CHAPTER 1

Wanting It

The more I coached the moreI became convinced that the mind, the will, the determination, themental approach to competition are of the utmost importance. Yes, perhapseven more than the improvements in form and technique.2

Coach Brutus Hamilton

When asked how long he trained for the Olympics, Jack will typically answer, “Three or four years.” Many who ask are looking for a quick answer—a two-and-a-half-minute success story. Several years after the Olympics, Jack asked Mr. Bailey, his former high school basketball coach, why, of all his teammates, he ran faster, traveled the world, played in the Rose Bowl, and graduated from the University of California and Stanford when others who had more talent did not. The coach replied, “It was important to you. You wanted it more than the others.”

“I wanted it?”

Jack remembered his junior year in high school when he sat daydreaming in class and doodling on his physics paper. He wrote in the upper corner, “Gold Medal, 1960 Olympics. 400 meters.” Sitting behind him was Cummings, a cocky boy who peaked over Jack’s shoulder.

“You’re stupid!” he derided. “You’ll never do that.” Up to that point, Jack had never won a race, but something inside said, “Your time willcome.”

Wanting it began in his childhood home on 122 Fourth Street, in Woodland, California. Jack was a year old in 1940. The average home value in California was $3,527,3 and Mom and Gram had pooled their resources to purchase a small, one-bedroom home for $500. It once had been a chicken coop on a long-ago farm, and it took Irene ten years to pay off the mortgage. Mom slept in the twin bed during the day, and the boy, Jack, shared it with his siste