Word: tour
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Even the few black pros who have made the big-time tour have had their troubles with the regulars at Palmer. After the 1967 Buick Open, Charlie Sifford made tracks for the old park. "He came here and lost four days in a row," remembers one regular. "Then he went to Hartford and won the tournament...
When the International Track Association first pitched its professional tent two years ago, it aimed to lure cash customers with a blend of carnival and first-class track and field competition. Unfortunately, performances have been spotty, purses have been paltry, and the tour's personalities have shown little of the crowd-pulling pizazz so important to commercial survival. The I.T.A. still has problems, but its struggle to succeed has been made easier by a pair of iconoclastic performers: Shotputter Brian Oldfield and Pole Vaulter Steve Smith. Both world-record holders, they are also flaky, free spirits who have just...
Behemoth Brian, 30, is already looking beyond the track. "Why can't I play fullback?" asks the 6-ft. 5-in. 270-pounder. "I'm bigger and faster than Larry Csonka." He is not kidding. Cat quick, Oldfield regularly defeats the pro tour's women sprinters in a special 30-yd. dash. Last year he turned down a $10,000 bonus offer to play for the New York Stars in the World Football League, but this summer he may try to talk the Miami Dolphins into giving him a shot at Csonka's vacated slot...
...spin whirls him out of the circle, disqualifying him on approximately half of his allotted attempts. "I feel confined in that circle," he says. "I have to learn not to be intimidated by it." Perhaps, but it is Oldfield himself who is the big intimidator on the I.T.A. tour. "On my baddest days," he says, "I'm better than anyone else...
Gliding Down. Vaulter Smith, 23, has had a tougher climb to the top. He joined the pro tour last year to compete head to head with Old Rival Bob Seagren. He has since taken Seagren twelve out of 18 times. And at Madison Square Garden the last week in May, Smith soared 18 ft. 5 in., exceeding by an inch his own world indoor mark...