Word: mel
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Early last year Mel began equaling the fastest 100 yards ever run by Paddock (9.5). Then he squeezed out a mite more speed and equaled the world's record (9.4), first set by Frank Wykoff,‡ another old U.S.C. hero. Was it possible to pump more speed out of human legs? It was. At Fresno, Calif, this spring, Patton ran his unbelievable 9.3. His archrival, Lloyd La Beach, was only inches behind...
...Beach, a Negro with a weakness for red, white & blue berets, is Panama-born, Jamaica-raised, U.S.-schooled (at U.C.L.A.) and the big reason why Mel can make no misstep in the 100-and 200-meter dashes at London...
...season the subject of running was rarely mentioned in the Patton home. Mel never read the sport pages: "I might begin believing those things they write." When the afternoon paper was delivered to their neat, $35-a-month apartment on Beverly Hills' Burton Way, his wife tore out the sport section and put it away. As sensitive to excitement as a punch-drunk fighter is to bells, Patton didn't want any gongs ringing inside...
...wife always took over the night before a race. Brown-eyed Shirley Ann Patton, with whom Mel "started going steady" in the seventh grade, would invite friends over, instructing them in advance to talk about everything but track. When Mel went to bed, around midnight, he slept quietly. Next morning, Shirley Ann found odd jobs for him to do, and kept a string of small talk going to stall off thoughts of the race until about 11 o'clock. Then, as they parked two-year-old Susan with grandma and got ready to leave, inside Mel Patton the current...
Without Malarkey. His stomach would begin to churn and his brown eyes got watery and bloodshot. Normally calm and pleasant, he changed into a grouch. Says Mel: "I feel weak-weak as a kitten -when I walk on the field. I feel too tired to warm up, and I don't warm up much. Not as much as other fellows." U.S.C. Coach Dean Cromwell (now head coach of the Olympic track team), who has a reputation for inspiring his athletes with well-chosen malarkey, never goes near...