Grab them with a word or a picture,” Beckwith told John. “Then make your ad dazzle. Remove them from the world for a moment. Imagine your reader is standing in a basin of ice water. Distract him so much he forgets his cold feet.”
Chapter Seven
HARRY BECKWITH
John Corbin’s importance to Harry Beckwith grew with each passing week. For forty years, Beckwith climbed the ladder to success in advertising, but since his university days, it was the only success he knew.
Women left him as quickly as the satisfaction of a well-run race. His only child, a daughter from his second marriage, remained independent, 20 years after leaving home. Every serious investment of his time, energy, and soul yielded poor dividends. Only his work had gone well.
Beckwith’s cottage hid in a 160-acre forest, thirty miles south of Cleveland. Beckwith liked the notion of hiding, of being a private man, for his work was far from private.
“Advertising is the most public, the nakedest form of communication,” Beckwith taught his staff. “Done effectively, ads intrude–like a bratty kid on a household guest.”
On the first workday of each month, Beckwith conducted a teaching session for his 15 handpicked employees. He began each meeting with a surprise. One day, he plugged in a small television set, carefully tuned it before the group, then suddenly smashed it to the floor.
“First, command their attention. For an instant you will have created the ‘teachable moment’. Quickly, if not instantly, make your pitch. Take the remaining time to reinforce it.”
The Beckwith Group was the top advertising firm outside New York City. The glamor positions were in TV and radio. When John Corbin was hired, however, he went straight to Print.
Print was the training ground at Beckwith’s, the office for magazine, newspaper, and internet advertising.
“Grab them with a word or a picture,” Beckwith told John. “Then make your ad dazzle. Remove them from the world for a moment. Imagine your reader is standing in a basin of ice water. Distract him so much he forgets his cold feet.”
John was the first inexperienced ad man Beckwith had ever hired. His portfolio contained an 8×10 photograph of himself on the track, thirty meters clear of the field, winning a 5,000-meter race. But the clincher for Beckwith was a one-page, fictional ad:
FAILURE IS TERMINAL
SUCCESS IS NEVER STOPPING
DON’T EVER GIVE UP
For help with any drug problem, contact:
The Community LifeLine, P.O. Box 1, Cleveland
John Corbin’s ad expressed the essence of life for Harry Beckwith. Don’t ever give up. That philosophy carried Beckwith as he worked his way through college through the Great Depression. Persistence earned him a berth on the Olympic Team. Determination to survive overcame the sadness of three failed marriages.
On a drear, cold, and heavy Saturday morning, the young man circled the track; one lap fast followed by another run slowly, 40 circuits in all. The crunch of the cinders beneath his spikes could be heard from the top of the bleachers. It was the last cinder track in Cleveland; all the rest had been paved with asphalt and rubber.
Gulls milled around the south end of the stadium, pecking popcorn from yesterday’s football game, perhaps daydreaming of tropical beaches.
John Corbin spun off each fast lap in 63 seconds, a slow jog readied him for another. His focus on exertion carried him through the workout, ignoring the cold drizzle blowing from Lake Erie.
It was not until he finished and was changing back into his training shoes that he noticed the familiar wrinkled face huddled next to the press box.
“Hello, Mr. Beckwith!” he shouted, waving.
The old man smiled, then worked his way down the concrete bleachers, like an old lion easing himself down a rocky cliff.
“Zatopek trained like that, John. Mile after mile of 400s. He didn’t run them as fast as you, but sometimes he’d do forty hard ones in a single session, with a dozen 200s before and after.”
“Did you ever see him, Sir? See Zatopek?”
“Yes, I saw Emil Zatopek. I raced against him in Helsinki in 1952.”
John stopped his post-workout stretching, incredulous.
“You were in the Olympics? That’s great, Mr. Beckwith! How did you do?”
“Never made it to the final,” he said, his thoughts flying back fifty years. “I was in the first preliminary heat with Zatopek. We had met several days earlier at the Olympic Village. He talked to everyone, learned names instantly, spoke at least five languages.
“Get out of those wet things, John, and into your sweats,” Beckwith interjected. “Don’t undermine your training by taking a chill. Let me take you to breakfast.”
Beckwith had John drive them to Briargate Country Club, ten miles away. The old man had taken a taxi to the track.
The country club commanded the highest of a phalanx of ridges that overlooked Cleveland, serving the privileged and pretentious with catered meals, golf, and luxury.
Beckwith smiled a warm greeting to the groundskeeper then led them to the health club.
“Preston,” he said, patting the attendant on the shoulder, “this is John Corbin, an associate of mine. Show my young friend to the locker room and the hot tubs. I’ll be in the weight room. Got to earn my breakfast, too.”
John hurried too much to enjoy the plush carpeting, the soft, tasteful music, or the tubs.
Beckwith, who weighed maybe 160, was bench-pressing his bodyweight when the freshly-scrubbed, well-groomed youth entered the room. Beckwith rose from the bench, donned his jacket, and handed John a burgundy blazer to cover his sweat suit. Together, they strolled into the restaurant.
“Emil was gregarious to an extreme. It unnerved a lot of the runners,” said Beckwith, smiling.
He paused to let the memories rise to the present. “The managers and coaches from the Western countries were aghast; they thought it was a Communist plot–some sort of psychological subversion.”
Beckwith pointed across the table at the boy.
“Drink your juice,” he commanded, and John obediently sipped the fresh-squeezed liquid.
“But most of us athletes saw Zatopek for what he really was, a great man in our midst, the ultimate sportsman. He was as nice off the track as he was ruthless on it. He called me ‘Yankee’ because I was the first American he had met at the Games.”
Harry paused to shake hands with a fellow club member.
“Heath Goodrich, this is one of my colleagues, John Corbin.”
Goodrich, a squat 300-pounder, crushed John’s hand and squinted at him through eyeglasses half-an-inch thick.
“Watch out for this old geezer, Corbin,” Goodrich smiled. “He’ll hustle you at every opportunity.”
Beckwith, like a boy in a locker room, snapped his cloth napkin at the huge man.
“Get on with you,” he said. “Back to your tire factory!”
Could this be the Goodrich, John wondered? It was amusing to see two old guys sparring with each other in this swanky club.
“I’ll whip you on the golf course next spring,” Beckwith threatened, and Goodrich, smiling, waddled away.
“So,” Beckwith continued, “the great Zatopek invited me to have breakfast with him. Of course, he was well known, especially in Finland and the rest of Europe–he had won a gold and a silver in ’48 at London, and had already won the 10,000-meter gold medal at Helsinki.”
Harry poked at his eggs and slurped down some coffee. He urged John to eat with a circular motion of his fork.
“We sat at a table for six: Emil and me, the American steeplechaser Ashenfelter, an Austrian and his coach, and another Czech–I think he was a hurdler. Zatopek translated for all of us–it was amazing.
“He told Ashenfelter how he could beat Kazantsev, the Soviet world-record holder in the steeple. He encouraged the Austrian, a 1500-meter man named Schneider, and urged his coach, Bauermann, to visit Prague to share his expertise with the Czech coaches, whom Emil described as ‘ignorant parasites’ while his countryman grinned, nodding.”
” ‘And you, Yankee’, he said to me with a guttural accent but in perfect English, ‘You must run a personal best at these Games. When one runs an excellent time, people know that you ran your very best, even if you don’t place. You must stay with me for six laps and then you will run your fastest time.’ “
John was enthralled again. Beckwith told him to eat his pancakes then continued his story.
“I thanked him for his advice and went back to my quarters and thought about what he had said. None of us–the U.S. distance runners–had a prayer to advance to the finals. The rest of the world was 20 seconds ahead of us in the 5,000.
“So, two days later, like a puppy, I ran at Zatopek’s shoulder.
“He’d glance to his right occasionally, smile, and say ‘That’s it! Stay here!’ and slap his right thigh.
“For six laps, I stayed glued to his side. It was like being towed on ice skates. I felt fresh and relaxed. The leaders were just 30 meters up the track, and I thought briefly that I might make the top four and advance to the final.
” ‘OK, Yankee,’ Zatopek said. ‘Good luck!’ and in 200 meters, he was in the lead. I didn’t try to match his surge; it would have been suicide. Emil easily qualified for the final and I hung on to place sixth. I set a personal best by 20 seconds.”
“Then, he ran the final? The race you described yesterday?” John asked.
Beckwith searched his memory for details. “It was two . . . yes, two days later. All the favorites and then some. An awesome race.”
“Did you speak to him again?” John was transfixed.
“Yes, the day after his stunning victory, I visited the Czech section of the Olympic Village to congratulate him. He wasn’t there, but a teammate suggested I look at a nearby park.”
The country club restaurant was now filled with would-be golfers who opted for a hot breakfast over the chill December drizzle. Beckwith ordered more coffee and their cold, half-eaten meal was whisked away.
“Bring a bowl of hot oatmeal and strawberries for my young friend,” Beckwith demanded with a smile.
He resumed his tale.
“It had been just 18 hours since Zatopek raced into history with his 10,000-meter/5,000-meter double. But there he was, running two-mile loops around a Helsinki parkland. I jogged up alongside and congratulated him.
” ‘I heard you might run the marathon on Sunday’, I said to him.”
” ‘Yankee,’ he said in a dead-serious tone, ‘What do you think I should do?’ “
“I stopped in my tracks. This athletic god was interested in my opinion. ‘Who’s the toughest competition?’ I asked him.
” ‘Peters of England, a 2:20:42 world best,’ Emil said.
“I asked how fast he’d need to run to win it and he said, ‘Since it is hot, about 2:23. I’m working for that pace now.’ Then he added, ‘Come, let us run.’
“We ran four more miles, briskly, at 5:25 per mile, over the woodchip paths through the park. As before, running with him was effortless. I told him I thought he should run the marathon.
“Whether he really wanted my advice, I’m not sure. It was probably just the kind gesture of a remarkable human being. He ran and won the marathon, of course. Olympic record 2:23:03.”
John clung to every word. Beckwith’s eyes had that youthful glow while he recounted the experience, and then, as before, his age overtook him and he sagged back into the present.
“He gave me this,” Beckwith said, reaching into his pocket. The old man pressed a square hunk of pewter into John’s palm. Etched on its front was a message in Czech; on the back, a magnificent running deer.
“It’s a folk expression, John. It says ‘Prepare today for tomorrow’s challenge. Be certain, God will bring it to you.’ “
John’s 20-mile training run on Sunday was the easiest he’d ever known. It was as if Zatopek were running at his shoulder. He thought much about the strange old man who was his boss and now, his connection to one of the Great Ones.