To A Sprinter, The Hundred-yard

To A Sprinter, The Hundred-yard Dash Is Over In Three Seconds, Not Nine Or Ten. The First 'second' Is When You Come Out Of The Blocks. The Next Is When You Look Up And Take Your First Few Strides To Attain Gain Position. By That Time The Race Is Actually About Half Over. The Final 'second' - The Longest Slice Of Time In The World For An Athlete - Is That Last Half Of The Race, When You Really Bear Down And See What You're Made Of. It Seems To Take An Eternity, Yet Is All Over Before You Can Think What's Happening.

After I Came Home From The 1936 Olympics With My Four Medals, It Became Increasingly Apparent That Everyone Was Going To Slap Me On The Back, Want To Shake My Hand Or Have Me Up To Their Suite. But No One Was Going To Offer Me A Job.

People Who Worked With Me Or Knew Me Still Called Me The 'world's Fastest Human' Because I Almost Never Stopped. I'd Found That I Could Get More Done With No Regular Job Or Regular Hours At All, But By Being On My Own, Flying To Speak Here, Help With A Public Relations Campaign For Some Client There, Tape My Regular Jazz Radio Show One Morning At 5:00 A.m. Before Leaving On A Plane For Another City Or Another Continent Three Hours Later To Preside Over A Major Sporting Event.

In The Space Of Less Than Seven Days, I Attended A Track Meet In Boston, Flew From There To Bowling Green For The National Jaycees, Then To Rochester For The Blind, Buffalo For Another Track Meet, New York To Shoot A Film Called The Black Athlete, Miami For Ford Motor Company, Back Up To New York For 45 Minutes To Deliver A Speech, Then Into L. A. For Another The Same Night.

I Fought, I Fought Harder . . . But One Cell At A Time, Panic Crept Into My Body, Taking Me Over.