Willie's Luck

Bad luck has dogged the sports career of U.S. Army Private Willie J. Williams, 24, a powerful Negro from Gary, Ind. At the University of Illinois he wanted to be a football star in the worst way, but during a preseason drill in his junior year he broke a leg and never played football again. Later he won a fistful of Big Ten sprint championships, was leadoff man on the 400-meter relay team that set a Pan American record in Mexico in 1955. But when the Army shipped him to Los Angeles to try for the Olympic team, a bad break stopped him once more. He suffered leg cramps, was roundly beaten, and missed making the passenger list for Melbourne. Last week stomach trouble kept Willie Williams from training for the International Military Track Meet in West Berlin. He went into his qualifying heat for the 100-meter dash still feeling queasy and with precious little practice behind him.

This time, sick as he was, Willie outran his luck. On the same fast track where Jesse Owens raced off with the 1936 Olympic Games (in the unhappy presence of Adolf Hitler), Private Williams slammed off the starting blocks and sprinted to the tape in 10.1 sec., an impressive one-tenth of a second faster than Owens' own 100-meter world record. Others had equaled Owens' mark; none had ever broken it. Even Willie could hardly believe the stop watches.

Next day, in another heat, U.S. Army Pfc. Ira Murchison, a sprinter who had made the Olympics team, equaled Willie's performance. But Willie had already demonstrated that he is at least as good as the best. In the finals, he showed that he is probably better. Once more, the man who will not represent the U.S. in the Australian Olympics skimmed 100 meters in 10.1 sec. Pfc. Murchison was second in 10.2.

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