Land Of Sprinters And Dreamers

"I loved to run, unquestionably," McKenley says. "But I never thought in terms of ultimate goals. When I got to Illinois, Johnson asked me right out, 'How'd you like to be the best quarter-miler in the world?' I laughed, it seemed so astonishing. He let it go for a while, but every week or so he'd have a word or two to say on the subject. Then one night I dreamed an amazingly vivid dream. It was of breaking the world record, of the race, the crowd, even reading the time in the paper. When I woke up I couldn't believe I was in bed. I was wet. I'd been running. The next day I told Leo about this remarkable joke. 'It's not a joke,' he said. 'Every great happening must originate in a dream of some kind. It gets a hold of your subconscious. Your subconscious is telling you that it feels you can do it.'

"After that he stayed away from me, knowing that if I needed him, I'd find him. Well, a few days later I sought him out. I asked him what I had to do. He said I had to train more than anyone else, beginning with cross-country, which I hated. But I remembered the dream, the people applauding, the tremendous feeling of importance. I said, 'O.K., Leo,' and that day we planned the program. I ran through the cornfields around Champaign with blistered feet. I had my best indoor season ever. And on June 1, 1946, on a wet track in the Big-10 championships in Champaign, I ran the world record of 46.2. I had dreamed what the headlines said, and the next morning they said it."

Even McKenley's father began to come around. "His friends convinced him it was something special," continues McKenley. "But after the record I came home and ran a race against Elmore Harris of the U.S. and I lost, and my father was furious. 'I left my practice in the country and came all the way into Kingston for this? he said."

McKenley and Wint made up the nucleus of the Jamaica team for the first postwar Olympics, in London in 1948. "Arthur won the 400 [McKenley remembers Wint passing him with about four meters to go] and was the best man in the 800," says McKenley, "but he ran a dumb race, getting too far back of Mai Whitfield before he made his move." Whitfield hung on to win, 1:49.2 to 1:49.5. The Jamaicans hoped to affirm their sprint supremacy with a victory in the 4x400 relay, which McKenley was to anchor. But Wint, trying to make up ground on Roy Cochran of the U.S. on the third leg, pulled a hamstring, and McKenley never got the baton. "I stood there waiting for the longest time," he says. The wait would stretch to four years.

Approaching the Helsinki Olympics in 1952, Wint had a pulled right hamstring and was struggling with the demands of medical school in London. McKenley was recovering from the mumps. He asked to be dropped from the team after running last in his heat in the AAU 400 in Long Beach six weeks before the Games. "You have to go," he was told. "There's no one else for the relay."

Yet he made an astonishing recovery to get his two silver medals. In the 400 he came from five meters back to just miss catching Rhoden at the tape. They both ran 45.9. The 100 was even closer. McKenley lost to Lindy Remigino of the U.S. by an inch in 10.4 for both.

The 800 was a rematch of Wint and Whitfield. "And Arthur looked like he was in a good position to attack on the last backstretch," says McKenley. "Whitfield had a bad cold. He was vulnerable. But Arthur waited until the stretch, and Whitfield held him off again." Whitfield finished again in 1:49.2; Wint ran .1 faster than he had four years before. "Why didn't you kick earlier?" McKenley asked Wint. "Because if I didn't get around him, I didn't think I would be able to finish the race," Wint said. Then McKenley talked with Whitfield. "God, I'm glad he didn't kick on the backstretch," said the relieved American. "If he'd gotten in front, I could never have passed him again."

So McKenley came to his last chance. He was 30 years old. Another Olympics was out of the question. The same four Jamaicans who had run in 1948 took the track for the 4x400 relay. Wint's 46.8 and Les Laing's 47.0 left Jamaica well behind the U.S., which got a 46.7 from Ollie Matson and a blazing 45.5 from George Cole. McKenley's task looked hopeless. Charley Moore, who already had won the 400 hurdles gold at these Olympics, was 15 yards ahead.

McKenley produced the race of his life. He caught Moore in the stretch, held his form all the way and handed the baton to Rhoden with a two-foot lead. His split was 44.6, the fastest ever run to that point. Rhoden closed with 45.5, as did Whitfield. By the same two feet that McKenley had given it, Jamaica won by a tenth of a second, in a world record of 3:03.9. And McKenley finally had his gold. The four accepted their medals jubilantly and then waited for Czechoslovakia's Emil Zatopek, who had won the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, to complete his historic triple by winning the marathon. When Zatopek was done, the Jamaicans carried him on a victory lap, the applause deafening them all, and Helsinki was burned into McKenley's mind as the place where all dreams came to miraculous fruition.

"In 1978, thieves broke into my home and stole my Olympic medals," says McKenley evenly. "I happened to mention that to the chairman of this year's World Championships, which are to be in Helsinki. So now it seems new ones are to be presented to me there in August."