Evening star., 1924-10-24
FLO W E r S
For the Living
Charlie Paddock.
BY ROBERT EDGREN.

When Charlie Paddock was born, in
Pasadena. Calf. his father went out
| into the lot beside the house and be-
gan the construction of a 100-yard
| running track. Charles first Christ
mas present was a pair of spiked
| shoes AS soon as he could toddle his
father paced him on the home track.
and the old gentleman could show
Charlie the way to the tape until the
| boy made the Pasadena High School
track team and began running the
! hundred in 10 seconds fiat. After
| that the senior Paddock did his rae
| ing with Charlie on the sand beach at
| Santa Monica, and Charlie admits that
until four or five years ago his father
could beat him running so yards In
| soft sand. In his younger days Mr.
! Paddock was known as a pretty fair
| quarter-mile runner
Perhaps 1T was his running in sand
| that gave Charlie Paddock the tre-
mendous strength that made him in
vincible on heavy track, and the
worlds fastest human" on any kind
Of track at all. Dean Cromwell, coach
at the University of Southern Califor-
! est legs he ever saw, and that the
first glimpse he had of Charles mus
Cular limbs induced him TO make
Charles a champion. This isn't in
tended to be embarrassing to Pad
dock. 1t Is put forward merely as d
point of scientific interest. A young
ster with powerful legs, properly
coached, can do wonders in athletics
AS Dean Cromwell says, he needed
only to show Paddock that he could
go faster by lifting his knees higher
| and he was a worlds record breaker.
OF course, there is more than that in
being champion. Paddock has great
determination, grit and ambition and
he has as clean a mind and clean a
body as any boy in America. Charlie
was entering college when the war
came along, and was only 1S. He at
once volunteered and worked his way
to a commission in the artillery.
After the fracas he ran in the inter-
allied games, won the hundred and
| two hundred meter races and broke
the worlds records.
Coming back to the University of
Southern California, Paddock began
breaking all sorts Of worlds sprint
records. He has run the hundred in
35 several times. has twice run the
two hundred and twenty in 90 As.
and has established other records and
won many championships. He won
the 200-meter race in the Olympic
games four years ago.
After leaving college Charlie want
ed 70 stop running, as sprint racing
is a severe strain and training takes
much time. He writes and lectures
| and Is kept rather busy. But he came
out again this year for the Olympcs
| Running record century at the
Drake Relays, with too little train
| ing, he strained a muscle in his leg,
| but shortly afterward qualified for the
Olympic team.
Lawson Robertson, the Olympic
team coach, tells story about Pad
dock.
Abrahams. the great English sprint
er. startled the athletic world by
| winning the 100-meter sprint from a
| team of American sprinterS that had
| heen thought invincible. Abrahams
| is a tall, rangy fellow with a tremen-
dous burst of speed. There was con-
| sternation in the American camp and
| it was thought that Abrahams would
| almost surely win the 200 meter
| event. But Abrahams and Paddock
| met in the semi-fnal heat. The two
could have run without much effort.
and both qualified for the final. first
and second men qualifying. But Pad
dock went out in that heat to run
Ahrahams off his feet, and did ii so
effectively that the tall Englishman
| had nothing left for the final. There
Scholz won from Paddock by few
| inches. Paddock might have saved
| himself for the final, but he gave ur
| his personal chance for the good of
| the team.
For that" said Robertson, Il con-
| slider Paddock entitled to fully as
much credit as if he had won"
Coming home. Charlie wound up his
athletic career by competing in the
| rational championship at the new
Newark A. c. field, where he won
| both the 100 and the 220 yard races,
equaling his own worlds record and
proving to the skeptical East that his
home State records were not the re-
| suit of western timing"
Copyright, 1921