Relays

The outdoor track and field sports season got off last week to a running, jumping, vaulting start when the 40th annual Penn Relays took place in Philadelphia, the 25th annual Drake Relays in Des Moines.

Penn. Franklin Field was one vast, miserable mud puddle, but 5,000 spectators turned out in the rain to see the 1/2mi. anchor-leg duel in the sprint medley between Indiana's Charles ("Chuck") Hornbostel and Princeton's William ("Bonny") Bonthron. Hornbostel's team mates gave him an advantage of 4 yd. at the start, but the spectacled Hoosier runner, who looks more like some obscure grind in a chemistry department than a track captain, did not need it. At the finish. Bonthron 6 yd. behind. Next day Indiana also won the one-and two-mile race, tied with Cornell, winner in the 1/2-mi., shuttle hurdles and 440-yd. events, for first-place college honors.

Drake. Sunny weather and a fast track helped the Western teams to beat most Eastern teams' times in rainy Philadelphia. In the field events, the Drake Relays produced a downright sensation.

Twelve thousand pairs of eyes stared fascinated when a youthful giant named Jack Torrance from Louisiana State stepped into the shot-put circle. A huge sign hung at one end of the stadium advertising TARZAN AND HIS MATE at the Des Moines Theatre. A hairy-legged Tarzan in his own right, Jack Torrance stands 6 ft. 6 in., weighs 275 lb. All necks craned as he picked up the 16-lb. brass ball, cocked his huge arm, stuck out his big jaw. All mouths gasped as the missile flew brightly into the air, thudded to earth far beyond the last distance marker. Distance: 55 ft. 4 in.--some 23 in. beyond the world record.

An All-Southern football tackle and basketball player, Jack Torrance is a "natural" athletic prodigy. At the Southern A. A. U. meet last year he picked up the 56-lb. weight, asked the meet director how to throw the thing, stepped into the circle and slung it 32 ft., a meet record, his first try. Prophetically said Leo Sexton, U. S. Olympic shot putter: "Wait until he learns how to put that ball. As soon as he gets the knack of letting the shot go, he'll break every record in the book."

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