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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 26, 1975)
r $ ker ter s Teiji; eonfeip ester* Marv,i ; a doiK Power li ' St g®lf| ' hits. :) thethi 1 and se ter (lelj - season up for the Age is theyli lome rum 1 to runs i ). til thetk by Tomi II puteifc sixth c® xpects 9.7 time THE BATTALION Page 13 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1975 AGGIE CINEMA presents Sprinter Dawson hopeful By PAUL McGRATH Staff Sportswriter iecrouches in the blocks waiting gun shot. Leg muscles tighten- against the metal, he concen- es with a steady gaze upon the Schraei ^ where his fingertips turn mesatte itefrom the pressure exerted on m. The report is sounded and race begins. Nine seconds later with ay rill be over. egan iuch is the life of the 100-yard hman. They obtain success and stop fop, iporary glory from an event that ?r was* sless than one-sixth of a minute. jumped!i e 100-yard dash is one of the re “glamorous” events in a track et because somehow it has re- red the honor of determining the rids fastest human. Boh Hayes ; t pitdmi ntfrom Olympian to pro football s didn’ip rbecause he was the first man to ia9.1 in the 100. Ivory Crockett >uieroftl de headlines for hitting the 9.0 top by H rk. And then there’s Charles Dawson the dar.lt fss;is A&M. Although not receiv- st and® [the publicity of Hayes or Crock- he is perhaps the man to heat in he winii ? Southwest Conference. The nal 15to rtury run is Dawson’s forte al- Jponlvoa )ugh he is also entered in the D-yarddash and runs the third leg the 440-yard dash. Dawson went to Elmore High wereerti bool in Houston and eontinued- :re the track career he had started the sixth grade. He was a two ;s strftrliJie All-State and All-America pick lile at Elmore and was also the iA state champion in the 100 and eman kill ^ he was second in the national camehor* iet in those events. Dawson was a smber of the Elmore 440 quartet ia theem atfeatured Greg Pruitt now of the nextAg* level find Browns and Marvin iker, now with the Miami Dol- lins. Choosing Texas A&M over 123 her offers, Dawson went first to Hawthorn ' nn College to gain additional ade points. Naturally he ran track rBlinn and was again named as an 1-America, winning the confer ee in the 100 and 220. Dawson idalways heard about A&M being ay in Wat I*big track school having such stars the Mills brothers (Curtis and larvin) and Rocky Woods. T fell in |ve with the track,” said Dawson «t one of his visits to A&M. “The iches all treated me real well. It Idn’thurt A&M’s hopes to recruit iawson any that three friends of his urdler Scottie Jones, receiver 1 Roaches and baseballer Mike ;ier) were already at Aggieland. To prepare himself for a meet he ms about 85 percent “speed work” practice. He runs six days a week, longest distance being l-yards. He usually does about is their laf int Thoms for theAe e year. Souths Bears. H* ether fori 3:00 andi ■ starting E ROID EADY ousKodai tions. “NO ar forinde ase agree- ten 110 yard dashes. “I never want to get too sluggish,” says Dawson, which is how distance running af fects him. Once he did get “too sluggish” though. During last year’s South west Conference meet, Dawson was disqualified in both the 100 and 220. The first call was protested hotly be cause a Texas runner had apparently moved before the gun and Dawson, seeing the movement, sprang from the blocks. Dawson blamed the Rice starter saying, “He just didn’t dig me. ” Rice was one of the schools seeking to obtain Dawson. “I was really up for that meet and it really hurt. It messed me up mentally.’’ Dawson then stopped running for about three weeks and because of the layoff was unable to qualify for the National Collegiate Athletic As sociation finals. The Aggie sprinter has been vic timized several times by close calls with him on the short end. “I have never in my life won a close race. I never win a decision race,” said Dawson. He says his reputation earned in high school may be the reason. “Officials will be more favorable to the man with the lesser reputation if he stays close to me,” says Dawson. Twice this year he has tabbed second in photo finishes, one costing him a shot at the finals in the SWC Indoor meet. “There is no sprinter that has never been beaten. No one is going to feel the same everytime. Nobody wins every race,” says Dawson who never lost a race his junior and senior years in high school. “If you lose a race you have to overlook it and look forward to next week. ” He explained that sprinters must learn from their losses and correct mis takes that cause them not “to run their kind of race.” “One thing I have to correct is my leaning forward about three inches too far at the tape,” Dawson said. “You know, the 100 is a funny race. Your body has got to be totally to gether. You’ve got to make your whole body into a hall of energy and spit it out for nine seconds. “My primary interest is to keep healthy this year. I feel even stronger than last year and there’s no doubt in my mind I can run 9.1 or better. I don’t want to get in shape too early.” He feels that if he is run ning around 9.3 or 9.4 at the begin ning of March he can get his time down to 9.1 at the month’s end. The mental part of track or any other sport is as important as the physical part. “All I think about is getting a good start. I concentrated on the gun because the next sound after ‘get set’ means you gotta go,” said the Aggie junior. He rarely feels any pre-race jitters. He con centrates on the ground (“because it ain’t gonna move”) to rid himself of butterflies. After the gun, “My mind’s blank until I hit the string. Tm looking for the string from start to finish, ” Daw son said. He agrees with Crockett’s theory that a sprinter could do bet ter if he ran blind, as long as he was able to stay in his lane or not hit anyone. He explained Crockett’s hypothesis by saying if a sprinter knew he had a lead on a man the sprinter would just run to keep the lead. If a sprinter did not know where the man was, he would have to run all-out the whole distance. Plus, being “blind” would aid con centration by eliminating back ground distractions. Dawson says he is looking for “the magic start.” The one sprinters call the “one start in a lifetime.” He said, “I’d like to get mine so I can get to my highest achievement in track.” The secret to any good race, he says, is the start and how well it is executed. The slowest part of the 100 is right at the first so Dawson hopes he can jump out and get up to four steps ahead at the beginning. While running the 220, Dawson’s ability to get around the curve ena bles him to break away and makes him a real asset to the 440 relay team. The Houston Post has called him the “best curve runner in the nation.” His teammates call him the bread and butter man of the relay team. As for running curves, “I try to stay as close to the white line as possible, that saves about two yards. Then I try to lean into the curve and dig as hard as I can.” Dawson will face some heavy competition in the SWC again this year. TCU’s Bill Collins is a pre miere sprinter although Dawson de feated him three times last year. Zoe Simpson of Rice defeated Daw son earlier this year in one of the decision races he always seems to lose. His rivalry with Gene Pouncey, last year’s SMU great has been cut short due to Pouncey s graduation. Pouncey beat Dawson in high school when Dawson was a sopho more. They never met again until last year’s heat in the Border Olym pics where Dawson gained revenge. “The Houston papers played Poun- (See A&M sprinter... page 14) The story of every woman who ever climbed the stairway to the stars...and found herself at the bottom looking up! Played, as it could only be, by the two-time winner of the Academy Award! to uo.ri.j ST E R L I N G H A Y D E N »;<h HAIAIIE wood • WA«NE« ANDf«SON • MIMOt WAISON • JUNE TEAVIS Produced by BERT E. FRIEDlOB • Directed by STUART HEISLER • Originol Story ond Screenploy by KATHERINE ALBERT and DALE EUNSON Mv»ic compoied and conducted by VICTOR YOUNG A BERT E FRIEDLOB production Reteaied by 20th C«ntury-Fox RUDDER THEATER WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26 @ c ADMISSION 50c Your savings account won’t earn more interest than BB&L pays . .. (But it might earn less somewhere else.) BB&L pays the maximum interest permitted by law. Your savings won’t earn more at any financial institution anywhere. 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