Mark WiedmerBigger. Stronger. Faster.
That’s what we always write and say about today’s athletes. And why not? The average height of UCLA’s 1964 NCAA national champion Bruins was 6-foot-3. The average height of Villanova’s 2016 NCAA champs was almost 6-6.
Jerry Duncan weighed less than 200 pounds as an offensive tackle at Alabama in 1964. Cam Robinson weighed 326 pounds as a Crimson Tide offensive tackle last season.
Turn to swimming and the winning time for the 100-meter freestyle swim at the 1964 Summer Olympics was 53.4 seconds by the United States’ Don Schollander. The winning time at the 2012 Summer Games in the same event: the USA’s Nathan Adrian at 47.52.
But while most numbers in sports are far bigger or flashier than 52 years ago, depending on how you look at them, don’t try convincing Clevon Thompson that bigger, stronger, faster holds true in local high school track and field. Especially in the 440-yard relay, which he anchored for Howard High School’s 1964 state championship foursome.
That quartet of James Isom, Raymond Smith, Eddie Ware and Thompson set a black school state record that year of 43.40 to help the Hustlin’ Tigers claim their fourth Tennessee High School Athletic Association track title in 10 years.
Thompson understandably remains proud of that achievement, but he’s also shocked as he looks at so many meet winners in 2016 who produce slower times. Keep in mind that 440 yards is so close in length to a modern 400 meters that the difference is considered within two-tenths of a second.
“I just want Chattanooga to be on top in track and field, so this is hard on me,” the former teacher and coach said. “I can’t believe that 52 years later that time would still win a lot of local meets.”
It must be noted that the 43.40 wouldn’t have won a Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association state title last year. Melrose won the Class AAA 4×100-meter relay with a time of 42.20. McCallie won the Division II race in 42.33. Pearl-Cohn won the A/AA boys’ title in 42.92.
In all three classes, that Howard time from 1964 would have been good for fifth.
But when you look at a very competitive Red Bank team running a 43.94 and Signal Mountain a 43.76 in the 4×100, it can be tough on a track enthusiast such as Thompson, who later starred at both Fisk and Knoxville College in track and football and once ran back a 96-yard kickoff return against Morehouse inside Neyland Stadium.
“I want our sports in this town to have the attitude to be the best,” he said.
Especially, he added, “since we were running on cinder or gravel tracks.”
An East Ridge High graduate, Mickey Haddock coached track at the school for many years. He agrees with Thompson’s assertion that cinder tracks were definitely slower, which makes the Howard time even more impressive.
“The all-weather tracks of today make a lot of difference,” he said. “And they’re also easier on the legs.”
But something else Haddock believes is hurting the Scenic City’s track programs has much more to do with the overall condition of our public school tracks.
“Have you driven by a lot of our facilities lately?” he said. “There are maybe two or three public schools in the whole city – Red Bank, Signal Mountain and Ooltewah – that have a facility capable of holding a meet. Baylor, GPS and McCallie have great facilities, but the public schools are really hurting.”
Longtime Baylor track coach Bill McMahan mentioned another oft-cited concern.
“Too many of these kids are specializing in one sport now, and it isn’t track,” he said. “I think we’ve seen it more on the boys’ side than the girls’ maybe. But track’s also a little different. You look at our program and we’ve had some records up there a pretty long time, too. John Hannah’s 171 feet in the discus is still standing (from 1968). Our 4×200 relay record is 50 years old. In 1994, we had three kids go 14 feet in the pole vault and only two of them reached the state meet. Most years you don’t have one.”
Thompson’s teammate on both that relay team and the football team, Raymond Smith – who was a four-sport letterman at Howard before going to Alabama State to play football – admitted that his relay team was exceptionally fast for that time.
“All four of us could fly, especially Clevon,” said the 70-year-old Huntsville, Ala., resident, who got rid of his 80 to 90 athletic trophies a few years ago because “that’s in the past.”
He also believes training had something to do with it.
“We did work hard,” he said. “We had a coach, Freddie White, who required that. We’d run up hills and stadium steps. I don’t keep up with all this these days. I used to read everything I could about sports when I was growing up. Now I go to sleep a lot watching sports. But I guess I am surprised that time is still competitive 52 years later.”
As McMahan said, track might be different. Or maybe Isom, Smith, Thompson and Ware were just that fast. After all, Secretariat’s Kentucky Derby time of 1:59.4 in 1973 still stands, as does his Belmont Stakes record of 2:24. Though not a time, Wilt Chamberlain’s NBA record 100-point game is 54 years old. With some athletic feats, time really does appear to stand still.
Smith also believes another factor is hurting track nationally.
“The money isn’t there,” he said. “The best athletes are playing basketball and football and baseball because that’s where they think they can get rich.”
Added Haddock: “And track’s hard. It takes a special kid to put in the time needed to be good. It’s not like when I was growing up. Kids are pulled in so many directions. They all want a car. A lot of them have jobs after school. There’s just so much more to do now.”
To all of this, Thompson shakes his head.
“I just want to admonish our kids to be better,” he said. “The year after we won, Melrose won the 440 relay with a time of 42.7. That’s what’s supposed to happen. You’re supposed to strive to be better. I just want our area runners to show more guts, meanness, pride. I want them to take the attitude we had. We used to say, ‘You won’t catch me, and if you do, I’ll run you down.'”
It all sounds doable and reasonable. As Thompson said, “How can you let people 52 years ago run a better time than you?”
Then again, horse trainers probably have a similar thought each time another Kentucky Derby winner fails to better Secretariat.
Or as Haddock said, “Speed can be tough to find. You’ve either got it or you don’t. And in 1964, those guys obviously had a lot of it.”
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com