2
That summer I cut out my bad habits and trained fanatically. Instead of hitchhiking to the beach, I ran the four miles from Torrance to Redondo. Then I ran two miles along the beach and four miles back to Torrance. I even ran to the store for my mother. On weekends I’d head for the mountains and run around lakes, chase deer, jump over rattlesnakes and fallen trees and streams. I’ve always been a loner, so the solitude never bothered me. I just ran like crazy. I felt really free and piled up mile upon mile.
When school started I knew I was in good shape, but I had no idea how good, or how fast I could run in competition. In September I entered a two-mile cross-country race at UCLA with over a hundred runners from all over the state. As a sophomore, I was in class C, the youngest runners. I hoped I wouldn’t come in last, but during the race I felt like my feet never touched the ground. I won by a quarter mile and broke the course records for all three classes: A, B, and C. My time was 9:57, equivalent to collegiate standards.
Afterward I asked the officials if maybe I’d unintentionally cut some corners, but they assured me that I’d completed the full course. Though few people today remember, that is still the most thrilling race I’ve ever run, and I realized my promise to Pete—and to myself—could actually come true.
I could be a runner. A real runner.
I APPLIED MYSELF with similar diligence at school. Serious studying was a new experience for me, and my progress was shaky. At times, faced with a difficult arithmetic problem or English composition, I longed to slam my books shut and head for the hills to run it off. But I held on, if only because I had to make good grades to stay on the track team. I didn’t want to cause any problem that might get in the way of the recognition that running and winning had brought.
Most days I felt as if I’d transferred to a new school. Classmates nodded when they passed in the halls, or stopped to talk. At times I even thought I caught a whiff of respect: Louis Zamperini, the wop hoodlum from nowhere, had made a success of himself.
While I clung furiously to my change of heart, my character remained pretty much the same. I still kept mostly to myself. I still had a temper. I still wanted to do almost everything my way. But I had begun to accept the physical pain of training; Pete kept pushing but no longer needed to encourage me with the switch. He was a strict coach and lectured me when he thought I needed it.
“You’ve got to develop self-discipline, Toots,” he would say. “I can’t always be around. You need to take care of yourself on weekends.”
I’d rather have had an ice cream sundae, but I did what he told me. I didn’t want to let Pete down. I also knew, however much I struggled against it, that running was the right course to follow.
To stay on the straight and narrow I made a secret pact with myself to train every day for a year, no matter what the weather. If I missed working out at school, or the track was muddy, I’d put on my running shoes at night and trot around my block five or six times, about a mile and a half. That winter we had two sandstorms and I had to tie a wet handkerchief across my face and mouth just to go out. I also kept boxing, to develop my chest muscles. In the end I was probably even more disciplined than Pete wanted me to be.
By February 1933, I was ready. The Torrance High track uniforms were wool, weighed too much, and itched terribly. I told my mother I wanted to run as if I had no clothes on. She bought me a silk shirt and made my shorts from an old pleated black satin dress. Inside, she sewed what she claimed was a teeny piece of felt from the cloth of the cloak of Saint Teresa. They probably made millions of those, but I didn’t object. I wore leather shoes by Riddell. They had a steel plate inside, for screwing in cleats, and each was as heavy as three of today’s running shoes.
As a sophomore, I entered the class B 1,320-yard competition, three quarters of a mile. My spindly legs still embarrassed me, so I warmed up behind the bleachers where the crowd couldn’t spot me. But once the race started, I forgot my worries and ran as hard as I could. I kept winning.
I really wanted to run the mile and set my sights on the class A race. I won in 4:58, breaking the school record held by my brother. He was probably more excited about my win than I was. Later that spring, at my first race in the Los Angeles Coliseum, I broke the state record for the class B 1,320, with a time of 3:17. It was an easy race; I wasn’t pushed. Afterward the Torrance paper boasted about me, and it felt very different from my other exploits that, although anonymous, had once made the local headlines.
Pete continued to coach me and even got permission to run alongside me in races when no competition existed, forcing me to extend myself. He was wise. When I complained about the pain and exhaustion of the final lap in a mile race—which took about a minute—Pete gave me some advice that’s stuck with me to this day: “Isn’t one minute of pain worth a lifetime of glory?”
Pete knew. He was the seventh-best college miler in the country and could have done even better. There is no doubt his dedication to me cost him personally. I knew that with Pete’s help I had a good chance to become a world-class athlete.
I researched how other runners trained, and I doubled their efforts. When I started to beat them, I knew the simple secret: hard work.
I had only one problem. I didn’t want anyone in my family to watch me run except Pete. That may seem strange, I know, but I was still making the transition from juvenile delinquency to decent behavior. I wanted to wait until I had my foot firmly in the door before I let my parents, their hearts already all aglow, come to the meets. I was embarrassed by what I’d put them through and if there was even the slightest chance of failure, I didn’t want to have it happen right before their eyes. At the mere suggestion that my parents might come to a meet, I’d freeze and warn them to stay away. One afternoon, my mother came anyway. I didn’t notice until I’d already run two laps. I stopped dead in my tracks, trotted to the fence, and told her to leave.
“Hurry,” she said. “They’ll catch up.”
I wouldn’t budge until she relented. Then I won the race.
The more I ran, the better I got. I entered half-miles, 1,320s, and miles. My name began to crop up in local sportswriters’ columns. They called me “Leather Lung” and “Iron Man.” I relished the attention and my first encounters with fame. I became well known on campus. Party invitations rolled in; dates were available for school dances. Even so, I couldn’t resolve an inner conflict: because I’d always been such a rotten kid, I felt I didn’t deserve any of it. I got caught between wanting and needing the attention—not the fame, but for doing something besides getting in trouble—and hating the attention.
NOW THAT GIRLS knew my name and admired my exploits they’d always say hello at school. The one girl I thought was really nice also talked to me, so I took typing class with her even though I wasn’t too keen on typing. When she took tennis, so did I. Soon we began dating.
One day a new girl, Rita, came to school. I’d never run into anyone like her. Rumors about her reputation flew. “She’s a hot pepper.” “She’s a firecracker.”
Rita acted very interested in me, always smiling and saying hi. I ignored her, certain she fooled around with everybody. Frankly, she really scared me. I’d kissed girls before, but only normal girls: sweet, unintrusive, reserved. I wanted to make the advances to someone I liked, to declare my interest. To me, Rita was too hot to handle.
And she couldn’t take a hint. At a school dance she forced me onto the floor with her by threatening to embarrass me in front of everyone. Then she wanted us to go outside and get a drink of water. Reluctantly, I walked with her to the fountain, where she threw herself at me. I was too stunned to move. I’d never had a French kiss before. I couldn’t believe it! And frankly, it was repulsive. Then she pushed her body hard into mine. That did it. I made her stop and ushered her back inside.
I should have learned my lesson, but I didn’t. A few weeks later, to make my girlfriend jealous, I asked Rita on a date. In the middle of the dance we went to her car, where she tried to have sex with me. I pushed her away and got out.
Not only couldn’t I handle her unbridled aggressiveness, but I was in training. The coach had already warned us to use restraint during the track season. “You’ve got to be pure and give your all to your sport,” he explained. He wasn’t moralizing about abstinence as much as worrying that the emotional involvement that’s supposed to go hand in hand with the sex would make a mess of us and our training. He believed entanglements could quickly ruin any athlete.
He was right. When my first steady and I broke up for three weeks, I felt miserable and couldn’t perform well on the track. Training is tough enough, but when someone you love is mad at you, it’s almost impossible.
MY NEW STATURE brought more than dates and recognition; I was elected junior-class president. I’d run but never believed I could win. I didn’t tell my parents about the election, though, preferring to have them find out by accident. A week later, when they questioned me proudly, I replied with an elaborately casual shrug. I’m pretty much the same today. Sure, I get excited inside, but I don’t want people to think my ego’s all swelled up. I just accept life. Maybe that’s why, years later, a friend of mine said, “Fame has never bothered Louie. He’s nothing if not down-to-earth.”
To be perfectly honest, one reason I did my best not to brag is that as a mischief-making kid I had trained myself never to crow about my exploits. Almost every victory was a secret. I guess I’ve just stayed that way.
MILE RACES BECAME easier and easier. As a high school junior I ran 4:28 and 4:29 without being pushed. Because Torrance High’s oval was sandy, my times would have been better on a professional track. I needed a real test, and soon enough I got it.
On May 19, 1934, the best milers in Southern California assembled at the Los Angeles Coliseum for a big meet. Among the runners was Virgil Hooper. He held the state record of 4:49.2 and had already run a 4:24. They expected him to win, with close competition from Bob Jordan, of Whittier High, and two Indians from the Sherman Institute: Elmo Lomachutzkeoma and Abbot Lewis. They’d all run 4:30 or better.
For days Pete and I talked only about the race. We visualized it over and over again, trying to dope out the action in advance. Pete was by then student-body president at Compton College and had broken the state college mile record in his first meet against UCLA, thereby almost assuring himself a scholarship to the University of Southern California. We both worried about Hooper and strategized about when I should start my final kick for the finish line.
The morning of the meet I felt awful. My head ached, my stomach churned. I wasn’t really sick, just nervous, like usual. Whenever Pete tried to reassure me—“Aw, Toots, it’ll be a cinch”—I’d snap back, “No race is a cinch.” He didn’t like it, but he had to agree.
Before a race I always liked to be alone, but that morning I was too anxious to go off by myself and focus. Instead, I made excuses for my imminent failure, saying I was from a “little ol’ town” and here were these big competitors—high school seniors, whereas I was just a junior—running in the Coliseum.
Pete finally had enough of my complaining.
“What’s the matter?” he teased. “You scared?”
I blew up. “I’m not scared. I just don’t feel good. You don’t understand.”
“You’re just chicken.”
I wanted to throw the kitchen table at him. Instead, I turned to my mother and said, “I’ll go out there and run. And if I drop dead, my legs will still keep running.” I caught Pete grinning.
But at the Coliseum I balked again. So many runners had entered that we had to start in two lines, the second about three yards behind the first. I drew the third lane of the second row, a handicap of maybe two seconds and a few extra yards. That made me mad. What chance would I have against Hooper now?
The heck with it, I decided, and walked off the track.
Pete rushed over. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m not running. Look where they put—”
Pete let me have it before I could finish. “Now I know you’re chicken. I was kidding before, but now you’re proving it.”
“I am not.”
“Then get back on the track.”
I stood my ground. Then a coach came over and said, “You can make that up. Easily.” I spun around and got back in line.
The gun sounded and I took off. I had a plan: to run the first three laps in 3:17, the same time as my 1,320 state record, and then take off. But because I’d started in the second row, right away I got caught in the pack and couldn’t break through. Runners crowded in front and stretched out to the sides. All I could do was stick to my pace and look for an opening.
Meanwhile, Elmo and Abbot, the two Indian boys, blistered the track with an amazing 58-second first lap and a 2:01 half mile. I had moved up, but I didn’t try to catch them. I just ran my race. If they were that good, I figured, then they deserved to win, but as they rounded the first turn of the third lap both boys wilted and I passed them.
My brother had called out my time at the quarter mile and the half mile. When I heard him yell, “Three-seventeen!” after the third lap, I moved out and passed everyone. Hooper had a boil on his neck, which hampered his style, and had dropped out. I was all alone—or so I thought. With two hundred yards to go I felt someone touch my heel. Gaylord Mercer, a dark horse from Glendale High, had closed the gap. His lead leg hit my trailing leg and startled me so much that I shot out like a rabbit and made for the finish line, beating him by about twenty yards. They timed my last lap at 64 seconds. Pete couldn’t find the words as he pinned the medal on my shirt. Apparently I had broken what they then called the World’s Inter-scholastic Mile record that had stood for eighteen years. My time of 4:21.2 would stand for another twenty. Even more amazing, the radio announcer who interviewed me one minute after the finish was stunned to see me breathing gently through my nose.
TWO WEEKS LATER I lined up again in the Coliseum, this time against college men, in the 1,500-meter, which is 119 yards short of a mile. The favorite was the Pacific Coast collegiate champion from USC. The winner would receive a gold wristwatch donated by movie star Adolphe Menjou.
At the starting line I heard other racers mutter sarcastically, “Hey, kid, you’re in the big leagues now; just keep out of our way,” and “Now you’ll find out what real competition is.” I kept my mouth shut and won the race, beating the Pacific Coast champion by twenty yards. My time was 4:00 flat, the equivalent of a 4:15 mile. And I didn’t even feel like I’d pushed myself.
I knew I was good, but I didn’t realize how good until I beat the college runners. Yet when I left the stadium with Pete, I felt down. The parents and friends of boys who had placed no better than third consoled and encouraged them. The backslapping and hugging only made me, the winner, feel lonely.
From then on I made sure I invited my parents to every meet. To have them with me made me proud. Winning, I had realized, wasn’t much fun unless I shared it with others.
MY SENIOR YEAR I got elected student-body president and took it easier running, working on my style rather than trying to break records. Pete continued to coach me, and after I graduated in January 1936 I told him my heart was set on making the Olympic team in the 1,500-meter. It wouldn’t be a piece of cake. We both knew there were five great milers in the country, all college graduates, one being Glenn Cunningham, my hero. I’d read about how his legs were badly burned as a child. (One day I’d see the scars for myself, in the showers.) That he ran at all inspired me and made me realize I also had a chance to be a champion.
But Pete said I’d probably have to be patient. “You’ll just have to wait for the 1940 Tokyo games. You’ll be in your prime by then.”
He was right. Cunningham had already run an indoor mile at 4:06:04 and had outdoor times of 4:09 and 4:10. I was still, on average, 8 seconds behind. Eight seconds might not seem like much in most situations, but in a race it’s a lot longer than anyone realizes—about seventy-five yards.
A week later Pete called to tell me that one of the country’s premiere distance runners, Norman Bright, would compete in the Compton Invitational in two weeks. His race was the 5,000 meter, which is just over three miles. “I’m going to enter you,” he said, “just to see how close you can come to Bright, who will most certainly make the Olympic team. But switching from fifteen hundred to five thousand meters is a big step, and you have only twelve days to condition yourself to that distance.”
To build up my strength and endurance, I ran five miles a day and had a fresh miler pace me for each mile. I pushed so hard that I wore out the tip of my toe and blood saturated my socks and shoes. Then I tapered down to shorter distances and finally speed work.
I had no idea what I could do against Bright. Pete had already watched him at a meet in San Diego and realized he ran to conserve energy, saving his strength for a final kick. Pete said he’d let me know when the last lap came so I could move out the entire quarter and, he hoped, take the sprint out of Bright.
During the race Pete miscounted and signaled me with two laps to go. I sped up, as did Bright. We passed each other five or six times in the stretches, and I found it hard to believe I could keep up. Eventually Bright lost his steam and I pulled away for the final two hundred yards. I could see him over my shoulder. The crowd was going crazy.
Then the officials made a big mistake. Instead of telling a runner we’d lapped to get off the track to the left (the inside), they motioned him to the right as I tried to pass him on the right. Maybe I should have cut to the left, but my momentum was already established and I was forced out to the eighth lane, where we collided by the grandstand. I hitch-stepped, went down with one hand on the ground. By then Bright was well ahead of me. I recovered and ran at an angle for the inside lane. The officials got so excited that they goofed again, dropping the tape, then picked it up quickly as I caught Bright at the finish line. It looked like a dead heat, but he won by an inch or two.
I had lost my first race in three and a half years.
When I was a winner my friends would slap my back, my girlfriend would hug me, my parents would cheer, I’d be on the radio. Then I’d look at the other guys, friends and family patting them on the back in a different way. That always made me feel bad, especially because I knew someday it would be me. I promised myself to be upbeat when the time came, and now it had. Would I gripe? Be ashamed? Be resentful? No. I put my arm around Bright and congratulated him honestly. “That was a brilliant race, and you deserved to win,” I said, smiling. When I walked away I had more self-esteem than I’d gotten from all my winning. I knew I could always handle defeat gracefully.
ON THE STRENGTH of my performance I got invited to the Olympic tryouts at Randalls Island, New York. Torrance raised some spending money for me and the city merchants gave me a suitcase with TORRANCE TORNADO stenciled on the side. (I covered it with masking tape because I didn’t want the other athletes to give me a hard time.) They also contributed shaving gear, clothing. Since my dad worked for the railway, I got a year’s pass good for one round trip anywhere in America on the Southern Pacific.
Still, the thought of going to New York worried me. I kept saying, “Pete, it’s not fair that you can’t go with me. I might get lost.”
“It’s time you went out on your own anyway,” he said.
We left after dark. At dinner I sat in the dining car, eating off of fine china on a white tablecloth, and I remembered myself a few years earlier in the San Francisco train yard, freezing cold and miserable, looking through the windows of a departing train at the happy people, dreaming it was me.
Now my dream had come true.
I ARRIVED IN New York during the city’s hottest week in many years. We stayed in Manhattan, in prerented rooms. The whole adventure excited me, except for the reaction of the local papers. I’d grown used to seeing my name in print back home, and I was annoyed that the East Coast press had never heard of me. I wrote a letter to Pete that read: “In the papers here they’ve have picked the place winners for Sunday’s 5000 meter. (1) Lash, (2) Bright, (3) Lochner, (4) Ottey, (5) Deckard. They don’t even know I’m running. But if I can cope with the heat, I’ll beat Bright and give Lash the scare of his life—and then I’ll make the print.” I signed it, “Brother headed for Berlin.”
I TOOK A boat to Randalls Island, warmed up, and then lay in the shade—not that it mattered, it was hot there, too. Ten minutes before the event, I stretched, loosened up, and mentally reviewed my plan. I didn’t think I could beat Lash—he was the world-record holder in the two-mile—but I just had to get second or third place to make the Olympic team.
When the race started I did just what Pete had taught me: slip in behind the leaders as close as I could, stay on their inside, and relax. Being out in front can make a runner tense. You’re alone and can’t see anybody. I liked to run just behind the leader and look at his feet. If he ran a foot from the curb, I’d place myself three inches from the curb so that psychologically I’d run a shorter mile. Strategy was my game. I stayed constantly alert to who ran besides me, to who might box me in. If I competed against a guy everyone thought would beat me, I wanted to be clever, so when I trained I’d speed up for fifty yards on every lap and then slow down to the regular pace. When I did it in the real race, I forced my competition to catch up every time I pulled ahead. Eventually it bushed him, and by the final lap I’d have it going away.
At first we stayed packed together. I was maybe tenth of sixteen runners. Bright was in front of me. We had plenty of distance to cover, so I took it easy. After about a mile and a half some guy collapsed from the heat and we all jumped over him. Eventually, that happened to Bright; the intense sun was not kind to fair-skinned, freckle-faced, sandy-haired fellows. I pulled alongside and urged him to stick it out, but Bright had developed blisters from running a 10,000-meter race a week earlier, and his pain was unbearable. I admired him for trying. I desperately wanted to beat him, but not this way.
Just before the last lap Lash was out front, Deckard moved up on his tail, and I closed in on Deckard. We were all well ahead of the field. On the far straightaway, when I should have made my play and gunned for Lash, I mentally spaced out for a few seconds. My mind said, How can you pass a world’s champion, a guy who took the record away from the Finns? Instead of kicking, I stared at his back with admiration. Before hitting the final curve, Deckard moved out into the second lane, which forced me into the third. I woke up, passed him, and moved into the second lane, just behind Lash. Then we battled down the stretch as I closed in on him—me against the champion. But champions don’t give up. We hit the tape together.
Because I’d been gaining on Lash I thought I’d won, but the announcer called his name instead. I left the track without congratulating him. But I didn’t care. Nobody knew me, the West Coast runner; the announcer had even called me the “dark horse” because of my black tracksuit. I went to the locker room, but someone rushed in and brought me out again, and an official handed me a certificate that read “First Place.” The race film had confirmed a dead heat. That was great. But even better, most of the New York press finally learned to spell my name correctly.
CONGRATULATORY WIRES POURED in from family and friends. Not only had I proven a point for Pete and myself, I’d made the Olympic team.
Those who didn’t qualify were gentlemen, congratulating us and bidding us a good time in Berlin. No emotion, just Godspeed. Today it’s different. Someone who doesn’t make the team might weep and collapse. In my day no one fell on the track and cried like a baby. We lost gracefully. And when someone won, he didn’t act like he’d just become king of the world, either. Athletes in my day were simply humble in our victory.
I believe we were more mature then. Today’s athletes have more muscle and better physical-fitness programs, lighter shoes and faster tracks—but some still can’t win or lose cheerfully. Maybe it’s because the media puts so much pressure on athletes; maybe it’s also the money. In my day we competed for the love of the sport. Performance-enhancing drugs could be had, but no one wanted to win unfairly or damage his health. In my day we patted the guy who beat us on the back, wished him well, and that was that.
That’s not to say I had no emotions. I just kept them to myself as usual. But inside, the punk kid from California, the high school boy, was overjoyed at having prevailed.
THE NEXT DAY I checked in with Olympic headquarters, where they measured and fit me for my official team dress wear: white slacks, navy blue jacket with an Olympic shield on each button. A straw hat, too. After I got my team tracksuit—satinlike pants, light wool shirt—I boxed up my lucky shorts and sent them home. I was allowed to keep my shoes.
Afterward we attended an orientation about how to comport ourselves on the SS Manhattan—our ship to Berlin—and at the Games. They talked to us as if we were children.
The ship left port on Wednesday, July 15, on its way to the Eleventh Olympiad. Everyone assembled on deck for a group picture that made many a front page. Overhead, airplanes and blimps soared and dipped. Well-wishers chanted, “‘Ray,’ ray for the USA! A-m-e-r-i-c-a!” With its two massive funnels colored red, white, and blue, the ship carried 1,064 passengers. Of those, 334 were athletes, and 354 were officials, coaches, trainers, newspapermen, chaperones, and relatives.
The athletes traveled second-class. I shared a stateroom with Billy Brown, who did the hop, skip, and jump and like me was the youngest competitor in his event. The accommodations were impressive. I especially liked the big ballroom. Although no Fred Astaire, I was light on my feet, and the older girls—thankfully—gave me a break. I also liked to waltz, slow and smooth. But one night a storm hit and the boat pitched and rolled so much that everyone slid all over the floor. One of our shyest athletes careened headfirst into a female athlete, an embarrassing get-together. The rest of us held on to the superstructure and cracked up. As the ship rolled back he was released from the entanglement and ran blushing from the ballroom.
The food wowed me the most. I couldn’t believe the layout. The first time I ever went out to eat I’d had a sandwich with a toothpick and an olive at the drugstore—big stuff. The selection onboard was beyond words—plus it was free. At mealtime each table was laden with not just a basket of sweet rolls but with six kinds of sweet rolls. Here’s a partial list of the fixings, as reported in the Los Angeles Times: “Lunch: roast beef, baked potatoes, stewed celery, milk, tea, baked apple. We ate seven hundred pounds of beef. Supper: chicken soup, roast chicken, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, peas, ice cream, hard candy.”
I couldn’t control myself. I must have gained ten pounds before I got to Germany.
When I wasn’t gorging myself I went to first-class to work out with the other athletes. The deck went all the way around the ship, unbroken. On the port and starboard sides were cabinets stocked with beer. After a hard run we’d all stop for a glass from the tap and head back to second-class.
I spent some free time collecting souvenirs: ashtrays, towels, whatever. My training as a former juvenile delinquent and petty thief made it easy—and I noticed that almost everyone shared my collecting bug. I also tried to meet all my sports heroes and enjoy the camaraderie. The older athletes took me under their wing.
All the movie people—like Helen Hayes and Joe E. Brown, who became a close friend after the Games—traveled in first-class, as did the Olympic officials. The Committee was mostly wealthy guys; you might say they were to the manner born and we were the serfs. Today our Committee is different. They respect the athletes and the athletes respect them.
At night we stayed on our own deck, unless invited topside, as was Eleanor Holm, a 1932 Olympic swimming champion and the world’s greatest backstroker. She’d met William Randolph Hearst, Jr., in first-class while working out, and they became friends. When the Olympic bigwigs saw her dancing with Hearst, they didn’t like it that she’d left the athletic group. Then they watched her drink champagne, and that did it. She might have been warned first; I don’t know. I think they just tied it all together and the next day Avery Brundage called her on the carpet and dismissed her from the team.
Brundage was famously strict on amateurism, yet he was a hypocrite. He’d condemn athletes for taking money here and there, but we all got a bit more than the amateur rules called for. Every dollar helped, especially during the Depression, but it still broke the rules. Let me put it this way: I’ve never met a world-class amateur athlete in the true sense of the word.
Look what happened to the great Jim Thorpe. He was a starving Indian who made twenty dollars playing professional baseball, so they stripped him of his medals as punishment and broke his heart. It was pathetic to see him treated like a condemned criminal. In fact, it was so ridiculous that about ten years ago they gave all the medals back to his family. I’d just broken the high school world’s record when he and I took a speaking trip together, sponsored by the Torrance Kiwanis, who were just trying to help Jim. I’d give a short talk on “High School Athletics Today.” He’d put on headdress feathers, perform, say a few words, and get ten dollars.
Almost everyone thought Eleanor Holm’s punishment far exceeded the crime. The older, more mature athletes protested and asked Brundage to let everyone vote on the matter. I thought that if Holm lost her place, then they should have thrown off 95 percent of the team for drinking beer. Brundage said no, he was the authority. Like a dictator with an iron fist he issued edicts and everybody had to listen. I don’t even think he let the other officials vote. Of course, Hearst immediately hired Holm as a correspondent, so she went to the Olympics anyway. But she didn’t swim. Our loss.
I didn’t like any of it, but what was done was done. Besides, by the time we docked in Hamburg and took the train to Berlin, I had my own event to worry about.