THE CHAMPION SPRINTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16905, 2 December 1922, Page 14

THE CHAMPION SPRINTER.

A PEEP INTO THE PAST. FAMOUS FEATS OF TOM MORRIS. The fastest human ! Charley Paddock is called that, and, as far as the world knows, he is the las test, human now. The public memory is short, writes Ben Macomber in the San Francisco “ Chronicle,” or it might go back and find that Charley Paddock* is not the first wonder sprinter California has produced . In particular has the public forgotten the old-time professional foot racers, or it might remember that once before California has possessed the fastest human. This was Tom Morris, the Orange County boy. the speed marvel of thirty years ago, who set marks that have never been bettered and some that have never been equalled. It goes without saying that the man who can do the hundred in 9 4-osec any time can do it faster sometimes. Tom Morris won the national sweep stakes at the Chicago World’s Fair in 9 4-osec by a yard over Cuckoo Collins. Two years later, in 1895. Tom Morris was in California suffering from an ailment which most sprinters would have considered totally Nevertheless, lie was determined to run in the national sweepstakes, which was held that year at Brockton, Mass. Lt was a long ride across the country on the slow trains of those times. Onlv two days off the train and sick as he was, Morris finished only two inches behind the celebrated Piper Donovan, in 9 3-ssec, the first occasion iu history that the century was ever run in that time under official conditions. Tom Morris beat the Canadian, James Quirk at 75yds in 7see flat, on December 10. 1892. Up to that time Quirk had been considered the fastest man in the world at the distance, and held the world's record of 7£sec. Tom Morris beat Sloan at 150yds in 14see fiat. Two things must lie remembered. In the first place, in the long ago days of professional foot racing, there were no organised bodies to accept and keep official records. Nowadays the Amateur Athletic Union keeps the records carefully, but only those of amateurs. In the professional days amateur tract* athletics had hardly begun. Now* there is no professional sprinting. So the old professional marks, which books, have been forgotten by the pub lie and arc hard to come at, since they have to be gathered from scattered, sources.

But in the days when professional sprinting was a great and popular game, before its crookedness killed it, there was no lack of experienced and competent timers.

The second thing to remember is that as a rule professional foot racing was not calculated to bring out 4he best time. It seldom did show the speed of which the.sprinters were really capable. In the first place most of the professional races were fixed. The game eventually reached a stage where the only safe, not to say sensible, bet on a foot race was that it wotild be crooked.

In the second place, in the instances when a race was on the square, the winner, for obvious strategic reasons, never showed any more than was absolutely necessary. And, of course, *t could not be often that) a 9 3-s.sec man would be forced to show any such speed. Such sprinters were as rare then as they arc now. But the backers and trainers of these sprinters had to know precisely what their men could do. They timed thenracers repeatedly and often in trials with the greatest care and over meticulously measured distances.

Over and over again Tom Morris was timed in ssec flat for fifty yards. As Walter Christie says, be was the fastest man off the mark that the athletic world has seen. I myself saw r Tom Morris run fifty yards in ssec flat for fifty cents. When Tom was told the time he .remarked : 4 ‘ Four thousand dollars’ worth of run for four bits.”

Scores of times—-Tube Haney, Morris’s old trainer and himself a professional foot racer, says hundreds if times—Tom was clocked in 9 3-osec for the century. Twice, at least, Tom Morris . was timed over the hundred yards in 9* sec. On one of these occasions the timers were L. T. Felton. Cash Harvey and James Murray, all racetrack men and timers by profession, and. what is still more important, experienced timers of foot races. Felton and Harvey are dead, hut Murray is still alive. There were only two kinds of occasions when a professional foot race might result in the best time the winner could make.

One was the national sweepstake, which used to be held every year at some city in the United -States. These were so managed that they were always on the square. They brolight together the class of the country's foot.racers and they had to run it out. Witness Piper Donovan’s 9 3-osec.

The other occasion was in a fixed match race, where one of the two crooked contestants decided to doublecross the other. When the sprinter who had agreed to throw the race to the other tried to win the bets at stake forced both men to the utmostTt was under such circumstances that Tom Morris beat James Quirk at 75 yards in 7sec flat, a mark never equalled before or since.

But now for the most remarkable performance of all Tom Morris’s car-

Tom Morris’ friends have long believed hire dead. Not merely dead in an

athletic sence. but literally in his grave. The dead has come to life. A few j weeks ago Tom Morris reappeared m California. Nor is the athlete in him quite dead. Tom had been away from California J for twenty-seven years. He will be 58 j years old come this"’November. Shortly after his reappearance Tom ; became involved in an argument over i the speed of a well thought of Mexican . youth down at Oceanside in San Diego county. The upshot was a. foot race for 50u dollars a side. And Tom Morris won. And the time was 10 3-ssecs. With a little work, Tom says, be can still do 10 l-sseo. Tobe Raney doubts that ,Tom can do this. But the fact remains that this 1 58-year-old man, after a life of the pace ; that kills, can run 100 yards in at least j 10 3-osec. That time will win the century in j the majority of high school track j meets in the United States and 10 1-5 ; sec will win it in the majority of college j track meets. Come all ye youths of 30 and 40 j and 50 who think you have a little 1 speed in your well-kept muscles. Here ; is a broken oldster of near 00 who will : o-ive you a race for money or for marbles. When a broken-down old hack of 58 can turn a hundred yards in 10 3-osec j what must be have been in the vigor i of his youth? Yes, it is true that the public has j forgotten the old professional foot- j racers. The public is lost in amazement j at the performances of Paddock, Kirk- . sey. Leconey and Woodring and re- ; members not Tom Morris, Piner Pone- j van, Arthur Duffy. George Henderson, j George Coppie. Fred Stewart. Tames \ Quirk, Arthur Pulley, Cuckoo Collin* and George Brown.