Гарольд Коннолли

Harold Connolly

Поездка за Олимпийским Золотом

The Journey for Olympic Gold

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Olga Fikotova and Harold Connolly. Picture from http://www.sportline.it/sydney2000.nsf/refstorie/1956_5

Chapter Twenty-three

My college athletic eligibility was now finished, and the numbers of hammer

throw competitions available to out of college athletes were few and far between. During

those few meets I began to wonder if my physical limitation would forever leave me on a

plateau of moderate achievement. I felt as if my sports efforts were at an impasse. I

wasn't improving, but I couldn’t quit. My friendship with Bob Backus kept my curiosity

and fantasizing about the Olympic Games aflame; and knowing that I enjoyed throwing

the hammer more than anything I had ever done before, urged me to give myself one last

chance.

Bob’s goal was set on making his second Olympic team, and I was happy to tag

along as his training partner with my personal dream of beating him. Though he was my

mentor, he also was my target. All else was an uncharted way for me. He said the only

way for us to really improve was to get to Europe where they knew how to throw and

where there were plenty of meets.

After my first semester at Boston University, where I started working on a

Master’s degree, Bob had made up his mind to go to Europe that summer to pursue his

goal. I knew then that I had to find a way to finance joining him, which meant

withdrawal from school and taking a full time job. At home I announced my decision

with some trepidation, but my dropping out of graduate school for one semester met with

less opposition than I expected. And I realized my parents meant it seriously when they

said that they believed once I graduated from college, I should be mature enough to run

my own life.

By the end of my first semester at Boston University, I had completed sufficient

units in history and government, to accept a full time teaching job. Instead, I applied for

a substitute position. While that meant considerably less pay, calculated on a day-to-day

basis, it also allowed me to accept or refuse the early morning calls to replace regular

teachers out ill. I wanted to teach primarily on the days I rested from intense training.

In January, I accepted an assignment to teach in one of the city’s toughest,

predominantly black, all boys’ high schools, Boston Trade School, where new teachers,

especially substitutes, lasted about as long as a feather in a hurricane. The principal

advised me to maintain strict discipline. The two substitutes before me did not last past

the first day. I took the discussion with the principal as a challenge to win the trust of the

students. A few days into the assignment, I was told that the teacher I was sitting in for

wouldn’t be returning for at least two or three weeks because of emotional stress.

Knowing we were headed into the coldest days of winter, that most of our training would

be done indoors at night at Tufts University, and a protracted assignment would assure

the money needed for the European trip, I happily accepted the assignment.

I also had noticed the principal never left his office, and the faculty rarely

ventured into the corridors. Apparently what wasn’t observed wasn’t a problem,

especially the early afternoon vacating of the school by nearly the entire student body.

Though classes were scheduled until 3:00, by 2:15 the corridors were empty and the

teachers sat at desks facing at best a handful of students who were either doing busy work

or irritating the teacher.

For several days I stayed after school preparing carefully the next day’s lessons

and trying to brighten up my drab room by pinning up sports pictures. One day at lunch

period my students surprised me with a box of glazed donuts and a strawberry coffeecake

to fortify me for my late afternoon workout. They had learned from one of the other

teachers that I was training for the Olympics. Later I learned they had served themselves

these refreshments that morning from a bakery truck, left unlocked while its unwary

driver had been delivering bread and pastries to the technical institute across the street.

They had made a human chain from the open back door of the truck to the entrance of

school. In the few minutes they had calculated from his previous week’s delivery that he

would be gone from the truck, they more than half emptied the truck before he returned

to lock the door and be on his way. His next delivery stop had to be a great surprise.

The day the first major Northeaster hit, covering Boston and its Trade School with

18 inches of snow, my status with the 950 students was sealed. Leaving school that day,

walking along the sidewalk between the snow banks, I passed a group of three I

immediately recognized as trouble, particularly because they were trying to look so

indifferent to me as I passed. They were not my students, but I recognized the biggest,

and one other as just having been readmitted after a two-week’s suspension for

instigating a melee’ in the cafeteria, that sent six other students to the nurses office and

one to the hospital. Not to mention the damage to the cafeteria tables, the broken dishes,

and food strewn all over the floor. It took nearly all afternoon to regain any semblance of

order among the students who chose to return to classes.

As I drew away from them, I saw out of the corner of my eye that the big one had

a snowball in his hand by his side. With no indication of apprehension or suspicion, I

continued to walk carrying my briefcase toward the subway. An instant later a snowball

struck the back of my head with a loud smack. I knew exactly where it had come from,

regardless that there were also quite a few other students besides the infamous three

lingering outside the school. I stopped and stood motionless for about six seconds,

feeling the wet snow sliding down beneath my collar. My adrenaline surged. I sensed the

eyes of all the students riveted on me, wondering what I would do.

Slowly I turned and walked back directly toward the perpetrator and his friends.

Unlike the other bystanders who were watching me intently, the trio were looking at each

other and talking as if nothing had happened. I walked up to the big student. He turned

and looked down at me. “What’s up, teach? He asked with feigned innocence all over

his face, but there was no snowball in his hand. I dropped my eyes from his and looked

at the other two, who were holding back smiles. Without any warning or wasted motion,

with my briefcase still in my left hand, I exploded a straight, hard right to the solar plexus

of the leader. He sank to his knees, gasping for breath. I turned and continued on to the

subway and home.

The following day I mentioned nothing to the principal, my colleagues or my

students. No charges were brought against me. Nothing was mentioned of the incident,

but from that day on there was never an out of order peep in my classes, and whenever

I’d walk down the halls, the students would quickly separate out of my way.

At the end of June, Bob was refused a leave beyond his vacation time and gave up

his job. We then split tasks in searching for the least expensive transportation to Europe,

settling eventually on the offer of a Dutch steamship company handling student summer

tours to the old continent. It cost three hundred and twenty dollars for a round trip ticket,

leaving me with only some two hundred fifty for the six weeks living expenses, a tight

budget which might have discourage me if Bob had not persuaded me that we would not

need much money. He was sure that the European athletic federations and meet

promoters would give us food and lodging if we competed in their track meets.

In the middle of July, we joined the S.S.Zuiderkruis out of New York carrying

seven hundred girls and two hundred and fifty boys to organized European study or

leisure tours. Eight days later, the merry boat landed in Rotterdam, and Bob, his previous

Olympic experience establishing him as the leader, decided to immediately board the

overnight express train to Hamburg, Germany. There, he explained, we would throw

ourselves on the mercy of the local sports federation to help us find cheap lodging and

locate Karl Hein, the 1936 Olympic Champion still competing at 46 and reaching better

distances than any American.

The next day we set our bags in a small but agreeable room in the city’s “Haus

des Sports”, a sportsman’s hotel, where the Hamburg Athletic Federation had directed us.

The room rate for athletes was specially reduced for the federation, and the cost of meals

in the adjoining restaurant was quite low. The German sports officials gave us a very

friendly reception, not minding the fact that we were unknown athletes suddenly

appearing without official invitation; and they offered any feasible help we might need.

We asked where we could find Karl Hein.

“Kalli works all day as a carpenter,” the Federation Secretary told us, “but nearly

every evening he trains at the Stadtpark. You can easily find him, but maybe not today

because tomorrow is a competition. But you can go over and see if he is there. And, of

course, you both are invited to compete tomorrow if you like.” We thanked him

somewhat indecisively for the invitation since we had not trained for seven days and had

barely shaken our sea legs. We said, in any case, we would come to see the competition.

Later that day, after unpacking, we hurried across the street from the hotel to the

U-Bahn. A ten-minute train ride took us to the Stadtpark, where a few young German

hammer throwers were warming up, under the watchful eye of their coach, awaiting the

arrival of their illustrious colleague.

Shortly after five thirty, a small DKW arrived at the training grounds, and out

came a stocky man in a dark green sweat suit. He had penetrating, dark eyes, closecropped,

slicked-down, black hair with gray at the temples combed to one side above a

wide, stern, pallid face. From the trunk of the car he unloaded his training equipment

quickly, and looking neither right nor left, with determined strides, he walked to the

hammer ring.

The club coach, Heinz, an energetic, kind-faced, little man wearing a beret and

short rain coat, whom we had introduced ourselves to when we arrived, presented us to

Karl Hein, the first Olympic champion I had ever met. “Hello, Karl. You don’t know me,

I’m Bob Backus from the United States -- I bring you best regards from Dr. Ewan

Douglas.” Douglas a Scotch hammer thrower and friend of Bob’s from the Olympic

Games had downed more than a few beers with Hein when the British team visited

Germany the year before. “And this is my friend, Hal Connolly, another American

hammer werfer.”

“Ah, Backus, ja natuerlichl. And Konoly? Sehr gut. Hans Wilderman aus

unserem Verein rief uns an und sagte, das you come.” Hein said nothing more and began

to warm up. Backus resumed the conversation: “We’d like to train with you, is it O.K.?”

“Ja, OK, OK. Wie? Entschuldigen Sie bitte…

“Training, you know what I mean, to throw with you,” Backus persisted.

“Ah, trainieren, selbstverstaenjdlich.” In the illustration of his words, Hein

picked up his hammer and his sports bag and in a gesture of yielding room, he pulled

them farther away from the hammer ring.

“Hier, bitte - bitte -” He pointed to the ring and then returned to his warm up.

From then on he talked very little, almost ignoring us. Bob and I took half a dozen

throws, and then sat down to watch him. I realized quickly that Bob was right; the

European technique really differed from ours. I tried to analyze it so that the next

morning I could return to the park to experiment with what I had observed.

After he finished his training, Hein, having sized up our hammer throwing

abilities, invited us to the competition the Federation Secretary had talked about.

“Schaut, tomorrow haben wir einen Kleinen Trainingswettkampf. Mit vielen..much

Athleten. Match ist hier, you come.” We did not dare to refuse.

The competition was held at two o’clock Saturday afternoon after the athletes

finished their half-work day. Hein won, Backus was third behind Ziermann, a German

Olympic team contender, and I came in last. Once Karl Hein established that we were

well below his class and apparently genuinely anxious to learn, he became considerably

more personable. For the following string of days, he met us each afternoon between five

and seven and taught us his form; we communicated in a vocabulary of pronounced and

mispronounced English and German words, gestured with our hands and used any

conceivable utterance to put across our ideas.

After a week of training with Karl, Coach Heinz, and the other club throwers, Bob

and I were accepted into the fold and invited to go with them after training to a nearby

cafe for beer, a ritual they practiced frequently. After a few rounds and talk about

training and the coming competitions, Coach Heinz commented on the progress Bob and

I were showing in learning the German method of throwing. Hugo Ziermann, a stocky,

haughty, blond-haired thrower about Bob’s age, who occasionally beat their club

champion, and who from day one, unlike the others, had demonstrated obvious disdain

for Bob and me, piped in with, “Mit dem arm, Konoly will never throw over 55 meters.”

I must have looked obviously surprised at being put in my place as I looked

across the table at Ziermann. What had precipitated this confrontational attitude? A war

experience with Americans or the beer? He had beaten me in three consecutive

competitions, and apparently was intent in affirming that point again in the beer hall.

Coach Heinz quickly mitigated the situation by interjecting, "Well, we will see. With

hard work I'm sure Harold will one day throw over 55 meters." The conversation moved

on, but I was stung having been separated out again by someone limiting me because of

my arm.

In Hamburg nine years after Hitler’s defeat, the ravages of war were still apparent

in the bombed out ruins of the railroad station and on the faces of the athletes we met,

who toiled long hours at their jobs striving to restore their homeland. Beyond the joys of

the sport field, all over the city remained stark reminders of an epoch they could never

forget.

Just when things were going so well, rain came to Northern Germany. After

enduring it for eight consecutive days, Bob got restless and suggested a change in

climate. “Let’s go to Helsinki. We can’t improve our throwing in the mud. The Finns run

good meets and their girls are terrific. Besides, reports from Scandinavia predict a

beautiful summer.”

The day before we left Hamburg for Finland, Karl invited Bob and me to his

home, a distinct honor according to Coach Heinz extended to very few. After his

Olympic victory the City of Hamburg presented their revered Olympic champion with a

new home. On the day it was presented, the city fathers planted a sapling tree outside the

front door to commemorate the occasion. The day we walked up Karl Hein’s front door

steps, a large, magnificent oak tree shaded the entire front of the house. Inside the home,

small statues, beautiful crystal and framed paintings, photographs and posters proclaimed

the career of this great thrower and his country’s appreciation. I didn’t, however, see any

photograph of Karl being congratulated by Hitler, but I’m sure in 1936 he had one.

Coach Heinz was our translator. Bob and I were awe struck. We had a few drinks, met

Karl's family and didn't stay too long.

Before we left, the Secretary of the Hamburg Athletic Federation office promised

he would help us again after we returned from the three-week detour. We then boarded

“Finnair” for the short flight to Helsinki.