Coaching and Care of Athletes

CHAPTER XXVII THE SHOT PUT THE' early history of shot-putting is lost in the JTI,ists of antiquity. Just as men have always wrestled, run races, and tested their ability one against another in jumping, so have they always taken delight in performing feats of strength. Even nowadays, when men forgather in places that are far from the attraction of cinemas and dance-halls, it is no unusual thing to find them competing in slinging a boulder from between the legs and over the head to the rear, the object being to see who can heave the rock the greatest distance. When that game palls other means are sought of propelling the missile. We know that putting the stone has been practised in Scotland for hundreds of years, and that the invention of artillery led to cannon-balls being borrowed to lend greater refinement to the sport through the standardization of the missile to be propelled. Hence we find in the British Table of Weights and Measures that I stone is I4 lb., and that a weight is I6 lb. In– cidentally, the sport was at one time so popular in England that Edward Ill saw fit to prohibit it by statute as being detrimental to the practice of archery. That statute has never, to the best of my belief, been repealed, so shot-putting is still illegal in England! The first English Championship, instituted in I886, was won by C. Fraser at 34ft. 6 ins. H. E . Buermayer, New York A.C., took the first American title ten years later at 32 ft. 5 ins. In this present era we have grown accustomed to the opinion that only men of gigantic proportions can succeed as shot-putters, but there has been at least one man who did not conform to the modern 6 ft. 3 ins.-I6 stone specification and yet outshone all rivals, achieving a distance which up to Ig28 would have been considered first-class in any country. This was G. R. Gray, a Canadian member of the New York A.C., who was of no more than medium size and stature. He was a member of the Toronto A.C. when he won his first American Championship in I887 at 42 ft. 3 ins., beating F. L. Lambrecht, Pastime A.C., who had held the title since I88r. From I887 to I8g6 Gray won the 2 c 40I