Chapter Four: CALVIN BENLEHR
Alamosa, Colorado, hosted the Olympic Trials marathon in August 1968. Because its 7,544-foot elevation was nearly identical to that of Mexico City, no qualifying standard had been set. Fears that runners might die in the rarified air seemed unfounded, but nevertheless, racing at that altitude caused loved ones to pause and athletes to wonder.
Chapter Four
CALVIN BENLEHR
Cal blinked back the night’s sleep and sat up. Soft clouds blanketed the peaks above timberline. He wondered if, beneath the crimson clouds, snow covered the mountains.
As he had done every morning since he was fifteen, Cal sat on the toilet and took his pulse (thudding lazily at 44 beats per minute), stepped onto the scale to check his weight (145 pounds), tugged on his shoes (with holes in the uppers), walked a quarter-mile then broke into a trot.
Calvin Benlehr was born to live like this–in the Colorado foothills at 9,000 feet: eating to run, running to live. It had taken 25 years of steady work. They owned the cabin–no mortgage, no bills, (no running water, no power lines, no telephone.) He loved Patty and she loved him. Money trickled in from his coaching and savings. It was enough. It was more than enough. Calvin Benlehr was finally at peace.
Thirty years earlier, every schoolboy dream of sports heroism had evaporated, one by one, until the only dream that made sense to him was the Olympics. The rolling pastures of Western Kentucky had been his first training ground and Otis McEwen had been his first coach. McEwen, a scrawny bald man in his late fifties, taught English and the glories of sport.
Mixed among adjectives, gerunds, and pluperfect tense, McEwen taught the lessons of athletics to the girls and boys at Jefferson Davis Junior High.
“Track, basketball, and football can be as important as Hemingway, Frost, and Homer,” he proclaimed, “because of the lessons they teach.”
“Your personal honor requires your best effort,” McEwen preached during a lesson on modifiers. His neck sinews bulged like vines, his Adam’s apple bobbed with every syllable.
“Usually, no one will know if you’re holding back,” he said. “But you will. Whether you are preparing for a test or a race, give your uttermost. Anything less will undermine your character.”
“Character is what you are, not just what you believe.”
While his classmates stared at the floor or leafed through hidden magazines, Calvin was transfixed. The teacher held his pupil by the heart.
“Never compromise yourself; there is never an excuse for being less than your best.”
One afternoon in class, Coach McEwen described the wild, drunken celebration at Hickam Field in Hawaii on V-J Day in August 1945.
“The other airmen coaxed me to drink with them and smoke a cigar,” McEwen said. “I smiled and said, ‘No thanks, guys . . . I don’t drink or smoke . . . I’m happy enough.”
“The two biggest guys in the unit pinned me to a pool table while a third poured whiskey in my face.”
Boisterous laughter turned to silence as McEwen thrashed until he was free. The small man, who had spent his days flying missions against the suicide pilots of Japan, and spent his nights studying, glared at his tormentors.
“I brushed myself off,” he told his class, “took a deep breath, and repeated, ‘I don’t drink.’ An hour later, I drove them all to church.”
Calvin never knew peer pressure after that.
Cal placed fourth in the longest race at the Seventh Grade Olympics that spring, the quarter mile. McEwen’s comment to his class the next year came back to Cal. “Benlehr was out of the medals, but he never stopped racing. He gave it all he had.”
A 13-year-old boy who is skinny and not very fast thrives on words like that.
* * * * *
Alamosa, Colorado, hosted the Olympic Trials marathon in August 1968. Because its 7,544-foot elevation was nearly identical to that of Mexico City, no qualifying standard had been set. Fears that runners might die in the rarified air seemed unfounded, but nevertheless, racing at that altitude caused loved ones to pause and athletes to wonder. The U.S. Olympic Committee invited 20 “elite” runners to train and compete in Alamosa for six weeks. Anyone else could race at his own expense.
In the fall of 1967, Cal enrolled in grad school at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. He shared a tiny attic apartment with his wife, Carla. Throughout that winter, he subjected himself to the most disciplined training of his life: To bed at 9:30, up at 4:30. He rolled onto the floor for pushups and sit-ups. A glance through the window at the thermometer told him how to dress. Then outside in the dark for two hours of running on ice and snow, blizzard winds or sub-zero calm. Some days, it was difficult to stand, much less run.
“Please, Cal,” Carla pleaded. “Can’t we just go to a party tonight–or to a movie?”
He took her to a movie matinee on Sunday.
“Why can’t we go out to dinner? Go to a movie at night like normal people? Your training is driving me crazy, Cal. I don’t know how much longer I can take it. I just get so bored. Don’t you get bored?”
Cal did not get bored running. Running was his art and his music. It was exploration and discovery; penance and prayer. No one could hinder him while he ran. There was only freedom and self-expression.
Since their wedding four years before, Cal realized there were just two paths for them. They took the path of orthodox domesticity first.
They bought a house near Lexington. They painted, patched, hung wallpaper and drapes. Carla’s kitchen boasted copper-bottom pots and pans, fine china and silverware, the finest refrigerator and stove. New rugs were a must; then new furniture.
Each morning, Cal knotted a tie around his neck, sipped coffee, ate bacon and eggs, and read the newspaper. Days he spent at his desk at White’s Insurance; at night, he called on his customers. Weekends, they worked on the house, went to parties, dined at expensive restaurants.
“You really should buy a new car, Cal,” she announced one day. “And if we ever plan to have a family, we’ll need a bigger house with a nursery and a guest room.”
Next day, Cal pored over the college catalogs at the library. He drew no satisfaction from the things they owned. The insignificance of his job disgusted him. Carla busied herself with housework whenever they were together–running the vacuum, dusting, re-potting plants, reorganizing the kitchen. She no longer–ever–touched him first. He was unfit; he had gained 20 pounds.
“You sure look healthier with a little meat on your bones,” remarked his mother-in-law.
The other path was the pursuit of personal excellence. He had postponed graduate school and accepted the insurance job–betting that people would stay alive while they put up money on their belief that they wouldn’t. He nearly quit running. It was time to turn around before the way back was lost.
They moved to Minnesota. Their cheap loft apartment was half the cost of house payments in Lexington. Cal convinced Carla to resume her study of art. He landed an assistantship in biochemistry. When they first met, she dreamed of being an artist but never picked up a sketchpad. He dreamed of being a scientist but was selling insurance.
In the spring of ’68, Calvin shifted from the grueling base training of the Minnesota winter to sharpening. He worked out between classes, mowed yards, made sandwiches at the campus Snack Shop. On June first, he quit his jobs and drove his rusting 1955 Chevy to Colorado for ten weeks of altitude training. He pitched his brown army tent on the side of Blanca Peak, two miles from the Great Sand Dunes.
This was an ideal location: free lodging in a National Forest, breathing the thin air at 8,000 feet and a 14,000-foot mountain to climb.
Carla flew home to Kentucky. His quest was not hers. She should not have to live in a canvas tent 30 miles from the closest town. No, her parents would look after her; her old friends might make her happy.
Calvin’s best marathon was 2:38, about six-minutes-per-mile. If he could find ten seconds per mile, just four minutes faster for the distance–at this altitude–just maybe.
The Olympic Trials Marathon: 26 miles, 385 yards through a high desert in August.
The Olympic Trials Marathon: a meaningless race–except to the 130 men who toed the starting line.
The Olympic Trials Marathon: contested by driven men who had invested their hearts and their lives for a shot at the Olympic Team.
“This is Ray Smith and Fred Mason in Alamosa, Colorado, bringing you live coverage on KSLV radio of the first Olympic Trials marathon. One hundred thirty men set off at three o’clock in this 26-point-2-mile footrace to earn a spot on the US Olympic Team.”
“That’s Kenny Moore, a 10,000-meter specialist from Oregon University, leading a pack of ten through the first of five laps. Moore has been training all summer in Los Alamos, New Mexico. There’s Billy Mills and George Young, both former Olympians, running together. Amby Burfoot, winner of this April’s Boston Marathon is part of the second chase pack. Over to you, Fred.”
“Thanks, Ray. It’s 90 degrees this afternoon and already, more than 20 men have dropped out. The first and fifth miles of each circuit are in Alamosa, the middle three miles are through the flood plain of the Rio Grande, which these athletes cross twice each lap. Time for the first 5.2-mile loop was 28 minutes, 40 seconds. And here’s the last runner of the chase pack, number 130 . . . that’s Calvin Benlehr of St. Cloud, Minnesota. His time, 31:54.
Even-pace running was Cal’s sole tactic for one of the three sacred spots. By ten miles, he had moved up to 25th place. The dry air seared his lungs, the irrigation sprinklers added no moisture to the air, but provided breeding habitat for swarms of mosquitoes that sucked blood from the naked arms and legs of the runners. He was still far back but there was hope–he had already passed five of the 20 “elites.”
“We’re back at the finish area to give you a KSLV update from the Olympic Trials Marathon. The runners are completing their third circuit of the course and George Young, a steeplechaser in the last Olympics in Tokyo, has joined Kenny Moore up front. A pack of six runners is stalking our two leaders. The rest of the field is strung out over three miles. Back to you, Fred.”
“Thanks, Ray. The altitude is getting to many of these runners now, especially those who ignored the value of acclimatization to our mile-and-a-half elevation. We had expected someone to bash out a fast time, but Young and Moore are at one hour, 28 minutes, and change. At a distance of 15.6 miles, that’s an average pace of . . . uhh . . . 5:40 per mile.”
“Sounds fast to me, Fred, but you’re right. Every one of the top 20 runners has run at least 2:25 for the marathon, faster than 5:30 per mile. There’s another siren!”
The miles between sixteen and twenty-one were the most exciting of Cal’s life. He ran down one man, then another. In the span of thirty minutes, ten more runners fell behind him. He ran smoothly, his resolve galvanized by his fitness and the memory of 6,000 miles of training over the past year.
“I was born to run this race,” he said to himself over and over. “I was born to run this race.”
At the end of each loop, the competitors ran through a small but rowdy crowd of relatives, wives, girlfriends, and townspeople.
“Hup, Two, Three!” yelled some children on the sidewalk.
“Yur lookin’ good, honey!” screamed a bleach-blonde at the sharp right turn where they headed out for their final lap.
An official at the corner flipped cards beneath the sign proclaiming PLACE. Calvin had moved all the way up to ninth.
By twenty-two miles, however, he knew that his Olympic dream was over. He had bullied his body into ninth place but the best athletes were all gone–almost out of sight and running in a world that he could only wonder about.
Cal caught three more runners who gamely fought cramping legs and dehydration to finish their ordeal.
Blinded by fatigue, suffocated by the altitude, weary to the marrow from two hours, thirty-six minutes of pounding, Cal ran through the passageway formed by the tiny crowd and beneath the finish banner.
“Now finishing in sixth place–from St. Cloud, Minnesota–Calvin Benlehr!”
His finish was incredible, really. Cal had come from nowhere. Unheralded. Unranked. Today, the sixth best marathoner in America. But he was three minutes behind the coveted third spot. He had missed the Olympic Team, literally, by a half-mile. (a)
(a) The actual sixth place finisher in the 1968 Olympic Trials Marathon was Ed Winrow of New York.
Cal returned to Minnesota defeated, broke, and alone. Carla remained with her parents in Kentucky.
“I’m not coming back until you get a decent job and settle down,” she said over the phone. “We’ve lived like paupers since you started training again. I can’t take it anymore.”
Carla never came back. Calvin did not go to Lexington to get her. It would have been like taking a hostage. She could not understand his striving for self-expression in this way. Why couldn’t he strive to own a nice home? Or get a full-time job? Or get into law school?
By 1970, Cal had pared his marathon time down to 2:30. But the Trials standard for 1972 was 2:24–it was just too fast.
Desperate for a berth on the Olympic Team, he took up race walking. The 50-kilometer walk was his best chance now. He studied and applied the training methods of the Mexicans and Russians. But after 12 months of serious training, Cal was besieged by sciatic nerve pain so severe that he limped every step of every day. It was over.
Sixteen years of exhausting dedication had taught him a reality of top-flight competition: One does not get to the top with effort, willpower, and perseverance alone. Cal had learned the Great Truth of Olympic Sport–you can’t fool Mother Nature or a well-trained guy with better genes.
Calvin Benlehr took a job teaching high school biology in Lawrence, Kansas. Within a year, his cross country team at Lawrence Central had become a State Meet qualifier. After ten years, Lawrence Central was the most successful program, boys and girls, in the Midwest.
* * * * *
“Coach? Hi, I’m Patty Crogan,” said the pretty brunette. “I coach at WaKeeney.” She extended her hand to Calvin Benlehr.
“Nice job to you and your team,” he said, smiling shyly.
Patty’s WaKeeney girls had just stunned Cal’s team to claim the girls trophy at the All-Kansas Cross Country Jamboree at K-State in Manhattan. Her boys team fell just three points short of upsetting #1 ranked Lawrence Central.
“You have a huge team for such a small school,” Cal remarked. “How do you get so many kids out for cross country?”
“I just focus on the girls,” she said, grinning. “If you get 30 girls running cross country, the boys will follow.”
“Seriously, how do you do it?” Cal was convinced that his training methods were sound but was disappointed with his inability to get most high school runners to stick with his tough program.
“I am serious,” Patty said. “I promote Cross as a fitness program for girls. We do aerobics, yoga, strength training, and plyometrics. They walk, then jog, then run. When the chubby ones get fit, the pretty girls show up!”
“That’s amazing, Patty! May I call you Patty?”
“Of course, Coach. May I call you Calvin?”
“Cal, yes please, call me Cal.”
Calvin coached like a sculptor with a block of marble. Chiseling, grinding, sanding, and buffing. A more casual, eclectic approach had never occurred to him.
“How many miles do your runners cover a week?” he asked.
“I don’t emphasize mileage. We do a different workout every day. Long runs, short runs, hills, sand, relays–it’s all quite casual. Within a month, most beginners can run five miles. In a year, they’ve all run a half-marathon.”
“I learned a basic truth from my college coach. If you don’t hurt them, they’ll improve. Works for us!”
The two teams shared pizzas at a Manhattan restaurant, their team trophies proudly displayed. Many phone numbers were exchanged by the happy runners.
Calvin got Patty’s number and called her that Monday.
Two years later, Patty and Calvin exchanged wedding vows in a field of Kansas sunflowers. He left Lawrence Central and took a job at WaKeeney. For the next ten years, their teams were the strongest in the state.
Patty was an athlete, too, running well into her forties. She’d never married; her passion for sport had cost her a string of boyfriends.
Teachers often complain about their low salaries but Cal saved $12,000 a year for twenty years, compounding interest in no-risk CDs and low-risk stocks. They paid cash for the cabin on the side of Blanca Peak, not far from where he had pitched his tent 25 years before to train for the Trials.
Now they lived the lifestyle that matched his earlier dreams. Eat, sleep, run, rest, make love, chop wood, haul some water. Eat, sleep, run, lift weights, and sit in the sun with a great book. Run. Feel the fatigue, feel the joy of striving. No races, no Olympic Trials, no frustration. Every day was full of life, pure and good. No lanes, no crowds, no finish line. Mountain bluebirds sang in the piñon pines and jackrabbits hopped through the sagebrush.
Calvin Benlehr, now in his fifties, was ready for a family. He placed an ad in three running magazines:
Wanted: Olympic Hopefuls. Rugged lifestyle. If you have the talent, I have the knowledge to get you there. Coach Calvin Benlehr, Box 33, Great Sand Dunes, CO.
* * * * *
Ken Davis often thought of Calvin Benlehr, his high school classmate. Cal pursued his Olympic dreams and became a teacher and coach. Ken became a chronicler of sportsmen and sportswomen. To Ken, Calvin exemplified dedication and purity in athletics, virtues vanishing now. In his nationally-syndicated column, Ken was thinking about his Colorado friend when he wrote on October 5th…
THIS VIEW OF SPORT
By Ken Davis
The Spartan And The Spoiled
A race of fighting men lived in the city-state of Sparta, Greece 3,000 years ago. Their name was a badge of respect: Spartan.
Their lives were balanced among the three pure pursuits: Physical training, Artistic expression, and Spiritual striving. The resulting lifestyle spawned a man without peer. Spartans endured adversity; they fought to the death when necessary; and demanded nothing more than respect.
The self-discipline of rules respected.
The self-effacing attitude of effort above comfort.
Athletes in America were like that once.
Years back, great sportsmen, professional and amateur alike, commanded respect because they shared four qualities that produce it:
1. They trained hard
2. They respected the rules
3. They cared about their supporters
4. They gave 100% in competition
Last week’s debacle in baseball’s American League Championship Series is the latest chapter in this era’s deterioration of sport. There were two brawls. A multi-millionaire infielder walked off his team in a dispute over a $5,000 bonus. An investigation was launched to determine whether three players and their coach conspired to throw Game 3. And the league’s RBI leader thumbed his nose at every baseball fan and former player by walking the bases after swatting a ninth-inning home run.
There are some who claim that baseball is not High Sport–that a game played by thick-wristed oafs who cannot sprint 120 yards is not a total-effort sport.
I dispute that.
Ty Cobb and Pete Rose ran out bases on balls. Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio treated each homer like an infield single until the ball cleared the fence. Robinson, Mantle, Aaron, and Bench were athletes of the people. Athletes for their teams. Athletes period. Spartans.
Sports fans are sick of rule breakers. We are beyond pitying three-time drug cheats who are suspended for six months, write books justifying their cheating, travel the talk-show circuit, then get reinstated to play again.
Fans are sick of lackadaisical efforts from the pros. Every NFL receiver who walks on a play to the opposite side or slams his helmet–or the football–in anger, is no true athlete but a spoiled child.
Sportsmen should be the epitome of individuals under utmost control.
There is a single word that is manifested by the great athletes of the past: Pride.
It would be a happy day for this writer if every athlete of the present would cultivate and demonstrate that quality which made every Spartan a legend in his own time.