting to get out of the area of highest contagion. I did my best not to burst out laughing. Dad looked dubiously at the waitress while he ordered eggs-over-easy -- his standard breakfast before high cholesterol began to bother him. I managed to order pancakes without breaking down in giggles. When the waitress was out of sight, we looked at each other wide-eyed, shook our heads in amazement, and grinned.
Our food arrived. As she stretched to put Dad’s eggs in front of him, the waitress again seemed to cough up part of one lung and “hocked an oyster” that sounded the size of yesterday’s shot put. Dad and I stared at our plates wondering what sort of bacteria were busily multiplying on the surface of our food. I choked down my pancakes because I was 18 and food took precedence over almost everything but girls. Dad gave up trying to eat his eggs. He cut into them and what came out looked like what I imagined was in the waitress’s handkerchief. We laughed as we paid and headed out into the rain for the drive to the final six events of the decathlon.
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It had turned cold. The rain was coming down in sheets from a dark gray sky as we drove into the parking lot near the track. We joined a group of soaking wet coaches and participants gathered around the scorer’s table. The meet sponsors delayed the start of the first event for an hour. The forecasters had predicted clearing later in the morning. Dad and I walked back to the car to wait it out.
In about an hour we rubbed the condensation off the windows and saw activity again on the track. The officials were setting up for the 220 yard dash. The rain was not letting up at all, but the track was usable. The contestants started warming up as best they could. I went through my usual warm up routine wearing my rain gear. I jogged around the track, did some stretching, ran a few sprints of 25 yards or so. I practiced my starts to make sure I’d properly set my starting blocks. I was ready to compete again.
Dad stood shivering under his umbrella. Every once in awhile the wind would gust and Dad’s umbrella would turn inside out. He’d pull his free hand from the pocket of his trench coat to fight with the umbrella until it turned right side out. Then he would pull up his collar, tuck his head down, and put his hand back in his pocket until the next gust. He stood watching for nearly an hour while runners warmed up and the timers and other officials got ready to start the event. I felt sorry for him.
After several minutes I jogged by him just as the wind picked up. I saw his umbrella pop inside out again. Without a second’s hesitation, he pirouetted on his heel until the umbrella faced into the wind. He gave it a funny one-handed shake and the combination of that and the wind put the umbrella back to rights. He continued to turn on his heel until he was facing the way he’d started. It was over in an instant. His other hand never left his pocket. If I hadn’t watched, I’d never have known he had moved. I ran over to him, laughing. I asked him where he’d learned that. He said, “I’ve had lots of practice and it keeps my other hand warm.” Over the course of the day, I’m surprised he didn’t get dizzy spinning around so often to fix his umbrella.
The 220 yard dash was not a race I enjoyed. I wasn’t a sprinter. The race was too short for mental toughness to be the deciding factor. In spite of all that, I needed points badly in this event. I went into my pre-race routine of shutting out everything but the race at hand. I got angry. I got inwardly furious at my fellow contestants. They want to beat me, to humiliate me, I thought. They want to laugh at me. I’ll show them. I released a carefully calculated, cold fury that sent adrenaline scorching through me. If you had talked to me, I would not have heard and only glared blankly back at you. I took a practice start and growled under my breath as I walked back to the line. I knew I was ready when I felt goose flesh on my arms. I felt icy calm, yet I almost had tears in my eyes. I saw myself exploding from the blocks. I could feel my legs coiling and uncoiling like pistons, propelling me down the track. I can run through walls, I thought. Today this mental preparation is called visualization. Then it was just what felt I had to do to win.
The gun went off. For all my mental preparation, I couldn’t win my 220 heat, but I finished close to the winner again. My time was good enough to move me up from the very bottom of the standings. The timing problem occurred again at the finish line, but for this race my time matched my finish position. My inward fury was gone. I was just glad to get out of the rain. I put on my rain gear and returned to the car with Dad.
Soon we saw people gathering around the high jump pit. We climbed out of the car and trudged through the mud to see what was happening. We found they were starting the competition at 3’. This was just slightly higher than the hurdles we’d run over the evening before. They allowed us warm up time. I took a few practice jumps with the bar at 5’. I heard people murmuring in the background. I realized that most of the other guys couldn’t jump that high on their best jump. Dad said, “Don’t work too hard. You won’t jump for an hour.” He was partially right. The competition started. I told the official I would pass until 5’ since I’d made that height easily with my rain gear on during warm ups.
He looked at me and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to try this height so you will be sure to get at least some points?”
I said, “No”, and walked back to the car yet again.
Dad and I sat in the car for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. Every half-hour one of us would get out and walk over to the high jump area. We found they were raising the bar just two inches every round of the competition. Many of the contestants were jumping at every height to guarantee they obtained as many points as they could. As a consequence, the event was glacially slow. After sixty minutes they had only reached 4’. Dad and I waited in the warmth of the car listening to the radio for another hour. The bar finally reached 4’10”.
After sitting in the car for so long, I’d become pretty stiff. We’d bought along BenGay analgesic cream. That wintergreen smell reminds me of track meets to this day. As I massaged the white paste into my legs, I could feel it warming and loosening my muscles. I laid it on thick. So thick, in fact, that the rain turned it to a white butter on my legs. I left my sweatpants off and continued to jog up and down.
Some coaches and contestants were watching me. I was so far behind on points and I’d sat in the car for so long, they probably thought I’d gone home. I’d not even taken an attempt in the high jump and it had been going on for more than two hours. What was I up to?
One of the guys came over to me. “What’s on your legs?” he asked pointing to the white goo on my thighs.
Channeling my dad’s weird sense of humor, I said, “Lard. It helps keep the rain off.”
The other kid nodded as if he known that’s what it was all along, and wandered off. Dad ventured out from the warmth of the car. He asked what the other boy had wanted. I told him what I’d just said. He looked at me pop-eyed, then laughed and laughed some more, then said, “Good psychology!”. He was still talking about the incident weeks after the meet was over.
The high jump bar eventually found its way to 5’. Only four competitors were left. I had to make the height or I would walk away from the high jump, my best event, with no points. If that happened, I could go home because I would have lost any chance to do well in the overall standings. Fortunately the rain had nearly stopped. The apron in front of the high jump bar was made of fiberboard that my spikes would dig into, so traction was no problem. The wind had even dropped. Still, I had to make the height and I’d not taken a practice jump in nearly three hours.
Lots of eyes were on me. I was the only jumper to have waited so long to enter the competition. I eyed the bar and began the routine I’d done thousands of times before. It would look odd to today’s jumpers. The modern (and more efficient) backward technique -- the Fosbury Flop -- had been invented in 1965. I never learned it. My technique was called the Western Roll. I approached the bar diagonally from the left with two slow walking steps, then four smooth running steps, then a long last step landing on my left heel. At this point I could reach out and touch the crossbar with my left hand. Instead, I leaned back and drove my right knee up as hard as I could. My right arm drove upward as well. My left leg pushed off the ground. At the top of the jump my body was stretched out, chest down, over the bar. I fixed my eyes on the bar as my body rotated around it. I cleared 5’ height easily, landing on my back in the foam pit, looking up at the bar still sitting on the standards. I’d made it and with that jump could do no worse than fourth place in the high jump competition. I wouldn’t be in the bottom half of the contestants after this event.
Two of the other jumpers also made 5’. The bar moved to 5’2”. I elected not to jump. I knew I usually only had five or six good jumps in my legs. I saw no need to waste one of those on a height I knew I could make. Neither of the two remaining jumpers cleared the height. The officials moved the bar to 5’4”. I jumped it easily to win the event. Now the question was how many points I could get? The higher I jumped, the more points I would gain on all the other competitors. I had the judges put the bar at 5’8”. I cleared it easily. I had them move it to 5’10”, made it, then had the bar set to 5’11”. Again I was over. Finally they put the bar at 6’. I’d cleared this height a few times before in other competitions. This time I couldn’t make it in three attempts. I was disappointed, but knew I’d gained lots of valuable points anyway. I don’t remember the exact number from back then, but if run today, I would have received on the order of 600 points; the boys in second place: 400. I’d jumped up at least 200 points over everyone in the competition.
Dad had watched the whole time. He didn’t talk to me. He knew I was too focused on what I was doing to have heard him anyway. I felt his presence though. When the event was over, he said, “Nice job, son. I guess we showed them we belong here.” He was right. Not that “we showed them”, but that “we showed them”. It wasn’t just me. It was me and my dad.
The next event was the long jump. I had practiced this one. I was too slow to be a really good long jumper, but I knew the technique. The second of my jumps was a good effort for me. It was one of the better jumps in the event. I crept further up in the standings.
The officials posted the results after seven events. One of the participants was far ahead of the rest of us. Unless he dropped out of the competition, none of us could beat him. He had performed terrifically. Behind him, however, five or six of us were vying for second place. My long jump had put me in this group. I had a chance to do well in the competition as a whole, maybe even a podium finish.
Three events remained -- the 100 yard dash, the discus, and the 660 yard run.
The dash was next. This time the officials did the timing correctly. I finished in the pack, maintaining my position in the standings -- in sight of second place. In truth, I don’t remember the race at all. I knew I wasn’t going to have a big success there. I was equally sure it wouldn’t be an absolute disaster. It is just a blur to me when I think back about it.
We moved to the discus ring. I didn’t expect to do well in this event, but the subtleties of decathlon scoring were beginning to show. Those bigger boys who would do well in the discus had done poorly in other events like the 220 .... and the high jump. They were not in contention for top places in the meet. I only needed to get approximately the same number of discus points as those of us fighting for second place. Then, if I could do well in the final event, I might do well in the final rankings.
I’d competed in the discus in grade school. The discus required speed, strength, and technique: speed to spin your body around the throwing ring, strength to transfer the body’s momentum to the discus, and technique to release the disc at the right angle for it to be aerodynamic in flight. I took three throws. My one good throw had beaten all the other guys with a chance to get second in the competition.
That throw was good enough move me into third place in the overall standings. The fourth place person was far enough back in points, we didn’t think there was any chance he could catch me. He would have to beat me by something like 20 seconds in the final race, something we considered a virtual impossibility. It had come down to a fight for second and third between me and the boy currently in second place.
Dad and I talked about what being in third meant. I was only a few points behind the second place boy. We estimated that if I beat him by more than three seconds in the 660 yard run, I could take second place away from him. We figured out who the boy was. We talked about what it would take to beat him. How many yards would I have to be ahead of him to ensure I would beat him by three seconds? Would he and I even be in the same heat? If he was, should I run with him, trying to beat him in a sprint at the end, or should I just try to run my best time and forget about him? We continued to talk strategy as they began forming up the heats. They placed the ten runners who were leading the competition in the same heat. That meant I would go head-to-head with the guy I had to beat for second place. I liked that.
None of us had really trained for the 660 yard race. High school track meets were run in the 440 yard (one lap) and 880 yard (two lap) distances. The 440 is painful. You must run it nearly all out, but not so fast that you have nothing left to hold off your competition at the end. The 880 is also difficult. In that race you rely on a smooth running style in the middle part of the race to conserve energy. The 660 would be a lap and a half -- some unknown combination of the 440 and 880. We would start at the far end of the long straight-away where the 220 usually began. We would run down the track, crossing the start-finish line for the 440 halfway down the straight. We would run around the two turns of the track oval and back to the 440 start-finish line again. From there we would continue to the finish line of the 220 at the opposite end of the long straight-away from where we’d started.
The ten of us with the most total points gathered at the end of the straight for the first heat of the 660. Dad stood close to the track, 100 yards away, inside the oval near the 440 start-finish line. The boy in second place and I shook hands at the starting line. I looked in his eyes. Did he want to win this race as badly as I did? Was he nervous? Did he look as though he’d competed in a middle distance race before? We wished each other good luck. I squeezed his hand hard. I was ready: I was angry.
The ten of us took our place on the line. The starter fired the gun. We took off down the straightaway, jostling each other before settling in for the race that would be the final ninety seconds of my decathlon. I stayed close to the guy I had to beat. I ran on his right shoulder into the first turn letting him have the inside. I didn’t want to be trapped behind him by other runners. I felt relaxed and strong. Just stay in contact with him for now, I thought.
One or two of the boys began to run harder coming out of the first turn. I ran faster to stay with them. The boy I had to beat didn’t speed up. Concerned he might be saving himself for an all out sprint at the end, I slowed slightly while running down the back stretch. We entered the last turn. The boys who had been leading dropped back. I ran on their outside shoulders through half of the final turn. They dropped further back. I was leading the heat. We rounded onto the final straight. I was running smooth and fast. I felt I was a few strides ahead of those trailing me. I could barely hear the sound of their spikes hitting the track behind me. I thought, Hold it together. Stay smooth. Don’t do anything stupid. For the second and final time I raced by the 440 start-finish line where Dad had been standing.
I didn’t look left or right, concentrating on the race. From my left, I heard an unmistakable voice … a voice that had not coached me in a single event over the last two days … a voice I could pick out of the crowd noise and the sound of my own breath rasping in my ears ... a voice that seemed to contain a trace of panic. My dad’s voice: an urgent, loud voice thundering, “Kick it, Bobby. Kick it. Come on! Kick it in!”
I thought, He’s coming. The boy in second place is making a sprint for the line. He’s going to pass me. I won’t get second place. The sound of my dad’s voice and the desire to win rushed adrenaline through me. I picked up my knees and increased the cadence of my stride. I moved my arms like a sprinter -- pulling myself along -- no longer conserving energy. The pain started. Faintly I heard my Dad yelling behind me, “Go. Go. GO!”
I still couldn’t hear the boy coming behind me, but I knew he must be there. My dad and all my coaches had drummed into me, “Never look back. Focus on the finish line.” I focused. My dad would later say: “Bobby laid his ears back.” The finish was 100 yards away. I’d sprinted that distance full speed in the race just a couple hours before and hardly noticed. Now all I felt was leg-burning agony. Then 25 yards to go: I’d warmed up at this distance earlier. Now I worried that I would pull a muscle or get a cramp. I was running flat out. I still couldn’t hear anyone beside me. I remained focused on the finish line. I threw myself across it, breaking the tape.
I’d won the heat, but by how much? Was it by the three seconds I need to capture second place? Fighting for breath, I turned to look back up the track. I was certain I would see a mob of runners finishing close behind me. Instead, there was no one. Looking farther up the track the nearest runner was more than 25 yards from finishing. I’d not just won the heat, I’d crushed the rest of the competition. I’d won by a huge margin.
Down the side of the track strode my grinning father. I stared at him as he walked up. I was bent over with hands on my knees, still gasping for breath. “Great race, son.” he said laying his hand on my back.
Between gulps of air I asked, “What happened? I heard you yelling. Was he coming for me? Was he gaining?”
“Naaah,” Dad said. “No one was even close to you coming off the second turn. I think the boy you had to beat finished next to last. You ran a great race.”
“Well, for Pete’s sake, Dad,” I asked, “why were you yelling at me then?”
Dad smiled and said, “Oh, I thought you were dogging it a little bit.”
I yelled back in mock fury, “Dogging it! Didn’t we talk about how all I had to do was beat that guy? Suppose I’d cramped up. Suppose I pulled a muscle. He could have beaten me. I just competed in nine other events and you thought I was DOGGING IT?”
“You didn’t cramp up or pull a muscle. And you looked great. You looked like a winner and you are.”
We grinned and put our hands on each other’s shoulders. We didn’t hug in those days before I turned middle age. We walked back to where I’d dropped my sweats on the still wet grass. I took off my spikes and put on my Converse basketball shoes. We stood and watched the coaches and their boys packing to leave. The awards ceremony started. They handed out ribbons for placing in the top five of each of the individual events. I collected seven of those ribbons including a first place blue ribbon for the high jump.
Then they awarded medals for the overall standings. The meet winner had beaten all of us soundly. He had basically won the competition after the first five events. None of us begrudged him the win. He was clearly the class of us. The rest of the places were closer. I took the silver medal for second place with 3490 points -- amazing after my poor start the first evening. The high jump had given me more than 15% of those points. The boy that I’d had to beat dropped all the way back to fourth or fifth. He had been a long way off the pace in the final race.
And then it was over. We tied the vaulting pole to the door handles and packed our wet gear in the trunk. I dozed as Dad drove us home.
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Days later an article appeared in our local newspaper. It told of a local high school track star who had competed in a decathlon against top athletes from all over central and western Illinois. The article made much of the local star’s accomplishments and only peripherally mentioned that he’d gotten second place in the meet. On first reading, it seemed he had won. The article had no by line, but was better written than most in that small town paper. Dad had submitted it, of course. He was a journalist by education and a writer by trade. He was celebrating the occasion and telling me in his own way how proud he was of me.
Details about those days have blurred with time, but I clearly remember that I have seldom felt closer to my father than at that competition. Something passed between us those two spring days in Illinois. Perhaps my father had glimpsed the man I could become. I saw in my father someone who loved me -- who was there for me alone, and not to relive his youth through me. He was there to celebrate with me and to share the continuity of father to son and beyond.
We shared the stories of those two days over and over. Our family got tired of hearing them. Yet on every telling we laughed and said, “Oh, I remember that, and then do you remember ...?” The stories have gotten better with age. Much of what I’ve written here may or may not have happened as I’ve described, but it doesn’t matter to me. It’s that feeling of accomplishment and sharing I want to convey, not the length of a throw or the height of a jump or points won or lost.
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Dad’s gone now. I originally wrote this some years before his passing, so he was able to read it and share again all these memories. And, I hope, to know how much I loved him. I miss him everyday. This is for you, Dad.
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