| Ăŕđîëüä Ęîííîëëč Harold Connolly | |
| Ďîĺçäęŕ çŕ Îëčěďčéńęčě Çîëîňîě The Journey for Olympic Gold ăëŕâű 25 | |
Chapter Twenty-five
On Saturday, following our
return to Germany, Bob and I were invited to a track
meet held the next day in
a small town south of Frankfurt, where we were to meet another
of the great men of German
athletics, the 1952 Olympic silver medal winner Karl Storch.
At thirty-eight, he was
the oldest man to ever win an Olympic track and field medal. We
arrived late at night,
were met by two officials of the local club and taken directly to the
town’s only hotel.
Tired after the six-hour
train trip, I soon retired into the cumulus of feather filled,
freshly fluffed pillows
and comforters on an old, creaking, four- poster bed, where I slept
until the first rays of
sunshine awoke the neighboring rooster. It was Sunday morning.
The brisk bite in the
September morning air invited a walk; I decided to get
dressed and go to church.
Out on the cobblestone street, I set on a course toward a crosspinnacled
steeple protruding above
the housetops. The hotel clerk told me it was a
Catholic Church. I hoped
to reach it in time for the 7 a.m. Mass.
Nearly two hours later,
after the Mass in an old gray stone church with a small
adjoining graveyard, I
found my way back to the hotel and headed to breakfast. Just as I
was about to enter the
dining room, a heavy arm landed across my shoulders. “You must
be der boy who paid his
vay from Amerika to learn die hammer technik.”
I turned to see a bear
like man with bulging, energetic black eyes, staring from a
bald head framed by long,
dark brown hair hanging over his ears and down the back of
his head. “I am Storch,
Karl Storch from Fulda. Ist you Backus or Connolly?” He spoke
loudly, extending his hand
towards mine.
“Hello. I’m Connolly,
Harold Connolly. We arrived last night,” I replied, as his
hand enclosed mine like a
vice. Storch had a dominating presence: huge, powerful chest
and wide, steeply sloping
shoulders that gave his arms the appearance of reaching down
to his knees.
“Velcome. So you come all
the vay from Amerika. One day I must see the USA. -
-Connolly, you are Irish?
Maybe you are ein Katolik. Komm vit me unt Hans here. Ve
go to church.” He waved at
his waiting companion to come closer. “A fast walk is goot
before the meeting.”
The tone of Storch’s voice
indicated he was used to having his way. Uneasily, I
tried to excuse myself.
“I’m sorry, Karl, but I just came back from church. I think I’ll
have some breakfast now.”
Storch shrugged his
shoulders. “Gut,
gut,
very good. I see you later.” Just as
suddenly as he had
appeared, the famous hammer thrower stormed away. There was no
doubt this veteran, still
regarded as one of the leading German athletes, was his own boss.
The next time I saw Karl
was at the afternoon competition. He arrived dressed in
loose, old fashioned,
nearly knee length, black cotton shorts, and a well-worn white tank
top with deep openings
around his neck and under his arms. After few minutes of speedy
calisthenics, and once up
and back on the football field passing the ball with a couple of
his cohorts, he announced
he was ready and the contest began. Storch moved
vehemently, swinging the
hammer up with determined strokes, holding his breath during
all three turns, and at
the release with a violent jerk of his upper body, he let out a
resounding “Eeh!” On one
of his six throws, clearly one of his best, he brushed the top of
the rim of the circle with
his heel. When the official called a foul, Storch gave him a
savage look.
“Was ist los?”
He halted the progress of the event and
demanded to know what
was wrong. Finally he
called at me. “Harold, come hier. Vas dat a foul?”
I said, “ Yes, it did look
like one to me.” Storch seemed placated.
“Ich bin uebergetreten.”
He confirmed the official's decision.
The veteran champion
adopted me like a son. During my throws he showed signs
of impatience, mumbling to
himself and shaking his head as he studied my every move.
After easily beating Bob
and me, he grabbed my elbow with an imperative gesture:
“Com vit me.” He
introduced me to his old friend and early coach, Sepp Christmann, the
most famous German
throwing coach. “Sepp, dis boy needs much help. All he has ist a
pair of goot legs. He has
ein problem vit der arm, unt he knows nothing of hammer
technik. I believe ve
should take him unt his comrade for a couple of days to Fulda for
some goot German bread unt
beer unt give dem a better start.”
Sepp Christmann agreed
with the proposal, and Karl, with a friendly slap on my
back that for an instant
cut off my breathing, invited the coach, Bob and me to his hometown.
That same afternoon we
sped in Karl’s Opel along the Bavarian countryside with
Sepp in his black Mercedes
following us with the rest of Storch’s entourage.
After about an hour of
driving, Karl bought the car to a stop. “Time for
Essen.
Over der is a
very goot place. Come on,
schnell, schnell,”
he waved to all to follow him
into a restaurant, where
Karl was obviously very popular. In the window next to the main
entrance was a large,
autographed action photo of him throwing the hammer. This sight, I
learned soon afterwards,
was not uncommon. Storch, besides being a popular athlete was
also a prominent business
man, owner of a large sport shop and clothing store, a regional
director for the soccer
lottery, well known for his straight-forwardness and honesty and
liked by all. Many shops
and cafes around Fulda were proud to display the picture of the
town’s first ever Olympic
medallist. Karl’s deep voice reached the dining room and
prodded the owner to spurt
out with outstretched arms and a hearty welcome. “Hallo,
Karl, alter
Knabe, wie gehts?”
The waiter appeared in an
instant, shaking hands with Storch and quickly
counting his party. Asking
for no instructions, he left to return few minutes later with a
large tray loaded with
pitchers of beer overflowing with foam and a smaller tray carrying
a battle-line of Schnapps.
He quickly placed the beers and jiggers in front of us with the
speed and accuracy of a
Las Vegas craps dealer.
Karl cleared his throat
and rose to make a short speech, including something
about American hammer
throwers that made his German entourage laugh. He concluded
in English. “You must
trink beer, Bob unt Harold. Right here, in dis fresh thick foam lies
der secret of many
meters.” He held his beer high until he saw everyone else joined his
toast.
For the next two and half
hours we ate our snack: Schnapps and sausage,
Schnapps and soup, black
bread with salt and Schnapps and beer--all topped by a glass of
wine proffered by the
proprietor to honor the visiting Americans.
Finally,
schnell, schnell,
Karl stood up announcing we were off to complete our
journey. Composed and
without wavering, he directed our unsteady procession to the cars
and down the weaving road
towards home. With his left arm and shoulder hanging out
the open window and his
expansive girth barely fitting the front seat, Karl bellowed brave
tunes worthy of the
occasion. All our voices contributed to the choral, the cadence of
which increased with
Karl’s pressure on the accelerator, as we sped across the rolling
German countryside.
When we arrived at the
hotel on the main street in Fulda, Karl introduced us to the
clerk and helped us to
fill out the hotel registration cards. Then, at length, he instructed
the clerk to give us the
best rooms in the house. Weary from the drinks and the ride, Bob
and I rejoiced at the
prospect of rest, but somewhat prematurely--Karl only pushed our
bags towards the bellboy
and turned to us with, “Ve go to Fredi’s.” I was reluctant to
move.
“Should we tell him we’d
rather stay here?” I whispered to Bob.
“I guess we could,” he
answered hesitantly, “But then again he’s trying so hard to
be nice --”
Karl noticed our
uneasiness. “Was
ist Los?”
Something wrong vit you? Are you
tired?
Impossible. No
atleten
tire so easy.
Dis vill be a goot dinner, you must believe me.
Fredi makes
prima Schnitzels. You boys must meet my friend, come, ve vill valk,
schnell.”
He walked out with Bob trailing and smiling at me over his shoulder.
“Brother, they’ll kill us
with hospitality,” I whispered to Bob.
Stifling our yawns and
suppressing all signs of fatigue, we fell in with the others and
followed Karl.
“Gut, sehr gut,
dis vill work
up big appetite,” he said leading us like a
commendant.
Ten minutes later we
entered “Fredi’s Place” the brightly lighted, smoke filled,
beer garden restaurant. A
short, heavy set man with a ruddy face, smiling from a bald
head, Fredi himself,
greeted us and helped get us seated at the table reserved for nine,
where some other Fulda
athletes and a newspaperman already waited. The table stood
next to a wood-paneled
wall, which supported long rows of shelves, lined with
collections of beer
steins, crests and shields. On the wall across the expansive room was a
display of photographs of
celebrated Germans, among which were German athletes, with
Karl in a prominent place
of honor. The room was crowded with long, cloth-covered
tables, and every
stiff-backed wooden chair and bench was occupied, mostly by men,
eating schnitzels and
sausages, washing them down with beer, everyone talking to
everyone else in an
incomprehensible cacophony of sounds. On a small platform in the
corner, a short red-faced
man squirmed and stretched as he played an accordion.
Waiting next to our table
to make a last second, personal examination of our large
platter of schnitzels, Mr.
Fredi eloquently gesticulated to his headwaiter to serve Bob and
me good-sized portions.
With his huge soft hand he directed our attention to a faded
photograph near the corner
of the wall. “Dat ist I unt my Frau on our vedding day.”
“It’s a beautiful
picture,” said Bob.
“Ya,
der Bilder ist zehr schon, Fredi,”
I attempted
in the awkward German I was
beginning to pick up.
Karl overheard us, and
with a loud laugh he slapped Fredi on his massive, apronembraced
belly: “Ya, Dat vas many
kilos ago!” Everyone roared, but loudest of all, our
jolly host. The dome of
his baldhead lighted up as the blood rushed to his face. Every part
of his three-hundred-pound
body shook as he laughed.
After Bob and I assessed
Fredi’s schnitzels to be “Der best schnitzels in der ganz
Welt,” the restaurant
owner, a pleased grin across his face, bowed in acknowledgment of
the praise, then left to
greet his other guests.
About eleven o’clock the
hubbub of shouts, laughter, and activity reached its
zenith. The accordionist,
who had spent the previous hour dining, returned to the stage
and, with a schooner of
beer at his side, resumed playing familiar melodies. The patrons
joined in singing one
number after another, until the musician suddenly switched to the
prelude of something
special that elicited from Karl and his friends at our table the cry:
“Fredi! Wo ist Fredi?”
It was immediately joined
by a unanimous chant from all: “Fredi tanz! Fredi
tanz!” With a satisfied
wink, through the smoke of his thick cigar, Storch leaned over and
whispered to Bob and me,
“I told him to play dis--der music for Fredi’s dance.”
The proprietor did not
need much coaxing. Having hesitated only that strategical
moment to be sure of
having everybody’s undistracted attention, he walked into the
middle of the room,
accepted one of the readily offered long-stemmed glasses, filled it
with wine and very
carefully balanced it on the tope of his head. The accordion player
eased off on the tempo to
allow the innkeeper a warm up with a few cautious turns. Fredi
suddenly crouched and the
pitch of the music rose. He slapped his thighs, lifted himself
onto his toes and made
series of graceful pirouettes. Throughout his gyrations the glass
remained perfectly still,
not a drop of wine overflowing.
“Bravo, Fredi! Bravo!” The
expectations of the patrons exploded into delighted
cheers. The accordion
player interjected a short fanfare during which Fredi stretched his
arms out to his sides and
struck a mock ballerina pose. A second later he surged into a
capering gait, bounced
from one end of the room to another, wove in between the tables
in a frolicking glide,
then stepped onto an empty chair, and climbed to the top of a long
table. As he performed a
series of almost weightless turns, it seemed that while his
rotund body twirled, the
wineglass stayed motionless.
Then, with perspiration
running profusely down his cheeks, the innkeeper
descended from the table
to a chair and back to the floor. The enthralled spectators
accompanied Fredi by
clapping in unison to the music and the rhythm of his steps as he
took a last swing around
the room before returning to its center. There, he added a few
more incredibly
light-footed spins, followed by a sudden jerk of his head that brought the
falling glass to his lips.
Without spilling a drop, Fredi caught the glass ever so delicately
between his pudgy fingers
and in a single gulp drank the entire contents. Amidst loud
cheers from every corner,
he collapsed into the nearest chair, laughing, gasping for air
and basking in the
ceaseless acclamation.
“Bravo, Fredi! Bravo!” “
Wunderbar!” “Auf Deine Gesundheit!”
I sat amazed by the
transformation of the paunchy restaurant owner, and
flabbergasted by the
whirlwind we had been on from the moment we met Karl Storch.
Amidst the din around me,
I thought back through the expanse of experiences wondering
what would be the next
extraordinary scene to unfold. Only five weeks before my whole
existence was tied to
Boston College, Boston University, Commonwealth Avenue, the
corner drug store, evening
television, the Boston Pop’s concerts on the Charles River
Esplanade, the occasional
excursions to Nantasket Beach, and my primarily, solitary
training. Even after the
landing of the
S.S. Zuiderkruise
in Holland,
in spite of my
physical separation from
my old realities, my emotions remained deeply anchored at
home, and I was unable to
integrate my identity with my new surroundings.
In the midst of all the
evening’s excitement at “Fedi’s” I felt as if I were having
an out of body experience,
like a misty observer witnessing, but not really feeling
involved, incapable of
crossing the ridge between home and the present reality.
Somehow I felt remote from
the atmosphere of that evening.
“Harold,
was
ist los??
You ist sleeping!” Karl’s admonishing voice
interrupted
my thoughts. “I vill take
you to der hotel unt den come back for Bob.”
“No, I’m fine Karl. I’ll
leave when everyone else does.”
“Fine, it ist goot. Fredi
ist bringing a bottle of vine in your honor unt he vould be
disappointed if ve hurried
out so early. Ve vill stay half hour more, goot?”
“Good, Karl, fine.”
The headwaiter brought a
tray of new glasses just as the musician began to sing
“In
Fulda steht ein Hofbrauhaus”
and was
promptly joined by some three-dozen voices.
Karl grabbed my elbow and
locked it in his. In surprise, quickly scanning the room, I
noticed that all were
linking arms together and beginning to sway with the music from
side to side while still
remaining in their chairs. With the tide of movement sweeping
towards us, Bob and I also
quickly hooked arms and accompanied the rest by at least
humming the infectiously
happy melody. While the last word still echoed, the accordion
player paused and reached
for his beer, but someone in a corner had already begun
another of the variations
of German drinking chorales, “Trink, Trink, Bruderlein Trink,”
and once more, without
even waiting for the musical accompaniment, the inn resounded
with singing. During this
time, however, Karl began taking Bob and me from one table to
another, introducing us to
his acquaintances. Some of them tried for a word in English,
while others spoke only
German, but all radiated genuine warmth in squeezing our hands
and wishing us the success
we were hunting for.
At two o’clock in the
morning as we negotiated along the undulating street to our
hotel, I still had
sufficient command of my faculties to realize that my reserve and my
sense of being apart from
everything had vanished--not merely temporarily washed away
by the streams of alcohol,
but buried by the avalanche of camaraderie displayed among
those German sports fans
even to an unknown beginner like me. Athletics mean more to
them than simply
statistical results--it was an important part of their social life. My
weird
form of athletic
expression, hammer throwing, odd ball in the US, served here as an
immediate catalyst between
me and the scores of strangers, with whom I could otherwise
have exchanged nothing
more than the few greetings I had begun to memorize. I knew
most of my acquaintances
here were not hammer throwing enthusiasts, but they all
seemed to genuinely
appreciate and even admire the fact that two Americans would come
to Germany to train and
improve themselves in sport.
The three days in Fulda
passed like an instant. Each afternoon Sepp brought us
from the hotel to Karl’s
sports shop, where we waited until he finished his work before
we all drove to the
athletic field to meet the other local throwers. The two-hour training
sessions absorbed their
personalities just as fully as the cafe singing and drinking. Our
workouts began with a
fifteen-minute all-out round of soccer, which was followed by
calisthenics, a series of
sprints and an hour and a half of hammer throwing under the
relentlessly observant eye
of coach Christmann. A crowd of children, local runners,
farmers leading ox drawn
carts, and grandmothers carrying big bundles of dandelions and
clover, gathered around us
curiously drawn by the sight of Bob’s USA sweat shirt and
Sepp’s exuberant discourse
on hammer throwing technique, even though he spoke in
English.
“Before you leave here,”
he continually reminded us, “order films of the Russian
and Hungarian throwers who
have taken our style to the next level. Without studying
them you might miss
important refinements. It hurts an athlete when he has not the
opportunity to compete
with the best.”
On our last day in Fulda,
this time with a touch of sentimental formality, Karl
presented us with a few
“remembrances,” as he called them, of our stay.
“Here ist to take vit
you,” he said and handed us each a precision made Berg
hammer, a beautiful
training suit and an expensive suede and knit sweater-jacket. While
we were groping to find
enough expressive words of thanks, he rolled right over the
situation with “All ist
goot, now ve vill go to my house ver
Mutti
hast
der dinner.”
In Storch’s home we
re-lived his devoted preparations for the 1952 Olympics,
rewarded by the silver
medal he had mounted over the fireplace in the place of honor
among his scores of other
trophies. I thought how much I also would like to have such an
Olympic medal to put over
my own fireplace. At eleven we left the Storch home, with
our host reminding us to
be prepared for the ride to the Frankfurt train station at six in the
morning.
Bob and I, accompanied by
Sepp Christmann, walked to our hotel. “It is still
early, why wouldn’t we
stop for a glass of wine,” suggested the coach.
Bob sighed in desperation.
“No, thanks, Herr Christmann, not for me. Six o’clock comes
too early.”
I also dreaded another
night of minimal sleep, but seeing the coach’s
disappointment I told him,
“I’ll join you Herr Christmann.”
“Good, Harold, we won’t be
long. I’d be sorry if we didn’t visit my own favorite
place in Fulda. Bob, are
you sure you won’t come?”
“Really, I’m beat. You two
have a good time. I’ll see you in the morning.”
After saying “good night”
to Bob, coach Christmann led me down a dark, side
alley and across a narrow
cobblestone street to a gray stone building. A flight of stairs
descended directly from
the sidewalk into what appeared to be a cellar. The small door
opened with the tinkle of
a bell, that woke up an old man with thick white hair, who slept
at the nearest little
table. With his arms still folded over his open newspaper, which lay in
front of him, the man’s
heavy-lidded eyes glanced up to express yawning interest in us as
we walked by through the
isolation of another four lonely guests. Then his head sagged
again, to its previous
position.
A thin, short, bearded man
dressed in black trousers and shoes and a long-sleeved
white shirt with a cork
screw dangling from a chain around his neck, emerged from
behind a beaded portiere
to the right of the bar. Recognizing coach Christmann, his face
lit up and he came forward
with an outstretched hand.
“Hallo, Herr
Christmann, es freut
mich Sie
wiederzusuhen. Willkommen in unserem Hause.”
They spoke for a while
before the coach introduced me to the cafe owner and
said he could not let me
leave Fulda without bringing me to his favorite cafe. Would we
be able to get a bottle of
“Niersteiner Domtal?”
The waiter lifted his hand
with thumb and index finger touching at their tips in a
gesture assuring
satisfaction and replied that it was always ready for Herr Christmann.
Ein Augenblick, bitte.
The beaded curtain swallowed the proprietor.
We found a table
against the back wall.
“I have been coming for
years to this wine cellar. Every time I visit Fulda I stop
here,” said Herr
Christmann. For a while he rested submerged in his thoughts. Wondering
what he was thinking, I
looked at him closely. Though the coach was in his late fifties
and despite the damage of
an old injury, his features still bore much of their impressive
Teutonic sharpness. He had
flowing, steel gray hair, and, behind the thick lenses of his
glasses part of his face
was erased by paralysis. He had one glass eye, the aftermath of an
accident from being struck
by a hammer that ripped out of the hands of a beginning pupil.
Despite its scar, the
lines of deep character and strength made the coach’s face almost
handsome.
The proprietor returned
with a tall, slender, dark green bottle and two wineglasses,
and Herr Christmann
resumed the conversation. “Harold, here they serve only
the finest Rhine wine,
chilled to the perfect temperature. This one,” he lifted up the
opened bottle, “is the
best Rhine of all--I was born almost in its vineyards.” He filled our
glasses and scrutinized
with pleasure the wine’s clear, ripe sparkle.
“Harold, wine has to be
drunk very slowly--you must not rush it. You must learn
to appraise the wine,
allow it to mellow on your tongue and savor its bouquet and distinct
taste. Believe me, sitting
over a glass of the best wine gives one time to think over many
important matters.”
For a while he elaborated
on the art of making and appreciating fine wine; then
abruptly switched to
sports. “Did you hear that the Soviet, Krivonsov, broke the world’s
hammer record with 63.34
meters?”
I mentally calculated the
distance to be about 207 feet.
“No, I hadn’t. When did it
happen?”
“Earlier today in
Budapest” he responded.
“That’s a great throw.”
“Ya, it is far. But,
Harold, I am going to tell you something you may not even
have in mind at this
moment, but about which I am as sure as my sitting at this table. I
believe that you are the
right man to defeat Krivonsov two years from now at the
Olympic Games in
Australia. You can become the Olympic Champion.”
The coach’s statement
stunned me. “Why do you think that, Herr Christmann?”
“Well, some people may
judge you according to your comparatively small size, or
your handicap, and
disregard you on that; but I have watched you now for days, and I feel
there is something in you
that marks a champion. There are athletes like that. Who has
been in coaching as long
as I, can sense them.”
My immediate, inner
reaction to his extraordinarily encouraging words was the
influence of the exquisite
wine, but never before had anyone but my father ever
expressed such absolute
faith in my determination to succeed. That night I lay in bed for
hours thinking about
Christmann’s words. The next day as we left Fulda, I knew I had
changed. I was charged
with optimism and bound by the anxious intent not to let down
an old German coach who
only four days before had been an absolute stranger.
Copyright © 1999-2002 Harold Connolly |
|