All-time prison team?

[Per Andersen]

Re: All-time prison team?

I think we got the javelin covered also. Norwegian record holder Paa Arne Fagerness took part in a huge drunken brawl and was arrested last fall, and this spring in Oslo he went berserk and trashed a bunch of parked cars by stomping on the roofs. He jumped from car to car and had to be restrained and was definitely tossed in the slammer. Afterwards he was so upset with himself that he went out and threw the javelin 246 feet in jogging shoes. But we might loose him to boxing he has already had 2 pro fights.

[Guest]

Re: All-time prison team?

No steroids in this story, of course.

[racewalker]

Re: All-time prison team?

I seem to recall that miler Glenn Cunningham was cited several times for cruelty to animals. This was psot running career. Anyone have any info on that?

[Guest]

Re: All-time prison team?

hey, let's drag some more names through the mud, it's fun!

[CoachKoby]

Re: All-time prison team?

HERE HERE!!

[Guest]

Re: All-time prison team?

My favorite is Ellison "Tarzan" Brown, a 1936 Olympic marathoner. As a native American, he had some real issues with a few Hitler Youth members he ran across in a bar in Berlin. So he picked a fight with them, got outnumbered and beaten up and spent some time in the lockup to boot. The AAU bailed him out so he could run the Olympic marathon!

[Guest]

Re: All-time prison team?

Here's one guy definitely the slam, although his credentials as a "star miler" are, ahem, somewhat suspect:

http://outsideonline.com/outside/featur ... son_1.html

[Guest]

Re: All-time prison team?

>My favorite is Ellison "Tarzan" Brown, a 1936
>Olympic marathoner. As a native American, he had
>some real issues with a few Hitler Youth members
>he ran across in a bar in Berlin. So he picked a
>fight with them, got outnumbered and beaten up
>and spent some time in the lockup to boot. The
>AAU bailed him out so he could run the Olympic
>marathon!>>

Why is my BS meter starting to flicker? I'd like to see some documentation on this one.

[gh]

Re: All-time prison team?

<<Why is my BS meter
>starting to flicker? I'd like to see some
>documentation on this one.>>

Yeah, I'm a bit skeptical too, if for no other reason than because swimmer Eleanor Holm, who had won gold in '32, was thrown off the team after being seen drinking a glass of champagne on the boat on the way over. I have no doubt ole Avery Brundage had a dual standard when it came to men and women, but after her summary dismissal, I find it difficult to believe that Brown (particularly as a non-white) would have been left on the team had such an incident occurred.


Holm:
http://www.seniorwomen.com/articlesDavidHolm.html

[bkotch]

Re: All-time prison team?

><<Why is my BS meter
>starting to flicker? I'd
>like to see some
>documentation on this
>one.>>

Yeah, I'm a bit skeptical too, if for
>no other reason than because swimmer Eleanor
>Holm, who had won gold in '32, was thrown off the
>team after being seen drinking a glass of
>champagne on the boat on the way over. I have no
>doubt ole Avery Brundage had a dual standard when
>it came to men and women, but after her summary
>dismissal, I find it difficult to believe that
>Brown (particularly as a non-white) would have
>been left on the team had such an incident
>occurred.

I can't speak to this issue with any authority, but I did find a mention of it on the website of one of Boston's local rags, in a special section devoted to the Boston Marathon. Herewith is an excerpt that described the incident:

Both men [Johnny Kelley and Tarzan Brown] won berths for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Kelley was the only American to finish, but it was Brown who made the headlines, getting into a beer hall brawl with a bunch of Hitler's black shirts and spending the two days prior to the race in jail. He lead the race for the first 13 miles and was second through the 18-mile checkpoint before dropping out with a stitch.


http://www.townonline.com/marathon/history/curt5.htm

[tandfman]

Re: All-time prison team?

Check out this website:

http://www.townonline.com/marathon/history/curt5.htm

I don't know how accurate is, but it does seem to confirm at least part of the Brown story.

[Guest]

Re: All-time prison team?

I remain unconvinced. Pick your favorite urban myth and you can find it cited with authority all over the Net, I'm sure. A citation in a small-town newspaper written years and years after the fact has a hand-me-town-tale air about it.

[tandfman]

Re: All-time prison team?

I share your skepticism. One of the problems with the Internet is that there's nothing that old on it. Anything about what happened in 1936 would probably have been put on the web more than 60 years later. For accurate contemporaneous accounts, one would have to go to a real library. Nonetheless, for whatever it was worth, I thought the article would be of interest.

[Guest]

Re: All-time prison team?

My story is nearly word-for-word from Tom Derderian's history of the Boston Marathon. I merely assumed that he did his homework on that one, since the rest of the book was meticulously researched. As for Holm, you've got to remember the attitudes towards women and men in athletic competition in the 30's; one was seen as a nusaince while the other was of prime importance.

[MJD]

Re: All-time prison team?

Lickety Split would have to be on it.