1952 Track Meet
By Jim Joanos
This story is about my very brief experience as a member of The Florida State University track team.
It was the fall of 1952. I was a freshman at FSU. At that time the school physical education department held an intramural track meet in the fall where the various dormitories and fraternities competed against each other. Since I had been the captain of my high school track team, a decent but no champion distance runner and was a pledge, I was expected to and did enter the meet. The longest distance in competition at the meet was the half-mile so that is what I chose to run. Surprise of surprises, I won the race. Thus, brought about a brief but most enjoyable experience.
The week after the intramural meet, one of the members of my fraternity who was on the track team sought me out. He had been in touch with Dr. Ken Miller, FSU’s track coach. Coach Miller had told him that I was welcome to join the school track team as a walk-on if I would like to. Wow! I jumped at the opportunity. I had loved sports since childhood and had been on various school teams throughout high school with very limited success. I was not only small but not very fast. I had not even imagined that I could be on a college sports team.
Soon I found myself, two or three times a week, going out to the old-World War II airbase where the FSU track was then to work out. It was off-season. All of the meets were held in the spring. FSU like most colleges then did not have a winter indoor program.
FSU had a good track team and could compete favorably against most college teams. I very much enjoyed going to the work outs and mixing with the team members that showed up on days that I was there. Some were really good athletes with some good past experiences that I enjoyed hearing about. It was a fun experience.
It had been decided that I would train for the two-mile run event. By today’s standards, my training program was quite pathetic. It consisted mainly of racing with teammates out and back a dirt road to a small bridge and back for a total of three to four miles two or three times a week. There would also be a few shorter runs in between. It was always at a fast pace. Most of us still mistakenly believed that if you trained running slowly you could not run fast in competition. Quite a contrast to today’s distance training where many competitors run well over a hundred miles a week, much of it at a reduced pace.
As the weeks went by, despite the insufficient training, I did get better. After a while, although I could never get close to beating a few of the faster guys, on our runs out and back from the bridge, I became competitive against some of the others. As spring and track season approached, I felt good about my progress. It was a happy time!
Just before the first meet of the track season, I got some bad luck. During a training run, my left knee collapsed. I tried to shake it off, but could not. It persisted. It was an injury to the same knee that had caused me to sit out the last few football games my senior year in high school. Consequently, I had to discontinue running. I believe that I must have torn a muscle or something. They were no orthopedic doctors yet in Tallahassee, nor did the general physicians have the equipment that is now available to x-ray or otherwise discover the problem.
In high school, after several months, the knee had gotten better allowing me to run track in the spring. I hoped that might be the case at FSU and I continued to try light jogging. But no luck. The knee could not heal that fast. Eventually, I had to give up and discontinue training with the team. Thus, I sadly believed that my fun as part of the track team had ended.
A few weeks later, a member of the track team contacted me and said that Coach needed a favor. The team was scheduled to compete in a track meet at the University of Georgia.
Unfortunately, the school’s athletic bus was unavailable to make the trip. FSU had only that one team bus at the time. As a result, the team would travel to the meet in personal cars. They needed cars and Coach Miller said that if I would drive and take a carload of team members with me, FSU would pay for the gas.
Coach Miller also suggested that if I wanted to, I might run the two-mile at the meet. He knew that my knee had not totally healed but I had improved enough to run some. The two-mile was not a particularly popular event at the time. Most school’s emphasized the mile and lesser distances as the runners could participate in more than one event. As a result, they might enter only one participant in the two-mile. On occasion there were a few rare instances where just finishing the race had resulted in a team getting an extra point or so.
A week or so later I had a carload of team members and was driving to Athens, Georgia. When we got to the University of Georgia they took us up to a few dormitory rooms where we would be spending the night. Each room for four had two double decker old military fashion bed sets. Needless to say, I was relegated to a top bunk since I was the smallest in the room.
Then we were directed to the athlete’s dining room where we would have dinner. After going through the food line we took seats toward the front of the room as most of the tables in the back were occupied by athletes from the various UGA sports teams. The food was pretty good. But soon, some laughter erupted in the back of the room when some of the UGA athletes were hurling biscuits at each other. It did not last long but did provide some humor to the dining experience.
It was hot when we got to the UGA track the next day. The UGA and Georgia Tech teams were already there loosening up. As we were dressing in the gym by the track a trainer, or somebody on our team said the he had heard a tip that if you placed a glob of analgesic balm at the base of your spine on a hot day you would perform better. Had never heard of that before nor have I ever since. But, whatever, it worked that hot day as the FSU track team performed very well.
The meet was what was called a tri-meet, where although three teams were performing at the same time, it was scored as if each combination of two teams were competing against each other. The result was that FSU beat Georgia Tech 66.5 – 60.0 and The University of Georgia 66.5-45.5 for a clean sweep. The team was elated. We honestly thought the analgesic balm had something to do with it. Maybe it did, mentally.
As for my performance in the two-mile, not so good. Pretty bad. The first three or four laps were fine but then the knee started acting up. I managed to finish but that is about all. Not even close to a point.
I do not remember a lot about the drive back home. We were a happy team that had beaten two pretty good teams. We enjoyed the feeling. Although I scored no points just being on that team at that meet has been one of the fondest memories I have of my FSU days.
Although briefly, I had competed for FSU. I would never do that again. Yes, I went back out for track the next year and practiced with the team for a while but the knee was still a problem and I was not willing to give up the time it would take from the other student activities that I was enjoying to rehabilitate the knee.
No points scored, but a great memory.
About the author:
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Jim Joanos |
Memories of Garnet and Gold
Jim Joanos and his wife Betty Lou have deep roots at Florida State University. Avid sports fans, they have literally seen, and done, it all. Fortunately for us, Jim loves telling first-hand accounts dating back to FSU’s first football game, a 1947 clash with the Stetson Hatters on Centennial Field, where Cascades Park is today.
The Osceola will run a series of these colorful stories written by the former Tallahassee lawyer and judge, which we feel our readers will find enlightening and/or nostalgic.
Jim and Betty Lou, who was Associate Director of the FSU Alumni Association (1991-2003), have been married 65 years and are each listed as one of FSU’s 100 Distinguished Graduates. The couple were enshrined in the FSU Hall of Fame in 2015 as Moore-Stone Award Recipients. Ironically, both Deans Moore and Stone were instrumental in the Joanoses career development.
“Both Jim and Betty Lou Joanos have been exemplary fans and supporters of Florida State University, both academically and athletically,” said Andy Miller, retired President and CEO of Seminole Boosters, Inc. “You can’t go to an athletic event of any kind that you don’t see both Jim and Betty Lou Joanos together. They love their university as much as they love each other.”