RACING OVER HURDLES.
The intention of the club management is to have a boating department in the near future. The City of Detroit owns Belle Isle, an island, 700 acres in extent, opposite the city, which has been turned into one of the finest public parks of the country. The yachting and boating clubs have taken or are preparing to take up their quarters on the shores of the island, where a congenial location and ready access to clear water are afforded. Here the Athletic Club’s boating department will be located, the city gymnasium of the club affording facilities for training the oarsmen and keeping them in shape. Those who know the history of boating in the West and are familiar with the names of the leaders, will recognize what the club has to hope for when it is stated that its membership includes John H. Clegg and Fred Standish, who have made the best records in pair-oared amateur races for years back. Both men are developments of the boating furore of a dozen years ago. Clegg took to the water for his health, and Standish for recreation, and they have been rowing together since 1881. In that year they won the senior pairs of the N. W. A. R. A., at Diamond Lake, and in 1882 took the senior pairs of the Mississippi Valley Amateur Rowing Association, at Creve Cœur Lake, near St. Louis. They were winners at Lachine, Quebec, in 1882. In 1883 and ’84 Clegg did not row, but in 1885 he returned to his old love, winning with Standish the pair-oared contests at New Orleans, at Moline, Ill., at St. Louis and at Detroit. At Hamilton, Ont., in August, 1885, they defeated Phillips and Hard, of the New York Athletic Club, in the Canadian annual regatta, winning in their class. Their record in 1885 was four straight victories and the lowering of the two-mile record. Clegg has decided views on the amateur question, and has contributed several articles to the press which meet the approval of the leading amateurs. He is opposed to semi-professionalism, paid crews, and those who row in the interest of backers, and believes all such should be excluded from competition against genuine amateurs. Mr. Clegg is a genuine American amateur, and with him and his co-worker, as leaders, there seems no reason why there should not be a healthy renaissance of boating among the members of the club.
It was this body of athletic enthusiasts who induced the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States to hold its first national meeting on the grounds of the Detroit Athletic Club. Those who are interested in amateur athletics already know of the success of that first meeting, held in the middle of September last. The entries included the leaders in the various departments of field and track work, and numbered 120, many competing in several events. There was excellent weather, a crowd of fully 5,000 people to enjoy the clever work, and much enthusiasm on the part of the participants and spectators. Some fast work was done in the running and jumping, although some people had fears that the track would prove rather slow. These fears were dispelled by the results, which were, in some cases, within one-fifth of a second of the best records. There was no record-breaking, however, save in one event—throwing the 56-lb. hammer. Till the meeting, Mr. C. A. J. Queckberner, of the Staten Island Athletic Club, had held the American championship on a best record of 26 ft. 43⁄4 in., while W. J. M. Barry, of Queen’s College, Cork, Ireland, had made 27 ft. The first essays of Queckberner fell below his own mark, and the work was tame until Mr. W. L. Coudon, of the New York Athletic Club, broke the world’s record by throwing the clumsy weight three-fourths of an inch beyond the distance made by Mr. Barry. When, in further competition with Queckberner, Coudon threw the weight 27 ft. 9 in., the excitement was intense, for even before the official announcement was made, it was apparent that he had beaten his previous throws by nearly a foot.
The running was of good character, with such contestants as Malcolm W. Ford, C. H. Sherrill, F. Westing, and a host of younger men from the New York Athletic clubs, and one each from Detroit and Philadelphia. Mr. C. H. Sherrill, of Yale College, suffered an unfortunate injury to his leg in the 220-yard dash, and Mr. T. P. Conneff, of the Manhattan Club, was badly worn out by the five-mile run, of which he was the winner; but beyond these there were no accidents to mar the occasion. The running times made very nearly approached records, but in no case excelled them.
The jumping did not come so close to records as the running. The hammer-throwing beat Queckberner’s record of 102 ft. 7 in., W. J. M. Barry, who has an American record of 129 ft. 11⁄2 in., throwing the 16-lb. hammer from a seven-foot circle, without follow, 127 ft. 1 in. Queckberner beat his present championship record by throwing 106 ft. 11 in. The vaulting was short. In the tug-of-war the “Busy Bees” Athletic Association of Company B, 22d Regiment, N. G. S. N. Y., competed with a four-men team of the Manhattan Athletic Club, best two in three pulls, time limit, and weight limited to 600 pounds. The “Busy Bees” won the first and third pulls, the Athletic Club taking the second.
About all the events there was a dash and interest and that reassuring appearance of “squareness” which makes the work of the Athletic Union so attractive. This promises to be one of the distinctive marks of amateurism as opposed to professionalism. The management was excellent. Every event went off on time and without a hitch. The timekeeping, the judging, and the announcement were done with a rapidity that pleased spectators and left a good impression both of the National Union and its local representative. One immediate result of the success of the meeting was a boom in the local club’s membership.
THROWING THE HAMMER.
There are many reasons why Detroit people are proud of their Amateur Athletic Club. The success of the idea which they aim to promote, the success of the national meeting, the character of the work done and the excellence of the facilities for doing it, the energy of the officers and the discipline of the members, and, above all, the vast physical benefit to result from the encouragement of the athletic idea, are among those reasons. Already the good work has begun to bear fruit in the establishment of other gymnasia. The Young Men’s Christian Association has equipped one, though not on quite so extensive a scale as the Athletic clubs. The Catholic Club has a class of about sixty, mostly its younger members, in training in a modest yet commodious “gym,” and the dealers tell the writer that the quantity of apparatus sold for private and home use during the past year is simply astonishing. These are direct results of the work of the Athletic Club, and there is hope for more.