Page 94 - People & Places In Time

Friday Night Football
To this day track and field remains my favorite sport. I suppose because it’s about in- dividual accomplishment. Though it is referred to as a team sport, the individual contribution is no more or less than your personal accomplishment in your own event; relay races I sup- pose are the exception. The first meets in the season were often cold and windy and the dark of the early evenings made the waiting before or after your own event difficult. At some of the early track meets I found myself sitting in sweats, under an awning on the grass, perhaps it’s trying to rain and I’m not very motivated; thinking to myself, when is this going to end, I just want to be home. Still in that brief time when you are competing, it becomes so worth the effort. Soon enough spring is in full swing, and next thing you know I’m lying on the grass in the sun, cheering my teammates on, I’ve just made a new personal best in the Pole Vault and couldn’t be in a better place.
I was always fast and good in a number of events, yet pretty much confined my interest to pole vaulting which I had been doing in the back yard since junior high. Occasion- ally I ran hurdles and was good at them but
only competed a few times. I was good at
the discus but not the shot put; quick and
coordinated but not strong. I ran the 440 a
few times but one of my most remembered
experiences was at the Wasco relays, when
for some reason, on my leg of a particular
race, I was paired against Tommy Smith from
Lemoore go figure, the Smith brothers,
side by side. As we each took our respective
hadoff Lemoore was perhaps a touch ahead
but close enough. As I begin to run, I’m also
watching Tommy pull away. I was in such
awe that it crossed my mind to slow down
or to just to stop and watch. Of course,
Tommy would go on to win the gold medal
in the 220 at the Mexico City Olympics.
The end to track season in my senior year in 1963 was the end of my years on
the playing fields in Exeter. There were a few more 4th of July fireworks shows, watching a few baseball games and hanging out on some summer evenings at the pool, but things were changing and my interests were else- where.
There was that one last night, probably around midnight, when five or six of us were pool hopping. We scaled the fence at the municipal pool and dove in. Someone spotted the police cruising past, but of course, there was only the one police car on patrol for any night, in Exeter. We froze and I remember laying flat on the high dive watching them pass without knowing we were there. It was probably Henry Fry and he would have known us all anyway; I still wonder what would have happened had officer Fry seen us
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