Chuch Benedict’s Sportalks

Chuck Benedict

What has happened to track and field?

The Olympiad, despite NBC-TV’s sometimes inexcusable concept of

coverage, brings us a quadrennial interest in the sport. To a lesser

extent, the World Games also help to show us that adults can compete in

running, jumping, and showing off muscles.

While track, at the high school level alone, gets regional coverage in

daily metropolitan papers, TV has forgotten that the sport continues to

exist throughout each four-year cycle.

A track fanatic who has spent much of his life competing, coaching and

remembering is Glendale’s Sam Nicholson. He was a star hurdler and long

jumper and an otherwise versatile member of Hoover High’s 1947 CIF (SS)

championship team. Later, He competed prominently at USC for three great

college track mentors, then returned to coach at Hoover.

Nicholson loves to talk about coaches for whom he performed.

He says, ‘I was in an unusual situation as a Trojan. In my freshman

year, I was coached by Dean Cromwell and the next two years by Jess Hill.

When Hill took over as football coach, Jess Mortensen came in for my

senior year. They were legendary, but, , as great as they were, the best

track coach I ever ran across, without a doubt, was Hoover High’s Vic

Francey.

‘Vic had great success. In the late ‘40s, his Hoover teams won three

CIF (SS) varsity titles in five years. In 1949, he did something no other

coach ever has done. He won three State CIF titles simultaneously with

the Hoover varsity, B and C teams.’

Nicholson has pendulum thoughts on the demise of B and C teams:

‘At one time, the still-growing, early-teen track hopeful competed in

his own age and size category in B or C, where he learned the habits,

discipline and techniques that gave him a jump start for the varsity.

‘Now, the modern laws which require equal support for girls and boys

teams have done wonders for women’s athletics (Hoover’s national cross

country champ Anita Siraki is a prime example), but it’s done with money

which, at one time, was available for boys B and C teams.’

Nicholson recalls Hoover’s track success through the years:

‘Francey had a number of champs, and one was hurdler Jack Davis. At

USC, Jack set many collegiate marks and also was the world record holder

in 1953-54 in the 120 yard and 110 meter high hurdles and the 220 lows.

“When I took over as Hoover coach in 1956, I worked with some fine

talent, including our famous sprinter, quarter miler and football

running back, Forrest Beaty. He was the finest combination of

athleticism, academics and character that I ever knew. Dr. Beaty now is a

hospice physician in San Francisco’s East Bay area.”

After coaching for nine seasons, Nicholson became an administrator in

the Glendale School system, including many years as Vice-Principal at

Glendale High. But accurate track memories, down to the split-second

times and inch-by-inch distances, remain prominent and pleasant in his

thinking.

Sam’s greatest memory is a succession of fortunate happenstances. At

Hoover, he was coached by Francey, who bowed to one no one at that level.

At USC, Sam competed as a freshman for Cromwell, whose teams were

128-48-1 in head-to-head meets and won the NCAA title 12 times, including

nine in a row.

Then his coach was Hill, who, in two years, was 12-0-l, winning NCAA

titles both seasons.

As a senior, Sam was guided by coach Mortensen, who, in 11 years, was

64-0 in dual meets and won seven NCAA titles for USC.

Again and again, Nicholson was in the right place at the right time.

What’s more, his presence as a leader helped to create those right places

and times.

In 1999, Sam rounded up a large number of USC track performers from

its NCAA championship team of 1949, and they were introduced at the dual

USC-UCLA meet by P.A. announcer Dwain Esper (former News-Press

columnist). It was a fabulous 50-year sports reunion.

Nicholson not only rounded up the group, but he remembered the

personal bests and titled wins of most of them, from world class sprinter

Mel Patton through all his surviving teammates.

If part of Nicholson is living in the past, can you blame him? He

makes it emphatically clear that it is all worth remembering.

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Reach Chuck Benedict at 637-3200 (voice mail 974), by 24-hour fax at

549-9191 or via Email: BChuckbenedict@aol.com>.