A PROMISING ATHLETE
Walsh, a High School Boy of San Francisco, Who Walks With Style and Speed.
Walsh, a High School Boy of San Francisco, Who Walks With Style and Speed.
There is a High
School boy in San Francisco whose performances as a walker indicate that in him
are the possibilities of the future coast champion. His name is A. M. Walsh and
he lives at 1631 Ellis street. He is 18 years of age, 5 feet 7 ½ inches in
height and of slight build, for he weighs, in meager track dress, but 114
pounds.
In March,
1895, he practiced for the first time to heel-and-toe movement that is the
essential part of fair walking, and in a trial on the Olympic Club grounds
covered a mile in about ten minutes. Previous to that he had accustomed himself
to rapid walking in going to and returning from the High School, a distance of
10 blocks from his home. That was his first training, so he was not conscious
of it at the time.
 |
| A.M. Walsh, a Coming Walker (From a photograph by "The Elite.") |
 |
| A.M. Walsh, in the original photograph |
Young Walsh now walks a mile in 7 minutes
30 seconds. What that means may be imagined when it is asserted that a very
great majority of men, take them as they pass on the street and untrained,
cannot run a mile to a fire in that time. For one who is practically in his
first year as a walker this is remarkable speed. Generally three years are
necessary to develop a walker, and in the larger universities today there are
few men whose performances surpassed the work of this beginner. The
intercollegiate record for the Pacific Coast is 7 minutes 25 2-5 seconds
and was made over three years ago by Harry Timm, a very tall, wiry, long-limbed
athlete, who was graduated from Stanford University in 1893.
The best previous collegiate record
had been held by George Foulkes of the University of California. During the
last three years the record has not been threatened. L. T. Merwin of the
University of California gave some good exhibitions in the East a year ago, but
his time here has not been worthy of note is the performance of an experienced
member of a great athletic team. Merwin is, however, a very fair walker,
although his style is not the best, and his height and strength give him an
advantage over a smaller man. Foulkes was a sick-set football-player, a “plodder”
in his style of walking and probably incapable of very great speed because of
his muscular build. Timm’s style is more like that of Walsh, an easy,
loose-jointed rapid movement. But Timm’s fault was a left knee that would not
always straighten completely back before the heel was raised.
And a failure to “lock” the knee to
have a total of one foot and the heel of the other on the ground simultaneously
subjects a walker to a caution from a watchful judge. Three cautions disqualify
a man from further competition in the race, or one caution on the final 100
yards will disqualify him.
Walsh has never yet been cautioned
for an unfair step and he has won six medals. His steady improvement in speed
is shown in the records of events he has entered: September 14, 1895, 9 minutes
6 seconds; April 11, 1896, 8 minutes 3 3-5 seconds, breaking the school record
of 9 minutes 4 seconds; May 2, 1896 Coast championship, when he finished 9
yards behind Merwin whose time was 8 minutes 10 seconds; June 13, 1896, 7
minutes 49 2-5 seconds; July 4, 1896, 7 minutes 40 seconds, at Stockton, where
he was beaten by Henry Timm; July 16, 1896, 7 minutes 39 seconds.
Walsh’s stride from toe to toe is
52 inches and from toe to heel is 42 inches, though the inside seam of his
trousers measures only a fraction over 33 inches. As yet he has not acquired
the low, gliding side-swing movement of the foot, so well exemplified in the
easy style of Horace Coffin, the champion walker of the coast. That is another
possibility.
