Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

302 Track Athletics 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