The International Track Association was a dream of Mike O’Hara to capitalize on the great track and field stars of the 1960s and 1970s and bring sensational running, jumping and throwing performances to the world on a regular basis.
O’Hara figured he would win over American audiences with athletes such as Jim Ryun, Kip Keino, Bob Seagren, Steve Smith, Bob Beamon, Steve Prefontaine, and Frank Shorter and last, but not least, yours truly in the shot-put. Some of the athletes were medalists from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and the 1972 games in Munich. That list would include thrower Randy Matson, my arch-rival, who won gold in Mexico City in 1968 and silver at Tokyo in 1964.
So there we all were in May, 1975 clinging to our dreams in dusty El Paso, Texas, in a high school stadium that was not very conducive to dreams of athletic and monetary glory. But track and field competitors are used to that, performing in out-of-the-way places and back-waters before a crowd of five. O’Hara was out to change that and so were we.
There were about 60 athletes in the ITA and they owned about 60 Olympic medals between them. Some, like Matson, had won several medals. Those who hadn’t, like me, were just a chin hair away. Matson was a throwing demi-god who helped me rear my ugly face into the ITA program book. When I threw against him, I had the great fear of losing, so always did my utmost.
O’Hara never signed Shorter and Prefontaine, which is too bad. If Prefontaine had been with us, he might not have gone to that party and gotten killed by a hit-and-run driver on the way home, a case that has never been solved, incidentally. Shorter, a great runner, would have added more star status to the events. But in the 1970s they had their own businesses going and the ITA was not on their agenda.
The ITA was not only O’Hara’s dream. The ITA became my dream, too, and the dream of a lot of other athletes who had labored in obscurity and poverty because they loved their sport and the competition and energy it brought to their lives.
It was a costly love because you have to pay the price to get to the top — practice, dedication, sweat, tears. Loneliness and isolation. When I started throwing in high school, I would walk over to the athletic field after school to practice. I would throw, jog over, pick it up the shot and throw it back, jog over, pick it up, throw it back. Back and forth for hours; just me, no coaches, no friends, no family.
The sun would go down and I would be throwing in the twilight hours, trying to loft the shot into orbit in my own galaxy, creating those small shock waves that displace something at the other end of the universe. When it got too dark to see I would walk home. It became my temple out there under the sky, my religion. I became a true believer in the Church of All Throws and it paid off in El Paso in 1975.
O’Hara had been a member of the 1960 U.S. Olympic men’s volleyball team and had a master’s degree in business. He was the guy who developed big sporting events such as the Virginia Slims tennis tournament and would sell them. He had connections and could get things done. He was brilliant and could really give you a snow job. He was really good at that. I know from personal experience.
O’Hara started the ITA in 1973 and recruited me. He called me when he was passing through town. I was working as a teacher at the St. Charles Training School for Boys in St. Charles, affectionately known as “Charlie Town.” It was a reform school for delinquents. It was perfect for me. I could relate to the kids.
I was competing in the amateur indoor circuit at that time, so I was still in good shape and was competing against throwers like Komar, the Polish powerhouse who won gold at Munich.
Becoming a professional athlete sounded pretty good at the time. But even though I was one of the founding members of the ITA and became a seasoned pro, by 1975 I was barely eking out a living. We got paid a per diem of about $25 or $35 when we competed and then got bonus money for performing well. Setting a record netted you $500. Taking first in the meet earned you $500, too. Second place earned you $250, third was $100 and fourth was $50.
On a weekend, if you only took fourth place, you could earn a $150 or so, which, for runners, jumpers and throwers who dwelled in obscurity, was decent money and would fuel their continued participation and gave them hope. I was doing radio promotions for the ITA and would get $50 per day for those. I got the radio gigs because I could had a good rap and could pile on the baloney. Fifty bucks for radio blather was good money then.
Being an ITA pro certainly was better than being an Olympic amateur. At that time, U.S. Olympic athletes only got $2 per diem. We got the money once a month, so it accumulated and you had a little slush fund so you could go out on a date. I remember when they raised it to $3 per day in the 1980s. Wow! I don’t know what it is today. Maybe it’s $4 per day even.
The U.S. Olympic Committee should have been embarrassed, but it was run mostly by arrogant people of means, who thought that $2 a day was plenty for the athletic riff-raff from the world’s richest nation. I know that sounds unfair, but I think it’s accurate. We were volunteers for glory. That is still the case for most Olympians.
The shot-put was never a glamour sport, never had the electricity that, say, the 100 meter dash or the pole vault or the 440 relays had. The perception of throwers at the time made them out to be squat, Neanderthal-like people who grunted a lot and could carry a cow on their backs if they had to. One of those rat pack sports writers for the Los Angeles Times coined us “dancing elephants.” He was one of those weasley guys who liked to put athletes down, unless he’s sucking up to them.
The image changed when I came along. Sports reporters made a big deal about my Speedo swim briefs that I wore for meets and about the fact that I smoked, talked like a maniac, and was irreverently funny. Some of them thought I added some color and life to an athletic endeavor that was pretty drab and wrote some pretty good articles about me. But, there was the Sports Illustrated writer who called me a “cigarette-puffing whackadoo” in a story about the 1972 Olympic trials. There’s a real stroke of genius writing for you. I believe the correct spelling is “wackadoo.”
After El Paso in 1975, nobody ever called me a wackadoo again. At least not in print.