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When Patton first noticed that he was tense and tight before a race, Pursell reassured him: "If a runner is perfectly composed and at ease, he's no champion." Pursell was Patton's idol. When the coach suggested that Mel not dance ("It takes the tone out of your legs"), Mel didn't. He forsook swimming and lolling on the beach because Pursell advised him to. Pursell, no man to grab credit, told Patton that everything he knew about track he learned from Dean Cromwell.
Pursell wanted Patton to go to U.S.C. In 1945, already a polished sprinter, Mel Patton enrolled there. He had just finished a two-year hitch in the Navy without ever running a race, and hadn't shaken off his G.I. legs. He reported to Coach Cromwell.
The Master. Dean Cromwell, 68, who once sold automobiles, is a man who never lets anybody beat him away from a stop light. He drives like a madman, wears natty bow ties, and loves to talk. At Kiwanis and Rotary luncheons he likes to say: "I don't train the boys, they train themselves." With a great show of modesty he also insists that he "has never hurt a good runner," and even his enemies grant him this.
In 40 years at U.S.C. he has produced more championship teams than any track coach in the U.S. He also has more and better talent to work with than any other coach. While other West Coast universities were busy making eyes at prospective football heroes, Southern Cal was ogling both football and track stars.
The glad-handing Dean is a workaday psychologist. He calls every man on his squad "champ" so persuasively that they begin to believe it—and run like it. His tear-jerking "inspirational" speeches that used to go over big with wide-eyed 19-year-olds leave the ex-G.I.s on his present squad pretty cold. Says Patton: "I'm missing something. I don't get to cry."
At U.S.C., the "world's fastest human" has a $60-a-month part-time job sweeping halls. With that and his monthly G.I. allowance ($90), Patton just managed to support his family, until Congress boosted the G.I. allotment to $120 a month. Says Patton: "We've got money to burn now."
Sleepless Night. Three weeks ago, when he set out for Evanston to compete for a berth on the Olympic team, he suddenly realized that he was on his own: "I wish I could have brought Shirley Ann along—she kind of organizes me." At the Great Lakes Training Station, where the athletes were quartered four to a room, all his roommates talked about was winning. The night before, he couldn't sleep a wink. Next day in the 100 meters,* he got a slow start and lost out to veteran 30-year-old Barney Ewell, who won in world-record time (10.2). Patton wired Shirley Ann: "It was terrible, honey. I don't know what happened. My start was bad and I just ran sloppily."