Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Beginnings of Modern Track Athletics 253 In America, naturally, the most of those who went in for running were professionals. Foot races were on about the same social status as prize fights are to-day. The crack sprinter of one town or neighborhood was matched for so much a side against the crack sprinter of another, and a crowd of worthies gathered to back their favorite and pat the back of the winner. Runners stripped to the buff in those days, or ran in tights and gymnasium trunks. Sprinters took the standing start, and the races were on any smooth path or stretch of level, firm turf. Of the men who ran in this country in those days of quaint half-caste athletics, one stands out rather noticeably from the rest. This man was George Seward, who, even in an age when training was only guess– work and established records unknown, so aston– ished his contemporaries here and abroad that his name has been handed down as that of a phe– nomenon. Seward was a professional, of course. He ran in this country and he ran in England– the same year that the Whigs were carrying log– cabins in political parades and shouting for" Tip– pecanoe and Tyler too" - and everywhere he met the best men and defeated them at every distance up to the quarter mile. Although his apocryphal one-hundred-yard dash in 9t seconds is no longer accepted, his name still stands on the record book beside a one-hundred-twenty-yard dash of rrt