WYKOFF AS GOOD AS OUR GREATEST

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On Par With Wefers, Schick and
Others Duffey Says --- Amsterdam
His Big Objective
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BY  ARTHUR DUFFEY
 

Another new sprinting phenom has come forth on the athletic firmament.  Of course you know who he is.  You do not have to ask just who he may happen to be.  If you cannot guess, it is none other than Frank Wykoff, sprinter extraordinary of Glendale High School, California.
 

And if indications count for anything, Frankie is going to prove the greatest of all short distance runners.  I know this is saying a good deal, especially when one considers the great sprinting feats of a Bernie Wefers, Bill Schick of Harvard, Walter Tewksbury of Pennsylvania, Charley Paddock of California, Charley Borah, also of the Golden West, and a few more wonderful performers that could be mentioned.  But Wykoff appears to be the equal of them all at least.

STILL IN HIS TEENS

One only has to look into his sprinting performances to date.  Not yet is he 18 years of age.  He has won about 20 races.  In that time he has beaten the pick of the world and he is going stronger than ever.  It is a general rule in athletics that an athlete and especially a sprinter reaches the real peak of his form about the age of 21 or 22 years.  Yet here is Young Wykoff still in his teens equaling and smashing world's sprinting records and he, no doubt, will be the winner of an Olympic sprint championship before he reaches his majority.

When I went up to the Hotel Lenox yesterday afternoon to get a line on this youthful prodigy, I found him sitting on the side of a bed talking his his ever-faithful trainer, Norman Hayhurst; and opening a ton-full of telegrams of congratulation that he had received from California and especially from his little home town of Glendale.

Frankie was born in Glendale, Cal., just 18 years ago.  He could always run.  He was crazy about the sport as he put it.  When he was six years of age he remembers taking part in his first running race.  It was his custom many times to run around the block in his home town and test his speed with the kids in the locality just to see how far he could beat them.

Yes, there is a story, too, about the little Californian when he used to get in trouble, just some boyish pranks, that the kids in the neighborhood always used to blame him simply because they wanted to see him run so fast.

It was while at Glendale that this wonder boy first began to show his sprinting talent.  He went out for the track team and also for football. But it was in running that he excelled.  He was so adept at sprinting that in all the church picnics and gatherings that he attended he always won the sprinting matches.  He kept on his work and then in his sophomore year at Glendale he was timed in 10 seconds for the century.

CAME TO FORE LAST SEASON

But it was not until April 1927, that he really blossomed forth as a future world beater.  In  a set of races that were held on the coast he was caught in 9 3-5 seconds for the distance.  They thought the timing was fishy.  But after due consideration, they learned that everything was right.  After running such a performance, he was finally matched with Charley Paddock over the 100-yard distance.
 

Paddock gladly consented to such a meeting, but after the race Paddock was a sadder but a wiser sprinter.  For not only did this young Loch invar from out of the sprinting West beat Charley, but he hung up the figures of 9 3-5 seconds.  This was Frankie's first meeting with the king of short distance runners.

Then they came together recently (6-16-28) in the far Western Olympic tryouts hailed as the "Sprint of the Century."

And again Wykoff was victorious, not only in the 100  meters which was run in 10 3-5 seconds, but in the 200 meters which he won by more than five yards in 20 4-5 seconds.

I then asked him how he felt in the 100 meter tryouts in the Stadium last Friday afternoon.  Naturally we were of the opinion that he would feel a little nervous, temperamental, fidgety or the like.  But not this kid.

"I knew I was going to have a hard race in the Harvard Stadium," he said. "It was a long trip from California to Boston.  But I felt that everything would come out from the way I was feeling.

DID NOT FEAR PADDOCK

"Before the race was held my-trainer and myself got together and we sized up the whole situation.  We had it figured out that the runners to beat were (Claude) Bracey of Rice Institute and (George) Simpson of Ohio State.

"Of course we were not underestimating the other contenders.  We felt that we already had beaten (Charley) Paddock on the coast and there was no reason why we should not be able to repeat.

"When I took the mark in the opening heat, I never felt so good," continued Wykoff.  "I was keyed up to the limit.  I thought that gun would never bark.  But when it did go - so did I - and I ran until I found that no one was near me.

"In no heat did I really feel tired until the third.  Then I knew I was going to be up against it when I met (Hank) Russell and Bob McAllister. Let me say right here that McAllister fooled me.  I never though he would be in the hunt at all.  But he was full of running and I was a little surprised when I learned after it was all over that he finished second to me in the final.

"It was the first time in my life that I ever ran four heats one right after the other in the 100 meters.  Of course I have run heats in the century and 200 yards before.  But such heats are a great strain.

"In the final I felt sure I would win.  I knew I was going to have plenty of competition.  But the feeling that came over made me feel that no matter what the other fellows had to offer I could go one better.

"Yes, I am glad it is all over.  They wanted me to run an exhibition in Saturday's fray, but my trainer wants me to wait for Amsterdam.  That is our big objective now"

Young Wykoff is the son of a plumber in Glendale, California.  He is the only boy in the family.  He stands 5 feet 8 inches and weighs about 150 pounds.  He intends to enter Glendale Junior College and then will go to the University of Southern California.  Just now his ambition is to be a college athletic trainer.  He loves the physical condition of men and believes that that is where he belongs.