Cool Article On Brutus Hamilton.

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NYCGOBEARS
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https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/vahe-gregorian/article245143525.html
OBear073akaSMFan
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Thanks for posting but it looks like you have to subscribe to the article.
crewbear
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That's a great article. My grandfather was Bill Neufeld, who threw discus and javelin at Cal in the early 20's. Grandpa took 5th in the 1924 Paris Olympics, which I believe is where he met Brutus. But their paths continued to cross, and during Brutus's tenure as track and field coach at Cal, he coached Grandpa's son, Bill Jr., who ran track (alongside Mike White, among others) in the mid 1950's. (The Neufeld Award, given annually to the graduating seniors (male and female) with the highest GPA's, was established by Grandpa in memory of Bill Jr., who died in a boating accident outside the Golden Gate shortly after graduating from Cal).
Long-winded preamble to saying that I don't think I ever heard Grandpa speak of anyone he had met throughout his life and extensive travels (and he had an illustrious life) with the reverence he had for Brutus -- he simply thought the world of him.
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OBear073akaSMFan said:

Thanks for posting but it looks like you have to subscribe to the article.

Maybe try a different browser. I was able to read it for free.
NYCGOBEARS
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crewbear said:

That's a great article. My grandfather was Bill Neufeld, who threw discus and javelin at Cal in the early 20's. Grandpa took 5th in the 1924 Paris Olympics, which I believe is where he met Brutus. But their paths continued to cross, and during Brutus's tenure as track and field coach at Cal, he coached Grandpa's son, Bill Jr., who ran track (alongside Mike White, among others) in the mid 1950's. (The Neufeld Award, given annually to the graduating seniors (male and female) with the highest GPA's, was established by Grandpa in memory of Bill Jr., who died in a boating accident outside the Golden Gate shortly after graduating from Cal).
Long-winded preamble to saying that I don't think I ever heard Grandpa speak of anyone he had met throughout his life and extensive travels (and he had an illustrious life) with the reverence he had for Brutus -- he simply thought the world of him.

Thanks for sharing. That's a wonderful legacy.
59bear
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Hamilton was the track coach during my years at Cal and his teams, while not deep enough to challenge for national titles, always had some outstanding individuals to watch, among them Lon Spurrier (world record setting half-miler) Bowden, sprinter Leamon King (once a co-holder of the WR at 100 yds) and hurdler/long jumper Monte Upshaw There was a lot of great competition at Edwards in those days. Hamilton was a class act even among an outstanding cadre of leaders like Pappy Waldorf, Pete Newell and baseball's George Wolfman.
smh
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OBear073akaSMFan said:

> Thanks for posting but it looks like you have to subscribe to the article.
cut / paste test, after opened with javascript off, as a local wiz suggested / ymmv ..
Quote:

From pandemic to world wars and MU, KU and Cal, this man's legacy is worth celebrating

By Vahe Gregorian
August 23, 2020 05:00 AM

One hundred years ago Friday, Brutus Hamilton's improbable journey to Antwerp, Belgium, had brought him to the verge of becoming the world's greatest athlete. He led the decathlon through nine events entering the finale, the 1,500-meter race, all a fascinating distance from where the odyssey began.

If they were making a movie about him, the montage might start as he stood in at the starting line.

Back to Peculiar, Missouri, where he was born to parents Sid and Nannie. And to a farm, evidently in Grandview neighboring the Truman Family Home, and an accident as a 6-year-old in which his hip was dislocated and foot nearly severedto leave doctors wondering if he'd ever walk normally again.

And to Harrisonville High, where he won nine individual state track championships to lead the school to state titles in 1916 and 1917.

And briefly into the service during World War I after graduating in 1918, he told a University of California-Berkeley interviewer in 1966, not overseas but spending three months largely burying Missourians who had died in that pandemic.

Then the view would shift to the University of Missouri, where he would later call himself "the greenest pea" that ever hit a college campus. But where he also went, as The Kansas City Times put it in 1956, "with a mind tuned to poetry and the classics and a love of sports deep in his heart."

Then the scene would shift to the wretched crossing of the Atlantic Ocean for the Antwerp Olympics, for which he qualified by winning national championships in the pentathlon and decathlon. The 13-day voyage of the Princess Matoika, which had just returned from Europe with the remains of hundreds of flag-covered coffins of U.S. servicemen, was harsh.

"The hold reeked of formaldehyde from the dead bodies. There was nowhere to train. The food was terrible. Rats seemed to be everywhere," according to the United States Olympic & Paralympic Museum. "Upon arriving in Belgium, many of the American athletes demanded better accommodations in Antwerp, cabin passage home and railroad fare from New York to their home cities. It was labeled the 'Mutiny of the Matoika.' "

According to Mizzou Magazine, the conditions sabotaged the Olympics for George Massengale, one of Hamilton's MU teammates, who was forced to withdraw after incurring swelling of the joints determined to be ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory disease.

Another MU teammate was Jackson Scholz, best known through the 1983 movie "Chariots of Fire," set at the 1924 Paris Games. Scholz won a gold medal as part of the 4x100 relay on the very day Hamilton had arrived on the precipice of his own.

And Hamilton appeared even closer to winning gold as the race began on what The New York Times described as a cold and bleak day with occasional rain ... only to be overtaken by Helge Lvland of Norway. He was left to settle for silver after a cumulative tally so close it was recounted overnight before the result was final.

Disappointed but not distraught, per Olympic history sources, Hamilton sent home a message to his mother.

"Did my best, but lost by four points. Good time. Well. Home soon. Brutus," wrote Hamilton, who missed the 1920 football season at MU with the flu.

Those few words reflected an attitude and a code that not only would guide Hamilton well all his life, but many others.

Because the adventures and distinctions were only beginning for the underappreciated Hamilton, who died 50 years ago after a life of compelling and honorable service (including World War II) and memorable mentoring that bears reaffirming.

'Almost like Shakespeare'

Hamilton returned to the Olympics in 1924, placing seventh in the pentathlon after finishing sixth in that event in 1920. But it was through coaching that he left his most indelible imprints in a career celebrated in multiple halls of fame, including that of USA Track & Field.

After working to little satisfaction for an insurance company in Kansas City, he began teaching English and coaching in Neodesha, Kansas, and soon was teaching and coaching at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Even then, he had remained enough of a national figure that The New York Times featured a dispatch about his wedding to Rowena Thornburg, with whom he had a daughter, Jean.

Then he went on to the University of Kansas from 1930-1932, where he coached, among other notables, 1932 Los Angeles Olympics gold-medal decathlete James Bausch and Glenn Cunningham the world record-holder in the mile and two-time Olympian who nearly had his legs amputated after severe injuries suffered in a fire when he was 7.

Hamilton was beloved at Kansas, where he maintained many relationships all his life (particularly through his infinite and eloquent letters) even after leaving for Cal-Berkeley in 1932 and becoming an assistant coach for U.S. Olympic teams.

Perhaps paradoxically, even as he was helping his charges break through their limits, Hamilton became known for the barriers he envisioned. Based on "the architecture of the human frame and the shortest time or distance between two points" after "many hours poring over energy, expectancy and fatigue graphs,"The New York Times wrote in 1935, Hamilton determined that the fastest a mile ever could be run would be 4 minutes 1.66 seconds.

Just the same, the one-time English teacher and lover of literature who doubtless was familiar with Robert Browning embraced the poet's notion that a man's reach should exceed his grasp and go beyond widely accepted norms.

In his case, that included breaking down racial walls: In a time when baseball, basketball and football coaches at Cal excluded Black athletes, Hamilton welcomed them including Archie Williams, who would go on to win the 400 at the 1936 Berlin Games and later trained the Black pilots who became the Tuskegee Airmen.

Years later, Williams spoke of Hamilton with wonder. He noted the versatile athleticism befitting a former decathlete, saying Hamilton had been a great boxer and golfer and had a tryout with the New York Yankees. But he was perhaps most impressed with Hamilton's kind wisdom.

"I have some letters that he wrote. Geez, it's almost like Shakespeare, the way he handled words," Williams told interviewer Gabrielle Morris in 1992 for a University of California Alumni Series. "In other words, anything that he took up, he was good at it. The main thing, he was a man among the men. In anything."

Which lent itself nicely to coaching, Williams continued: "He didn't emphasize technique. He didn't criticize little nit-picking stuff in other words. He knew how to get you to do your best."

Inspiring that sort of belief, over three-plus decades, his Cal teams won seven NCAA championships. And years later, Hamilton was part of the history of the breaking of the four-minute barrier in the United States.
But first it was time to serve his country in a different way.

'What would Brutus do?'

In 1942, in his 40s, he volunteered and entered officer's training. According to The Kansas City Times, Capt. Hamilton was a ground officer for the 93rd Bombardment Group and spent more than two years in England and North Africa.

He briefed crews for targets, debriefed them upon return and lectured on everything from enemy aircraft to how to contact French and Dutch undergrounds and what to do if captured.

One mission in particular, amid the aftermath of the destruction of oil fields in Romania, haunted Hamilton years later.

"The results were devastating to the oil plants that were so essential to Germany's war effort at the time," he said in 1956, with reporter C.E. McBride noting that Hamilton's eyes then went dim. "But it came after a shocking loss to our group, and I knew every one of those boys. That morning we sent out 37 planes. That night only 11 returned."

Upon his return from the war, Hamilton resumed coaching at Cal, where he also served stints as athletic director and extended his international influence. That included helping coach at the 1948 London Olympics and becoming the head U.S. Olympic track coach for the 1952 Helsinki Games.

In 1954, Englishman Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile barrier, the one Hamilton never thought would be broken. It took three more years for a U.S. runner to do so. The man to do it, Don Bowden, was a protege of Hamilton's.

And that meant a lot more to Bowden than just helping him make that mark in track, a mark met in part because he trusted Hamilton's belief in him and broader care for him.

"He wanted me to study, enjoy life and try to come out of college as a balanced person. That was his whole philosophy and that's what I really liked," Bowden said in a 2017 interview with garycohenrunning.com. "He built character and built the person for a lifetime, not just for a race."

Because it was never about one race, something Hamilton knew even that day 100 years ago and shared in more important ways ever after about the glory in the striving.

"There are people today," Bowden added, "who still ask themselves, 'What would Brutus do?' "

Something, no doubt, that would help us be kinder and more thoughtful even amid pandemics and strife in the world.

author: Vahe Gregorian has been a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star since 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered a wide spectrum of sports, including 10 Olympics. Vahe was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master's degree at Mizzou.
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