Cowboy Stuntman: From Olympic Gold to the Silver Screen

Chapter 5. Helsinki

Chapter 5 Helsinki I ’d had a good freshman year at UT, going undefeated in five track meets. As a sophomore in the fall of 1951, I played on the varsity football team, and I made varsity track that spring. Although I enjoyed football , track remained my first love. On the last day of 1951, my first wedding anniversary, I won the Sugar Bowl track meet in New Orleans. I ran the 100-meter dash in 10.3 seconds , beating Georgia Tech sprinter Buddy Folkes, a real big win. On that particular track, that was really fast. Coach Littlefield and his wife, Henrietta , had driven Charlie Thomas and me down there. We stayed near Lake Pontchartrain, but because of the cost, I hadn’t been able to bring Gail along and we spent our first anniversary apart. But that was my first major win and a thrilling time. Coach took us to the New Orleans Athletic Club. We also went to see Johnny Ray play at one of the clubs on Bourbon Street. He sang “Little White Cloud,” his biggest hit. In the spring of my sophomore year, now twenty years old, I was once again winning in every track meet I competed in. The Longhorns came in third at the Twenty-fifth Texas Relays that spring, but I won the 100-yard dash in a flat 10 seconds. Here’s some of what the 1952 Cactus, the UT yearbook, had to say about the event: One of the greatest groups of trackmen ever to appear in the Texas Relays turned in performances to match their talents as the Memorial Stadium cinder carnival wheeled through its Silver Anniversary Friday and Saturday, April 4–5. . . . As expected the host Longhorns were in a class by themselves in the sprints and sprint relays. Led by Charles Thomas, Texas dash men figured in three of the nine record performances. Dean Smith, Carl Mayes, Jim Brownhill, and Thomas sped to a 41.2 record in the 440-relay and tied the 880-relay mark with a 1:25.6 clocking. Both were the fastest times in the nation to that date. That May, we went back to California to compete in the Coliseum Relays again. This time I got beat by E. McDonald Bailey from Great Britain , but I came in second in the 100-yard dash. We stayed at the Ambassador Hotel, where word got around that the famous actresses Rhonda Fleming and Abby Lane were going to be out by the pool. Charlie and I headed for the pool and hung around a long time waiting to get a glimpse of those women in their swimsuits. We got horrible sunburns, but when they finally showed up we figured it had been well worth the wait. While we were at the Ambassador we also ran into Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner on one of the elevators. We were carrying our trophies and Dean at track practice, 1952. Helsinki 55 Sinatra took one and looked it over. He congratulated us and was very nice to us. I thought Ava Gardner was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. As I kept winning track meets that spring, I got to thinking, As fast as I’m running, I might just be able to make the Olympic team. I guess Coach Littlefield was thinking the same thing, because early that summer, he said that he wanted Charlie Thomas and me to try out for the upcoming Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland. I think Coach knew I had the right stuff. He knew I was a competitor, that I’d always be willing to stick my head in there and give it a try. I think he thought I had a chance and I started thinking the same thing. If you think you can do it, more than likely you can do it. So off we went with the coach and his wife. We traveled to Berkeley for the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship track meet, which started on June 13. The first four US citizens in each event, along with the top four winners from the Amateur Athletic Union competition National AAU championships, c. 1952. 56 Cowboy Stuntman and the first-place winners from the military’s All-Service track meets, would qualify to compete in the Olympic trials set for June 27–28 at the Coliseum in Los...