A TRY-OUT ON THE TRACK.
Track athletics at Queen's had not been in a very flourishing
condition for some years prior to the opening of our story. The
popular sports were baseball and football, and these took the pick
of the fellows who had a desire to do some athletic work. Patsy
Duffy, the trainer of all the teams, managed now and then to find
some pretty good men in the sprints and short distance runs, and he
had once sent a team of six down to the Interscholastic games at New
Haven, which picked up eleven points in second and third places, and
that, when you consider that the school had less than 200 boys to
draw from, is not so bad as it might be.
But although Queen's was never in any great danger of winning
the Interscholastics, the school was nevertheless nearly always
represented by some one. Warwick was, in track athletics, as in
every other of the sports, the natural rival of Queen's, and for
the last two years had made away with the annual track contest by a
good, wide margin of points. The trainer had gone over the incoming
class pretty thoroughly for material and had not found much of it,
so he was pleased when Frank stepped up to him at the track the next
afternoon and said he would like to try for a place on the team.
"Where did you come from?" said Patsy.
"From the Milton High School, but I never did much there in the way
of athletics, excepting to play a little baseball and football."
"Can you run or jump?"
"Don't think so."
"Can you sprint or hurdle?"
"Afraid not."
"Jump?"
"Can't even jump, to my knowledge. But I'm willing to try any of
them."
"Well, this doesn't sound promising, but some of the best I've had
knew nothing about it when they came here, and I've sent some of the
best men they ever had to Yale and Harvard and Princeton. Ever hear
of Tinker Howe, the great Yale half-miler? Yes; well, he was one of
the men I trained. Came out here one day and at first couldn't run
a half mile in three minutes. But he came along fast. And there was
Winchester, the fellow who played tackle on Harvard last year, and
who was one of the best shot-putters that ever went to Cambridge. He
was one of our fellows, trained right in this little piece of ground."
"I don't believe I'll ever be like those fellows, but I want to try
anything you think I'm fitted for."
"Well, suppose you run up to the gymnasium and get into some togs.
Miggs, the rubber up there, will fit you out and if you like the
work, and I like you, we'll fix you up with a regular suit. Hurry it
up, and I'll have you jog around the track once or twice with Watkins
here," indicating a young fellow who was prancing up and down the
stretch with long, springy strides.
Frank was quickly equipped at the gymnasium with a jersey and a pair
of misfit running trousers which Miggs had dug out somewhere for
him. "I feel like a scarecrow," thought Frank, "but maybe after this
performance to-day he will not consider my efforts worth much."
"Come on now," said Patsy, as Frank came trotting back to the track.
"Let's try a few starts. You will run only fifteen steps or so. Don't
suppose you know anything about starting, Armstrong?"
"No, I guess I don't."
"All right. On your marks, get set, GO." Frank, accustomed to the
starting signal for swimming, went away like a shot and ran away from
the half-miler, who was taking things more leisurely.
"I thought you said you didn't know anything about starting," said
Patsy, as he and Watkins came back to where the trainer stood.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you that I have done a little swimming racing,
and we start about the same."
"So much the better. Some very good runners are spoiled because they
can't start fast enough. When the pistol goes off you'd think they
were going to take root. You don't seem to be bothered that way, but
I'm afraid you haven't got stride enough for a long distance racer.
Try it again."
The boys lined up and started at the word "Go," and again Frank
started in excellent form; but this time Watkins was watching for
him, and got off his marks with more speed than before, although,
even then, Frank led him a step.
Patsy was smiling as they came back to him. "Did you ever run a
hundred yards, Armstrong? No? Well, I'm going to try you at that now
and see what you can do. You have the appearance of a sprinter, at
least as far as the first twenty yards go. Do you think you can hold
it at the pace you set out?"
"Don't know, but I'll try."
By this time a half dozen other runners, in their airy, abbreviated
costumes, who had been trotting around the track or taking little
dashing spurts, had gathered around to see the new boy tried out, and
there was a good deal of interest manifest when Patsy said he would
have the new boy try a hundred yards dash.
Just at that moment the Codfish strolled up. "Hello, wifey," he said
as he saw Frank in running costume; "took my advice, didn't you? You
look handsome, but are you any good?"
"We are just going to try to find out," said Patsy. "I'm going to run
him a hundred yards. Will you go up and start him? I want to take
his time. Here's a pistol. Collins, go along with Armstrong and pace
him down the full distance, and bring him as fast as he can come."
Collins was the best sprinter of Queen's, as Frank afterward learned.
At the sound of the pistol, Collins was off with a great burst of
speed, but Frank, in spite of his lack of training, followed him
closely for half the distance. Then the training of the practised
sprinter began to tell and Frank dropped behind, but not so far
behind but that Patsy's face wore a much pleased grin when he
finished. Collins, who was a Junior and slated for the captaincy
if Gamma Tau didn't undertake to knock things out of gear with
politics, came back and patted him on the shoulder. "It was well run,
Freshman," he said.
"What did he do it in?" said Gleason, coming up to Patsy when Frank,
who was not in the best of condition for sprinting, was recovering
his wind. Patsy held up the watch. Eleven and two-fifth seconds, it
said.
"By Jove, that's good time for a kid, and his first trial, and not in
condition, isn't it?"
"It's first rate," said Patsy. "He will be a good one or I miss my
guess. He has a good build for a sprinter."
Meantime Frank was taking a turn around the back stretch, and when
he came back, Patsy said: "Armstrong, that's enough for to-day."
Frank was turning away when Patsy continued, "Don't go yet, I want to
have you try a jump for me. We need a jumper badly, and you may be
the fellow we are looking for. You said you never jumped?"
"No, only in fun, and the jumps were never measured."
"Well, come over here and try one or two, and we will see if you have
any spring in your legs. Most natural sprinters have."
"You see," said Patsy as they reached the broad jump runway, "you get
up your speed here and then strike this take-off board with whichever
foot comes most convenient for you to jump from; lift yourself into
the air and strike in that soft sawdust pit. The jump is measured
from the face of the take-off to the point where you break the ground
nearest to the take-off block. Do you get me?"
Frank nodded and walked down the runway, measuring carefully with his
eye the distance he had to go.
"All ready," shouted Patsy; "come on!"
Frank took a run, gathering momentum as he came. He saw ahead of him
the trainer and Codfish Gleason and a dozen boys watching his effort,
and in spite of his best attempts he could not concentrate his mind
on that take-off block. It seemed to lie somewhere in a fog, and he
simply kept on running with the result that he dashed across it into
the sawdust, which is put there to break the fall of the jumpers,
tried to stop, and went headlong. He picked himself up, covered with
sawdust, and much chagrined at his failure.
"I want to try that over again," he said. "I couldn't seem to see
where that block was, and I missed it."
Patsy grinned. "The best of them do that sometimes. It's one of the
hardest things in jumping. As you come up to the block, you want to
concentrate your mind on that place. Arrange your steps so you will
come to it on the foot you can best jump from, and come down on the
block as hard as you can, bouncing off it, so to speak, and going as
far up in the air as you can. The momentum you have gained in your
run will carry you along. That's the idea of the broad jump. And
don't get nervous." Patsy communicated this information to Frank as
he walked along with him to the head of the runway.
"The take-off, the take-off, the take-off," was drumming through
Frank's mind as he came rushing down for it. So determined was he
not to overrun the block that he under-did it this time, and he
"took-off" about 14 inches before he reached the block. But even in
spite of this handicap, the measuring tape showed a jump of 15 feet 6
inches.
"O, but," said Frank, "you are not measuring from where I jumped."
"That's not the way we do it. We measure, as I told you, from the
face of the block, so that as you jumped you really handicapped
yourself 14 inches. It would have been a very good jump, indeed, if
that 14 inches hadn't been wasted. The best jumpers contrive their
run so as to hit the center of the block squarely with the ball of
the jumping foot, the toe even projecting over the block. Try it
once more, and try not to over or under-run the block, but to hit it
squarely."
"I never knew there was so much to jumping," said Frank, as he walked
back for his third trial. "But this time I'm going to get it if it
takes a leg."
Fixing the block firmly in his mind as he had been told, and also
the idea of carrying as high as possible into the air, Frank came
rushing down the runway. This time he struck the take-off like a
veteran, rose in the air and was carried along by his speed. As
he was coming down he threw his feet out in front of him so as to
get as much distance as possible, but when he struck he had more
distance than he could hold and fell backwards. His heels had broken
the ground at 16 feet 9-1/2 inches, but in his efforts to keep from
falling he had put his hand behind him, and from the block to the
break made by his hand it was only a little over 15 feet.
Frank thought it hard lines not to get all he had actually jumped,
but saw at once that the rule was right--that the first break in the
ground from the face of the take-off was the only right thing to go
by, although his actual jump had been in this case two feet farther.
"That's all for to-day," said Patsy, "you've had enough for the first
day."
But Frank pleaded for one more try to see if he could not get it
right--the very last--and Patsy relented.
And this time Frank did get it right. He came carefully up to the
block, got a good raise and carry, and held his footing when he
struck the ground. The tape measure, held by the Codfish and Patsy,
showed 16 feet 3 2-5 inches, a remarkable jump, indeed, for an
unpractised schoolboy.
"To-morrow at 2 o'clock I want to see you here, and we'll do a
little more work. Your showing to-day is all right. Maybe I can make
something out of you," said Patsy, and when Frank had trotted off in
the direction of the gymnasium he said to Gleason: "There's the right
sort of a chap. Doesn't know much about it, but willing to try, and
crazy to make good at whatever he tries. I'll make something out of
him, see if I don't. The fall trials come off a week from to-day, but
I'll bet in spite of the short time he has had to work, he'll make
some of the older ones hustle to keep ahead of him. I don't know yet
about his sprinting, but he certainly can jump like a deer."