Aside from the fact that he is lean and muscular and doesn't look a day over 30, Stan Whitley is like any other 47-year-old man. He holds down a job, teaching high school P.E. and history, and he has eight children and five grandchildren. In his spare time, though, Grandpa isn't exactly sitting in a rocking chair with a book or chasing golf balls.
Take this week, for instance. Competing in the USA Masters National Track and Field Championships in Provo, Whitley won the 100- and 400-meter dashes with times that most teenagers would envy - 50.39 and 11.1. He's a good bet to win the 200-meter dash, as well, before the meet ends Saturday.Whitley came relatively late to sprinting. He was the Big Eight Conference long jump champion at Kansas in 1967 and '68, narrowly missed making the Olympic team in 1976 and had a career best leap of 26-81/2. He turned from jumping to sprinting in his middle age. Last year he swept the three sprints and the long jump at the national master's meet and was named Master's Athlete of the Year.
Whitley, of course, is just one of the age-defying athletes competing in Provo this week.
Harold Morioka, a 51-year-old P.E. teacher and track coach from Canada, never ran track in high school or college. "I didn't know I could run fast," he says. At 29, he tried sprints for the first time, and he's been running ever since. On Thursday he won the 400-meter dash with an age-group world record of 51.80.
It seems that it's never too late to try something new. Until a few years ago, the closest Margaret Hinton came to trying organized sports was when she ran in a school day race wearing a dress. More than a half-century later she decided to try track and field. "I didn't know what a meter was, so I asked my son how far 100 meters was," she explains. "He said it was once around the bases in baseball. I said, I can do that." Hinton, the white-haired great grandmother from Texas, ran away from the field Thursday to win the 100-meter dash in 17.71. She will turn 72 on Saturday.
Hinton isn't the oldest athlete in this meet. That distinction belongs to Buell Crane, a 93-year-old from Idaho. On Thursday he collected gold medals in the high jump, long jump, discus, shot put and triple jump, but, then, he was the only athlete entered in the 85-and-over division.
If Hinton and Crane are breaking new ground, what of the women who are competing in traditionally men-only events such as the pole vault, hammer and steeplechase? On Thursday, Patricia Ann McNab, a 50-year-old from England, set an age-group world record of 8-6 1/4 in the pole vault. Meanwhile, on the men's side, another age group world record feel when Greg Miguel, a 45-year-old Californian, cleared 15-5 1/2.
Doug Nordquist, a 34-year-old former Olympic high jumper, also came to Provo this week hoping to set an age-group record, having already leaped 7-4 1/2 earlier this year. But all Nordquist could muster was a leap of 6-10 3/4, and he was overshadowed by 38-year-old Jim Barrineau, another former Olympic jumper. Barrineau, a major on active duty with the National Guard, leaped 7-0 1/4, missing the age-group world record by 3/4 of an inch.
Nordquist wasn't the only Olympian to struggle on Thursday. Bob Richards, the 1952 and '56 Olympic pole vault champ, finished third in Thursday's competition.
It was a good day for Utah athletes. Debbie Hanson won the 10,000-meter run with a time of 36:23.00; Steve Blood, 48, was second in the triple jump with a mark of 39-2 1/4; and Joe Smith, 37, was second in the triple jump with a leap of 45-1 1/2.