Devil at My Heels: The Story of Louis Zamperini (6 page)

Coach Dean Cromwell of USC wanted me, too. He was a legend. His USC team had won more national championships than any other university in America. When you went to USC you could ask any athlete on the field, “In what event did you hold the world’s record in high school?” However, whenever anyone introduced Cromwell as “the world’s greatest track coach,” he wouldn’t stick out his chest. He’d simply say, “Well, I get the greatest athletes in the world. Why shouldn’t I be the world’s greatest track coach?”

Cromwell had been on the 1936 Olympic track-team coaching staff and had come to many, if not all, my high school track meets. He was known for his broad grin and the way he encouraged his and other athletes. His famous greeting was “Hi, champ.” Even though part of his job was to solicit and proselytize for his team, his praise made me feel important.

My brother, already one of the nation’s top milers, attended Compton College. Cromwell was smart and offered a scholarship to
both
of us.

I entered the University of Southern California in September 1936 and did well on the field. As a freshman I was invited to the big Princeton Invitational, where I won my first national title in the two-mile. Pete still coached me now and then but I listened less often, shrugging off his advice with a cocky and arrogant “Yeah, yeah. I know.” After all, I was the one who’d been in the Olympics.
Clearly, my personality still needed help. Although on the oval, I ran to win and to support the team, off the oval I didn’t win any popularity contests. I was still mostly a loner, stubborn, with a low boiling point.

That winter, against Coach Cromwell’s advice, I decided to take up skiing. I figured it would develop my legs and lungs and could only help my running. But when I took off down a slope at Big Pines, I ran into ice on the slide, lost control, and landed in a heap. I tried to stand, but the pain in my leg and knee made me topple over again. The verdict: bad knee, torn ankle ligaments, crutches, no running for two months.

Pete gave me a hard time. “You’ve got a responsibility to the team and to the people who admire you. The kids. You’ve got to sacrifice to uphold the traditions of athletes.”

That made me angry. “If I can’t live a normal life and do what other people do then I don’t want to run,” I threatened sharply. Those words set the pattern of my life for the next few years. I wanted it all: the fame, new achievements—and all the distractions and fun college offered.

I’D NEVER REALLY
set my heart on breaking any world record save for one: the National Collegiate Mile. Bill Bonthron of Princeton had aced my hero, Glenn Cunningham, by inches, and broken the record in 4:08:08. I planned to get the title back someday for Glenn—and for me.

I trained hard but not in the way Coach Cromwell approved of. In those days the coaches didn’t allow us to train by running uphill, something I’d done ever since the summer I decided to run everywhere I went. This meant no running up and down the stairways in the stands at the Coliseum. The doctors said it would damage the heart; in reality it did the heart good. And the legs. I didn’t listen. Every evening I’d climb the Coliseum fence and do the “agony run.” At the top my legs seared with fire, then I’d walk across a row, go down again, and up another staircase. I did that after each normal workout. Here’s why. People say all anyone needs is a positive attitude. It’s nice to have, but a positive attitude has nothing to do with
winning. I often had a defeatist attitude before a race. What matters is what you do to your body. Self-esteem can’t win you a race if you’re not in shape.

IN JUNE 1938,
healthy again and a sophomore, I traveled to Minneapolis for the NCAA meet. The USC team had won three years straight, but the competition this time was far more rugged. The morning of the meet Cromwell walked his thirty-four athletes half a mile from our hotel to a cafeteria for lunch, then across the street. He pointed at a large plate-glass window. “There’s the trophy,” he said, as we stared at the four-and-a-half-foot symbol of victory.

I thought we could win again, especially if I beat Chuck Fenske of Wisconsin, who’d won the mile race two years in a row. Everyone expected him to repeat. In fact, no one rated my chances better than fifth. Maybe the experts were right; no Pacific Coast runner had ever won that NCAA title. In fact, the West had never produced any great distance runners; the East controlled everything. I wanted the record badly, but despite Coach Cromwell’s motivational exercise, I could only taste the bitter pill of my own pessimism.

THE NIGHT BEFORE
the race, as I lay in bed reading, I heard a knock at the hotel room door. Coach Nicholson of Notre Dame stood there. “Louie,” he said, “I’ve got something to tell you.” He motioned me outside. “I’m ashamed to say this, but I just came from an eastern coaches’ meeting and they’re going to tell their milers tomorrow to do anything they can to get you out of the race. Be aware of what’s going to happen, and try to protect yourself.”

The eastern coaches all disliked Dean Cromwell because the press kept calling him the world’s greatest track coach even though he’d never had a great distance runner. To them, the mile was the glamour race, not the 100 or 220 yards. The mile was magical. They didn’t want Cromwell to have a winner.

“Thanks, but don’t worry about me,” I told Coach Nicholson. “I can take care of myself.” Or at least act like I could.
I went back to bed and didn’t give it a second thought. I’d never seen anyone do
anything
evil on the track. My competitors had always been gentlemen. Of course, they’d all been from the West.

THE NEXT MORNING
my roommates and I went to see
The Count of Monte Cristo
, with Robert Donat. Being Italian, I loved it; the count got revenge on everybody. My adrenaline pumped and flowed. After the movie we took a taxi to the hotel, had a light lunch, and went to the track. Over the loudspeaker I heard the announcer call the names of the three or four fellows they thought would win the race. One at a time they jogged back and forth in front of the stands.

No one mentioned me.

THE GUN SOUNDED
and we took off. As usual, I didn’t try to take the lead, but I felt great, like I would never get tired. I thought about what Coach Nicholson had said about the East Coast runners. I figured he meant they’d try to box me in and keep me from making my move.

Soon I
was
boxed in, but I quickly realized they had other tactics in mind when I suddenly felt a searing pain in my leg. The runner ahead of me had reached back with his foot and caught me in the shin with razor-sharp spikes, making three gashes a quarter inch deep and an inch and a half long. I’d been nicked before; that happens when you run in crowds. In fact, every runner gets chased by dogs when he trains. If you want the dog to leave you alone, you extend your back leg six inches and nick his snout.

This felt different.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I yelled. “Cut that out!”

He did it again. My socks began to fill with blood.

I had to get out of the box. I pulled my elbows close to my body, in good racing form, and tried to slide between two runners. But they set their elbows at a ninety-degree angle and caught me in the ribs—a favorite trick of predominantly indoor runners. I later discovered a hairline fracture, but at the time it just knocked the wind out of me.

The race seemed to drag by slowly, and I fought frustration for three laps. Then the leader made his move. The other runners, thinking he’d win easily, relaxed and the box opened a bit and I squeezed through. Apparently they’d forgotten my finishing sprint. I caught the leader and passed him easily. Safely out in front, I glided a bit for last ten yards because I was so mad that they’d run such a slow race.

When it was all over, Coach Cromwell asked how fast I thought I ran. Famous for being able to time my laps within a second, I said, “I’m lucky if I broke four-twenty.”

“Then you’re lucky,” he said, “You ran 4:08.3 and broke the National Collegiate record. What’s more, you’re not even breathing hard. You could have run anything. Even four flat.”

A four-minute mile? The impossible dream? But suddenly it didn’t feel so impossible.

If I have any regrets about that race it’s that had I been able to follow through on my plan to really open up the last half mile, I might have broken four flat
that day
. I’d felt that good.

When the doctor patched me up I had three gashes on my shins, a spike hole through my foot, and both my socks had turned red. The newsreels show me afterward, wrapped in big bandages. People wrote letters, asking, “We don’t understand it—why were your legs taped?” Even my future wife, who was probably twelve at the time, told me years later that she and her mother had gone to a theater to see Errol Flynn in
The Adventures of Robin Hood
and had also watched me in a newsreel with both legs bandaged.

In the end I was just glad to win. I got the record back for Glenn Cunningham and me.

THAT NIGHT I
should have rested for next race and let my legs heal, but a big local politician lent seven of us his Cadillac, and his son as driver. We bought the kid a movie ticket and took off on our own with the car. We picked up three girls at our hotel, had a few beers, and didn’t get to bed until 3
A.M
. A week later in the Big Ten meet at Evanston, I lost to Fenske by five yards.

After that, although I won some races and lost others—and defended my NCAA mile title in 1939 with an easy victory in 4:13.6—my attitude was never the same.

AFTER YEARS OF
strict training, I just wanted to relax and play a bit. I spent a lot of time with Harry Read, a college friend and fraternity brother. An unexcitable fellow who had no particular objectives, Harry impressed me because he was always so calm and even-keeled. He had all the money he wanted, as well as a new car and a twenty-four-foot yawl named
Romancia
. Harry could trace his American ancestry back several generations, which just stoked my deeply rooted sense of inferiority and insecurity. But Harry never pressed his advantage.

Harry considered track a waste of time. In turn, I couldn’t understand his addiction to sailing. He did get me down to the marina one day, and after drinking beer, scraping, and sandpapering, he took me out on the bay. The trip was pleasant enough but no big deal.

We did have one big interest in common: neither of us was a scholar, and we agreed that our immediate mission in life was to do whatever promised to be adventurous and fun. On a Christmas vacation trip east with Harry I bought a new tan Plymouth convertible in Detroit. At home, we’d tool around the state, go to festivals and beer busts.

Another friend, James Sasaki, was a mild-mannered, brilliant Japanese citizen. He was about thirty, slender, with a narrow, squarish face and slicked-down hair parted in the middle. During his nine years in America, Sasaki had attended Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, and he was now at USC. Because he was well versed in American history and slang we occasionally talked about athletics after our political science class. His educational zeal impressed me. We had two things in common: a love of sports and many Japanese friends in the South Bay area.

DEAN CROMWELL GREW
unhappy with my attitude. He didn’t say much, but I could tell what he thought from the way he looked at me. In the fall of 1939 I’d received many calls from indoor track-meet
promoters, begging me to run. At first I said no, but they hounded me until I was ready to give in. Cromwell forbade it. “You can’t do it, Louie,” he said. “You’re on a scholarship here. And you’ll wear yourself out before track season. Running indoors is not the same, and the cold weather back east will knock you flat. You’re not used to it.”

When someone stood in the way of what I wanted, I stopped listening. “Well, I’m working at the studios making thirty-five bucks a week,” I countered, “so I have money.” (When studios needed extras, athletes at USC and UCLA often got first crack. I got to work on
Juarez
and
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
with Charles Laughton.)

The only way I could compete indoors was to quit school and my scholarship on a Friday, race on the weekend, and reregister on Monday. That would cost $170, but the promoters promised to cover me. I finally gave in and defied Coach Cromwell by accepting an invitation to run at Madison Square Garden. I ran under the auspices of the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

Every Friday afternoon I caught a plane for New York, ran my race, then hopped a return flight to Los Angeles. Sometimes, if I won, I wouldn’t even wait for the grandstand review; I’d just pick up my medal and dash to my hotel across the street, still in my tracksuit. That was foolish. Because of the miserable winter weather I frequently got sick. But I still ran well: ten races in a row under 4:10. In one, the Wanamaker Mile, I ran 4:07.6 with a fever and strep throat, and came in second to Fenske, followed by Glenn Cunningham and Gene Venzke, all of us in record time. Those races kept people saying I had a good shot at being first to break the four-minute barrier.

No matter what Coach Cromwell said, I loved running indoors. There was no wind or weather to contend with. The crowd sat closer; I could see their faces and even smell the women’s perfume. But Cromwell was right: it was different. In their drive to win, the runners did not hesitate to trip, shove, push, and elbow.

The competition finally did me in. We ran on a smaller track, built on boards. At the Garden, the straightaway rose an inch and a half over a terrazzo floor. During one race I got knocked off the track, into a pileup. There’s a picture in
Life
magazine of everyone in a heap. My
shoe slipped into the space beneath the track and floor. Trying to get free, I tore the ligament in the second toe of my left foot.

With time off to recover, I took inventory of my life. When my foot healed I would set my sights on the Tokyo Olympics. I also resolved to work hard and be more disciplined. I felt great that I was once again reaching for excellence in my athletic career.