Some Hot Times In A Hothouse

The Bruins' team championship might have seemed as inexorable as Wottle's, but UCLA did have its moments of adversity. On Thursday, Fran�ois Tracanelli failed to qualify for the pole vault finals when he missed three times at 16'3". On Saturday triple jumper Harry Freeman severely injured his right leg and had to be carried from the field. However, other Bruins rose to the challenge. Finn Bendixen, celebrating a week wherein he also earned Phi Beta Kappa honors, won the long jump with a leap of 25'10�" while USC's Randy Williams, the Olympic champion, was pushed back to fourth by gusty winds and step problems. In the triple jump Milan Tiff of UCLA had a meet record leap of 54'2�".

For USC Coach Vern Wolfe, watching his team's performance "was like reading a horror novel." Jerry Wilson failed to advance beyond his heat in the high hurdles; Donald Quarrie finished seventh in the 100 and scratched from the 220 because of heat prostration and the Trojans' 440 relay team dropped the baton on its first exchange.

Although Milburn attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, the meet marked his first performance on the LSU track, and it was a memorable one. In three high-hurdle races he consecutively lowered the stadium record to 13.4, 13.3 and, in the final, 13.1—the only occasion that time has been run with a legal wind. Milburn has exceeded it, of course, with his world record of 13 flat.

No one, however, got more sustained applause than Prefontaine, who astounded the fans as he virtually predicted he would after Thursday's trial. "You may see some strange things on Saturday," he said slyly. "Why should I tell everybody what I'm going to put in the cake? They'll find out. I could throw a two-minute half into the middle, run my last mile in four minutes or do the last quarter in 51 seconds. I may even wake up on Saturday and not feel good and get 57th. There will be 15 good runners and it will be an interesting race."

In point of fact there was Pre and there were some runners who were merely good, a difference that was not lost on the crowd. Prefontaine toured his last mile in 4:15 after establishing a stadium record for two miles en route. He probably also set another record on his victory lap, which got a standing ovation. "They say the South is a bit behind the West in track and field," Pre said, "but if the crowds are like this. I must say they are catching up fast. I rate Eugene No. 1, Berkeley No. 2 and Baton Rouge No. 3."

LSU merits a big hand too, the competition going off without a single mix-up. This was a result of the university involving its entire athletic department in the meet, recruiting outside help for tasks where experience was limited and working hard. Obviously, nothing beats the sweat of honest toil.