This series of articles is about an old friend – Eugene Williams. Here he is:
Eugene was one of my assistant track coaches at Myrtle Beach (SC) High School. He mainly coached the sprinters, having run the 200 and 400 meters himself at Myrtle Beach High about twenty years earlier.
The term for runners like Eugene was that they have “wheels”. On the long bus rides around South Carolina on away meets, Eugene would tell me stories about his high school races, with amazingly accurate recall of details. He ran in the low :50s/high :49s in the toughest event in track, the lung-wracking 400 meters, his best event.
In my mind, over the years, I was able to form an image of Eugene running the quarter: how he started, when he floated, how he dealt with getting boxed in, when he made his moves (usually at 300 yards coming into the final straight after dusting off most of the competition on the back stretch). The image I got in my mind was of a whippet. If it was necessary, Eugene would sand blast people off the track in the final 100 yards like a freight train with a cow catcher on the front. It must have been glorious to be at the finish line for one of Eugene’s races, cheering him on as he dug deep, running from his gut for the Green and Gold.
(to be cont.)