Fire on the Track

by Roseanne Montillo

  She was aware of those names; her room was a virtual shrine to female track-and-field athletes. On one side of the room was tacked a newspaper photograph of Babe Didrikson, flashing her crooked smile, her legs slim as a bird’s, her nose thin and pointy, flanked by a crowd of spectators. Stella Walsh watched from another corner of the room, her smile awkward and sly, a gold medal slung around her neck. Betty and the others elbowed one another for space in the small room. There were no family portraits, no movie-star photographs ripped out of magazines, no matinee idols flashing bright smiles at her, no advertisements for beauty products. Just star athletes reminding her of possibilities.

  Moore had warned her that few people expected her to make much of an impact. She was unknown and virtually untrained and had never participated in a meet; she would be running against national and Olympic champions. Still, she should not feel inadequate, for in the beginning they had also been unknowns. Besides, several times she had unofficially beaten Betty’s time. He looked forward to testing that on a real track.

  On arriving, they learned that Betty had not shown up for the competition. The woman to beat, then—Helen’s only true competitor—was Stella Walsh. Helen had never met Stella, but she was hard to miss, strutting onto the track with reporters in tow, every rumor Helen had ever heard about her finally coalescing. Seven years older than Helen, Stella looked every inch the athlete, her body trim at the waist but muscled and unusually well built below it. She never smiled, never spoke to the others, never acknowledged them with a word or even a gesture. She stood apart, digging her holes at the starting line, awaiting the pop of the gun.

  Everyone steadily watched Stella, though Helen was eye-catching in her blue running outfit. Despite her impressive physique and the fact that Coach Moore had told reporters that Helen had unofficially broken the world record several times, few of the spectators paid much attention to her. Helen was just fine with the lack of recognition—for now.

  Her first event was the 50 meters. In the preliminary heat, she stumbled at the start, and though she recovered at the last second, she lost to Stella. However, by the final heat she was ready. The two made equally excellent starts and ran down the track almost neck and neck. Nearing the final stretch with the finish line in sight, Helen edged forward and took the lead, keeping the rhythm and smashing through the tape, Stella just behind her.

  Nobody was more surprised by her victory than Helen. A Missouri Express reporter thrust a pen and notepad in front of the newly minted victor and asked her how she felt about beating Stella Walasiewicz. Helen, arching her eyebrows in surprise at the foreign name, replied, “Stella who?” Reporters took her answer as youthful boasting and hurried toward Stella, who was quickly gathering her belongings.

  This was Stella’s first loss in years, journalists pointed out to her, and she had lost to a beginner. What did it feel like to lose to Helen? What did she attribute the loss to? Was she aware that Helen did not have a clue about who she was? They went on, attempting to tease out drama from the situation and start a feud between the two stars. But if Helen’s win had left Stella rankled, she didn’t show it. She chalked up her loss to Helen’s good fortune, not the girl’s talent. It was “just a fluke,” she replied to reporters. “I can beat her anywhere,” she boasted before leaving the arena.

  Stella’s words riled Helen, who knew her win had not been just a lucky break at all. In fact, she suspected this would only be the start of her streak, and the newspapers agreed. “From Farm to Fame on the Cinder Track,” read one of the headlines. “Surprise Star of the Women’s Track Meet: Olympic Sprint Hope.” Even Collier’s, a national publication with a reputation for social reform, dedicated a long feature to her, crowning her the fastest runner in the world.

  —

  Upon returning to Fulton, Coach Moore built a training regimen to take Helen through the summer, helping her condition and train for the various upcoming competitions he had planned for her. Only one thing stood in his way: Helen’s father. Frank was strongly opposed to a sporting life; he had planned something different for Helen upon her high school graduation. He wanted her to find a job, any kind of job that would earn steady money, which she in turn would hand over to him to help the family. He didn’t think there was any need for Helen to continue her education, nor did he think that there was any use in her sporting activities.

  But Moore prevailed—as did Bertie, who urged her husband to allow Helen to attend college. Helen settled on William Wood College, to her mother’s pleasure. Although Frank was unhappy about his daughter leaving home, William Wood was close enough for her to return on weekends and holidays to take care of her household duties. She also received an athletic scholarship, though the college was not really known for athletics. In fact, the institution did not believe in physical education as an appropriate course of study for young women at all. Female students did participate in tennis, archery, and golf, but those activities were pursued more for recreational purposes than anything else. Other schools were vying for Helen’s attention—larger, better ones with an emphasis on athletics—but Coach Moore was hired to coach half-time for Westminster College, the boys’ college affiliated with William Wood, where he could continue coaching Helen. Now it was time to strategize.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  OFF TO BERLIN

  By early July 1936, the athletes had arrived in Providence from all over the country. “All were bent on one destination: the Olympic headquarters at Room 108 in the Crown Hotel, where the final details for the most novel meet that has ever been presented to the Rhode Island public are being arranged,” stated the Providence Journal. Once again, July 4 was the date of the AAU National Championships, and once again they would also serve as the Olympic tryouts.

  Only one anticipated athlete had not arrived yet, and she would never arrive: Babe Didrikson. Though she had seemed like the obvious favorite, she had violated the terms of her amateur status after her wins in Los Angeles, forfeiting her chance to participate in the next Olympics. A photograph of her had been used to advertise a car, which was against AAU rules. Olympians could not use their names or likenesses to advertise anything while remaining amateurs, and immediately after her photograph was published the infraction came to the attention of the AAU. It seemed to officials (particularly to Avery Brundage) that Babe was once again showing off her impertinence. Her violations of the Olympic principles, not only of the written rules but also of the moral laws that governed amateurism, went too far. This time something had to be done about her, and Brundage was happy to lead the way.

  As the controversy over women’s participation in track and field continued to play out in the courts and the newspapers, Brundage was asked how he felt about it. He replied, “You know, the ancient Greeks kept women out of their athletic games…they would not even let them in the sidelines. I’m not sure that they were right.” On December 6, a New York Times headline blared, “Babe Didrikson Banned by AAU.” Her career as an amateur runner was over.

  —

  Betty had ridden the train east to Providence and on arriving in the city had immediately felt the weight of this being her last shot at the Olympics. Unlike in Newark, she felt nervous, tense, fighting the anxious energy that filled her body. She recalled her youthful self of nearly eight years earlier, leaving Union Station brimming with excitement and naiveté at the adventure opening up before her. Back then, she had barely heard of the Olympics, her competitors, or the stakes ahead. All she had genuinely cared about was the prospect of an adventure abroad, which had culminated in a gold medal.

  The meets began at 1:30, at the height of the afternoon heat, on the grounds at Brown University. Upon arriving, the athletes were not immediately allowed to visit the track, so they milled about the hotel lobby and corridors, reading the list of scheduled events, which included several dances and dinners. They would also be guests of honor at the Crescent Park Management team dinner on the shore of Rhode Island. But no one seemed particularly interested in an
y of that; they wanted to run. A reporter covering the story commented on the seriousness he saw plastered on the athletes’ faces.

  Dee Boeckmann, who would coach the US Women’s Track and Field Team, had arrived a few days earlier to survey the conditions of the track, check the forecasts, ensure that hotel arrangements had been set, analyze the physical condition of the athletes, and, most important, investigate the money situation. A slew of reporters also waited to speak to her.

  There would be eleven events in the program, five of them Olympic qualifiers: the 80-meter hurdles, 100-meter dash, javelin, discus, and high jump. Only the winners of those events would go on to Berlin, and Dee had to make certain athletes could compete at their best. She found the track surface in excellent condition. Weather reports anticipated warmth, which she knew would be welcomed by the California and southern contingents. In such warm weather the muscles tended to relax more, allowing for easier and more pleasant runs. She was thrilled to see that the athletes had arrived even earlier than scheduled and that, despite their long journeys, they displayed pep, which she trusted would translate into excellent running days.

  However, though Dee found the conditions of the grounds and the weather agreeable, she could not help but bemoan the economic circumstances they were facing, which—much like the rest of the country—had left a mark on their sport. “Much will depend on the funds available,” she told the press when asked who would be going on to Berlin and how the women would manage to pay for the journey if they were not provided with financial assistance. “So for that reason we hope for a fine turnout on the part of Providence and Rhode Island tomorrow,” she went on. “If the money to finance the team to Berlin does not come in at the gate, we will make an appeal for aid to the states from which the girls came, for we hope to have a full team in the Olympic meet.”

  —

  So much had changed. Betty herself was teetering at the edge of a precipice: save for her smile, there was nothing in her demeanor to remind spectators of the girl she had been eight years earlier, the carefree, all-or-nothing sixteen-year-old who had stormed into Newark with a swagger in her stride. Those were the relics of a life that had long since passed. Here instead stood a jittery woman nervously flicking the bracelet General MacArthur had given her after her 1928 win, now trying to calm herself. She watched the other competitors, all younger with bounce in their steps. She always struggled when she recalled the plane accident, and she hoped that today would not be the day when any traumatic memories came flooding in. She no longer flew with her cousin Wil. He could barely walk, never mind pilot a plane. Years later, in the throes of middle age, his mother long dead, Wil would go on to amputate the leg that had so bothered him, wishing that his mother had agreed to do it earlier or that he had had enough courage to defy her.

  Forced by her health and economic circumstances, Betty had dropped out of Northwestern, a fact that pained her as much as her wounded leg did. By the 1930s, the family’s debts had grown, and neither she nor her father could continue to pay the tuition, which—coupled with the expenses of her rehabilitation—eliminated her dream of taking a degree in physical education. Regardless, they were luckier than many, and she knew it. Her father had lost his job at the bank but managed to keep afloat by working security for Acme Steel, and though it was unlike other jobs he had previously performed, he was glad to have steady work while others had none. And they had their home, which was paid in full. However, many were not so fortunate. Betty watched as caravans of people whose homes had been repossessed left Riverdale daily, a chair, a battered suitcase, or a dog—the remains of a once prosperous life—strapped alongside the children in the backseats of cars.

  Betty had joined the rest of the unemployed in searching for work. It was not the most auspicious time, she knew, as tens of thousands of other people were also looking for employment. It was easy to become disheartened, to wallow in one’s own misery. As she drove to and from Chicago and Riverdale, she could see the misery all around her, in the men and women waiting in breadlines or scavenging through refuse like rats; she could see it in the eyes of children, who sat alone on steps and stared into the distance as she had once stared down a cinder track. And she could see it in her own family, in the relatives whom the Depression had touched most deeply. There was no more attending dance classes, plays, recitals, or dinners with her groups, as she had done as a youngster and college student, because there were no more groups. And she no longer spoke with Bert. There were also no more college classes or jaunts across the quads from her sorority house to meet Frank Hill on the track. There was no more Frank; no more official training, just the meets she volunteered for. Eventually, unlikely as it seemed, she had found work as a secretary, a far cry from what she had set out to do, but work nonetheless.

  Indeed, so much had changed, but running had stayed constant. She could always run.

  —

  Helen stepped onto the hot track, looked around, and wiped her brow. She spotted Betty and walked over to her. They had already been introduced when nearly eighty of them had been escorted to the city’s State House to meet Rhode Island governor Theodore Francis Green earlier in the day. He’d instructed the women to “uphold American ideals of democracy and freedom, not apologetically but proudly.” But the athletes, especially Helen, were not keen on all the formality; they wanted to begin the heats.

  By the time she arrived in Providence, Helen was no longer a local farm girl trying out her skills for the school coach. A college woman, with all the experiences an academic life provided, educational as well as the romantic, she felt confident, and with good reason. She was even in the newspapers, having become the type of person she had often read about, her picture now possibly plastered on someone else’s wall. She had won several heats already, even beating the indomitable Stella Walsh.

  Although Coach Moore kept her up to speed, Helen preferred to read the newspapers herself, to see what the reporters were writing about her. And preceding her arrival at the trials were headlines touting her not only as the best hope for a new Olympic title and record holder, but as “a New Didrikson,” a comparison she enjoyed, having always admired the Babe, whose style evoked natural comparisons. As a tomboy, Helen knew that Babe had received a lot of jabs for her looks and attitude, but she had come out victorious on the track nearly every time.

  Helen was not as boastful as Babe Didrikson, but they both wanted to be the best, and Helen knew that, just like her idol, she could back up the promises the newspaper writers predicted. She had a sense that the city itself would be fortunate—Providence, the name itself was a good omen.

  —

  July 4 was just as hot and suffocating as it had been eight years previously in Newark, the temperatures soaring as they were in the rest of the country. As the athletes awoke and read the papers, one of the headlines featured Helen Hull Jacobs and her win at Wimbledon, whose “elusive all-England tennis championship” had finally come true at last. There were also headlines that had nothing to do with sporting events but that still had an influence on their lives, particularly those from the Midwest. One read, “Heat Interferes, Drought Ravages in the Mid-West. Temperatures 100 to 110 Degrees Prevail in Most of Afflicted Areas.”

  The unseasonably hot weather had already been blanketing the middle of the country for much of the summer, and the Central Weather Bureau’s forecast station predicted that the temperatures would top 100 degrees Fahrenheit for at least the next several weeks, forcing farmers to lose their crops to droughts and people to find whatever means of cooling they could. But in Rhode Island, at least for those who came to see the athletes, the economic shifts due to the weather conditions were set aside.

  The ache in Betty’s knee worsened as she made her way to the track. Her arrival had been hailed with articles of praise describing the usual “smiling Betty.” One such story ran, “Little Betty Robinson, Chicago girl who set a world record in winning the Olympic 100-meters at Amsterdam in 1928, is another standout.” But she
didn’t feel like a standout. So much more hung in the balance this time, and the thought of the stakes had made her feel uncharacteristically edgy. She wanted to prove that she was still an Olympic champion, as everyone was heralding—and there was only one way to do that.

  Her misgivings settled in her stomach as she fiddled with her bracelet. She had never taken it off, even while flying. It had emerged from the crash much as she had, a little bent but still intact.

  She took her starting position for the 100-meter race and sized up her fellow competitors; she was the oldest among them. It was hard not to make the comparison. In 1928, she had also been called “the Babe” for being one of the youngest competitors on the entire American delegation. Now some of the other athletes referred to her as a “senior member.”

  The firing of the pistol sent the competitors tearing down the track, Helen immediately setting the pace and taking a convincing lead. Betty, on the other hand, jumped in at an unexceptional pace. She felt her lungs expanding as she drew in the warm air around her; her knees were popping like firecrackers, and a burning sensation was spreading throughout the back of her legs, traveling upward along her spine, to the base of her neck, her fists balling at her sides and her face twisting with effort. Every breath she took seared her insides, and she could not help but notice runner after runner passing her, so fast she could smell their scent and feel the wind they kicked up behind them.

  Helen finished first, while Betty crossed the finish line in a dismal fifth position, her legs buckling beneath her. She was timed at 12.5 seconds, exactly the same speed she had clocked during the final qualifying run at the trials of 1928. Then it had been good enough to win the qualifier. Now it put her in fifth place. It was one of her poorest showings in a competitive race, and her physical exhaustion showed on her face.