The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-07-06

1T OVER
BY JOE WILLIAMS

NEW YORK, July 6.-The dress
II rehearsals for the Olympics
have just started and already the
boys are squawking. Dick Temple
ton, the Stanford track and field
coach, rises to remark that the Off
cial timers are using a dead watch,
and it is all cheap, petty trick to
show up the western athletes.
A dead watch is an instrument
equipped with dawdling seconds
hands and is totally unlike the lively
or jack rabbit watch with it's
mechanism geared to register only
record-breaking performances.
Because in recent years most of these
record breaking performances have been
plies that the he Official P1S tmersmmost Of
whom are easterners-haye entered into
conspiracy to belittle the native sons. or.
using the dead watch to Justify their own
suspicious that the California timers have
been using the lively or lack rabbit watch.
Iempletons suuawk was inspired by the
comparatively slow time credtasl TO Frank
Mykoh Who won the l00-yard dash in 90,
in A flat and Eugene Record who Won
the l2O-yard high hurdles in IS seconds.
Wykon is Californian Carr and Record
are fasteners Templeton insists that the
credited time in each OF these events was
purposely heightened in order to convince
the outside world that the Pacific Coast
officials do not know how TO tell time
may be wrong Personally, il ia all sou SOUNDS
crown men would stoop to oHs SUCH Efou CON- 9-
spiracv. Even the kinds of grown men
who run amateur athletics in this country;
ana besides. does II make great deal of
difference what the time is so long as the
race is truly run and the winner wins in
the proper manner?
COULD it be that Templeton was
~ piqued because the unknown
easterner, Carr, handed beating
TO the widely heralded Eastman, his
outstanding pupil? Quit showing
me around, officer! Can't guy
ask a civil question? What is this,
Russia? I guess that's telling EN-,
Ell, Felix? Trying to get tough
with the old Williams-Bah!
For all anybody knows, including Tenn
pleton. maybe Wykoff didn't do any better
than 9.9 for the hundred I note that one
Of the timers caught him in 10 fiat. What
clicked in S.e-that was another day,
III ADMIT that star Splinter in top
shape doesn't figure to slow up three sec
onds from one test to another but it has
happened. Was there ever a truly timed
race anyway? And how can you prove
that 1t was truly timed? I have seen
races with as many as Ave timers at the
hnish line and when it was over no two
OF the watches agreed. Where the element
OF human calculation is so scrambled, how
can there be accuracy in timing?
And what has become of that automatic
timing machine invented by DR.. Laurence
u. Dodd OF the University of California a
device that registered thousands of a sec
ono? Didn't somebody say this was to be
used In all future track and field meets?
recall that when 1t was put to test
the Dodd gadget proved both its prac-
strated that the human hand was more
inclined to over-rate than under-rate
sprinter's speed
The experiment showed that timing by
human hands may be from 04 to 10 of a
second in error. Which is to say that in
the tests the human checkers differed from
the mechanical timer by these varying
margins. With this evidence at hand, how
can you be sure that anybody has ever run
the hundred in 90, or the mile in 4 10?
AND isn't 1t probable that all the other
records are Incorrectly. timed?
should like to see the mechanical timer
IN. general use, even if it means rewriting
all the records. 1t would eliminate lot
OF childish arguments. It might even per-
suade Templeton to view eastern watches
with less suspicion. And best of all it
would reduce the number of badge wearers
who clutter up the field and obscure the
finish line so that few of the paid Gus
toners can tell what happened.