The crouching start which distinguishes mod ern sprinting form from that of the early days did not come into vogue until the early nineties. It is now universally used. There had been up to that time two variations of the standing start — the so-called " theoretical " and the " Sheffield " or pro fessional start. In the " theoretical " start the run ner put either the right or left foot on the mark, but always the opposite arm was thrust forward. In the " Sheffield " start either the right foot and the right arm, or the left foot and the left arm, were put forward. It was asserted by the advocates of each of these starts that it brought the arms and legs into the best position for most easily and speedily falling into the motion used in running, and there are men to-day, who used these starts when they were in college years ago, who cannot be convinced that they were not faster than the now universal crouching start. That the crouch ing start is faster, however, there is no longer any doubt. That it is safer, that is to say, that the runner is less likely to be penalized for stepping over the line when he is crouching solidly on all fours, is obvious. In the crouching, or, as it was called when it first came into use, the " student's " start, both hands are placed on the starting line, with the fingers extended generally and the arms straight. One foot, generally the left, is set about four inches back of the line, and the other is firmly set at a comfortable distance behind the first and exactly parallel to it. When the rear foot is in position, the rear knee should reach to the middle of the forward foot. Both feet should be firmly set in a solid pocket, scooped or stamped out of the cinders. With his fingers on the line, and kneeling on the rear knee, the runner may wait at his ease until the starter is ready. At the sig nal " Get on your marks ! " he may rise partially, still keeping his fingers on the line ; at " Get set !" the rear leg straightens somewhat, and the runner leans forward, until the weight of his body is trembling, over the line on the pivot of his fin gers. At the pistol shot he dives forward, com ing up gradually to an erect position as he works into his stride. Aside from its added security, the theory of the crouching start is that the run ner can get away from the line quicker by, so to speak, falling or diving away from a solid brace than he can by trusting merely to the spring that he gets from his legs minus the help of his body's momentum, as is the case in the standing start. C. H. Sherrill of Yale, '89, was the first amateur of any note to try the crouching start. Sherrill was very unsteady on his feet, and he tried the crouching position in the hope that he might remedy this defect. He never made a great suc cess of it, however, and he returned finally, I be lieve, to the old standing style. But the new start had already come into favor, and early in the nine ties it was adopted almost universally. Even though no speed were gained by it, the added security of the crouching position, with all " four feet " on the ground, is enough to justify its adop tion. And in these days, when every false start or slip over the line is strictly penalized, no run ner can afford to play with danger. In the early days of running in this country, starting was quite another matter. False starts were rarely penalized, the pistol generally followed immediately on the signal " Get set ! " and so shiftless were the starters and officials that " beating the pistol " was one of the tricks which less sportsmanlike runners con stantly practised. In an article on sprinting, written as late as 1891, the late Malcolm Ford re marks that " a really competent pistol was almost unheard of six years ago ; " and in examining many of the minor records of the first ten or fifteen years of American athletics, one must remember that the laxity of starters in these early days was only too often matched with an equal lack of skill in that most delicate and scrupulous performance the timing of a sprint.
What one might call the modern epoch of hun dred-yard sprinting began in 189o, when slender young John Owen, Jr., of the Detroit Athletic
Club came out of the West and beat the best men of the East in better than even time. This great race took place on the Onoloston track at Wash ington, D.C., and Owen had among his competi tors Luther Cary of Princeton, the fastest man in the colleges at that time, and \Vesting of the New York Athletic Club, the fastest man in club athletics. The three were almost neck and neck at the finish, Cary only one foot behind —a proper fight for a record. This sprint was one of those which illustrates vividly how a race may be won on the start. Owen beat Cary three feet on the leap-away, and he was only one foot ahead at the tape. In other words, had they started equally well Cary would probably have won. The latter day experiments in psychology have an interest ing bearing on such differences in quickness as these. By accurate and exhaustive tests it has been shown that a variation of several tenths of a second is not uncommon between different indi viduals in the comparative quickness with which each acts muscularly after receiving the same mental stimulus. As every tenth of a second means one yard in a hundred-yard dash, it is ap parent how important, in the case of two runners of equal sprinting speed, is this matter of mere temperament.
In the twenty years that had elapsed since " Father Bill " Curtis used to win the hundred, just by way of variety from throwing the hammer and weights, up to the time that young Owen proved that under normal and fair conditions a man could run in better than ten seconds flat, scores of fast men had been developed, any one of a dozen or so of whom at some time or other were said to have covered the distance in even time. W. C. Wilmer of the Short Hills Athletic Club was the first club amateur to be credited with this feat at the national championships, when he won the hundred in 1878 in io seconds ; and it was not until 1891 that Luther Cary of Princeton, winning at Mott Haven, brought the intercol legiate record down to even time. Among the club amateurs who had won the sprints during these years was Malcolm Ford — only an ade quate sprinter, but at all-round athletics quite the best man of his time — and the famous " Lon " Meyers, who, although not in the strict sense of the word a sprinter, was, perhaps, the most extraordi nary runner of which there is any record. Among the college sprinters there had come and gone Evart Wendell, Brooks, Sherrill, Lee of Pennsyl vania, Luther Cary, and Wendell Baker. The work of Meyers will be more fully treated in the chapter on distance running, and it is, perhaps, sufficient in this place to give merely a brief sum mary of his performances in the sprints. He is credited with a record of 5 seconds for fifty yards, made in New York City in 1884, the conclusive authenticity of which has sometimes been doubted ; with Duffey and others he divides the honor of a record of 6* seconds for sixty yards. Although the times made were nothing extraordinary, Meyers won the amateur championship in the hundred in 188o and 1881, and in the two-twenty in 1879 and 188o ; and in a general way it may be said that he won repeatedly in the sprints against the best men of his day, both in this country and in England. Malcolm Ford, who could acquit himself with credit in almost every track event, although he was not a phenomenal performer at any of them, won the amateur championship hundred in 1884, 1885, and i886, and the two-twenty in 1885 and 1886. The times made were only tolerable, but they are worthy of notice as part of a really remarkable athletic career, which included the winning of the all-round championship four times, and a successful and practically continuous parti cipation in competitive athletics for over fifteen years. Westing of the Manhattan Athletic Club, who ran third to Owen in his record-breaking race, was, perhaps, the next most notable club athlete who did the sprints during the eighties. Westing won several amateur championships in the dashes, and in 1888 he went to England and won out in the hundred there.