Santee

EMPORIA, Kan. (AP) _ It was well past closing time at the motel coffee shop when a manager strolled over to the only occupied table.

"Hi, I'm Wes Santee from the University of Kansas," said the gray-haired man at the table.

"Why, I know that name," the manager responded.

Santee's name evokes a period more than four decades ago when the Kansas miler was perhaps the greatest and certainly the most controversial runner in America.

In outdoor stadiums and smoke-filled arenas around the country, thousands of fans turned out to cheer an all-American boy from the heartland of Kansas taking on all comers -- before he was suspended for life for violating amateur rules.

"In those days you had stars, and people knew all about them, and there never was a star that topped Santee," recalled Bill Mayer, who began covering Santee as a sportswriter for The Lawrence Journal-World in 1950.

In the early 1950s, the drive was on to break the track world's greatest barrier, the magical 4-minute mile. The world record of 4:01.4 had stood since 1945, and the American record of 4:06.0 since 1943.

Three runners were favored to be the first: John Landy of Australia, Roger Bannister of Great Britain, and Santee. Santee had become nationally known when he twice ran the mile in 4 minutes, 7 seconds for Kansas relay teams at the Drake Relays in 1952.

As a college sophomore, Santee made the U.S. Olympic team in the 5,000-meter run, then also tried to qualify in the 1,500, his best event.

"I was at the starting line ready to run, when an official pulled me off the track," Santee recalled. "The officials had decided I wasn't old enough or good enough to run both events in the Olympics. There was nothing in the rule book to cover that. It was a purely arbitrary decision."

It was his first but would not be his last conflict with the Amateur Athletic Union, which controlled amateur sports in the United States and was known for its heavy-handed and often arbitrary administration.

Santee failed to make the Olympic finals in the 5,000 but came back the next year to win the NCAA and AAU mile championships.

Then, described by Time magazine as "a stringy 20-year-old who runs for the University of Kansas track team," Santee ran 4:02.4 to break the 10-year-old American mile record. More records followed: the U.S. record in the 1,500-meter run, the world indoor mile record.

"The mile was the feature event," he recalled. "I'd go into Madison Square Garden for a race, and at 10 p.m. sharp everything would stop. They'd play the national anthem and then run the mile. Everywhere I went, it was the feature event."

AAU rules then allowed athletes to receive only $15 a day plus travel costs to take part in meets. Meet promoters, many of them also AAU officials, sought out the top athletes and routinely offered them more than the rules permitted.

"Most of the time they'd send several hundred dollars," Santee said. "I violated the rule book when I took it. The AAU officials all violated the rule book (when they offered it)."

Hal Higdon, now a senior writer for Runner's World magazine, competed in the 1952 Olympic trials and was a national-class runner for several years.

"Among the elite athletes, it was an accepted practice, although not everybody bent the rules," Higdon said.

The practice was so widely known that a national magazine feature story on Santee in 1953 reported that he hoped to collect enough "expense" money to buy a farm. Santee later said he was misquoted.

Although he was racing frequently, Santee had few opportunities to go after the elusive 4-minute mile. During the outdoor season he usually ran several races to help the Kansas team win.

"I think coach (Bill Easton) underestimated what it meant, but the team came first," said Dick Wilson, a teammate of Santee's.

Meanwhile, Bannister and Landy were picking their races carefully in an effort to break the 4-minute barrier.

Santee was expected to try for the 4-minute mile at the AAU championships in June 1953.

Apparently trying to beat him to it, Bannister ran 4:02 that same day in a race that was set up on short notice and in which he was paced by other runners. British track officials ruled that it was not a genuine race and did not accept that time as a record.

Landy also ran 4:02 in December, at the height of the Australian competitive season.

In spring 1954, Santee raced nearly every weekend.

He ran a 4:05 mile and two relay events as Kansas beat California in a dual meet. He went for the record at the Kansas Relays, but with little competition and winds gusting to 25 mph he ran 4:03.1 -- the second-fastest American time ever.

"He would have broken it if the track had been decent," said Mayer, the sportswriter. "That was when Kansas had a crappy old cinder track, and it rained the day before."

Two weeks later Bannister ran 3:59.4 in a race that Runner's World magazine recently named the greatest running moment in the past century. He was paced by two other runners in a minor dual meet, but the record was accepted.

"I am not exceptionally disappointed," Santee said that day. "There still is the challenge to see who will be the first American to break the 4-minute mile."

In a series of remarkable runs over the next month, he almost did it. He ran 4:01.3 in late May to set a new American record. On June 4, he ran 4:00.6, breaking the world record in the 1,500 meters in the process, and the following weekend ran 4:00.7. At that point he had run three of the four fastest times in world history.

But by the following summer, his career was in trouble. A newspaper ran a story about the excess payments Santee had been receiving from meet promoters.

The Missouri Valley AAU chapter investigated, and only an outpouring of public support, including U.S. Sen. Frank Carlson of Kansas, saved Santee's eligibility.

But the national AAU governing body conducted its own investigation, and suspended Santee for life. No action was taken -- then or ever -- against the meet promoters.

Santee by then had run 4:00.5, but he never broke the 4-minute barrier.

His American record fell in 1957, when Don Bowden of California ran 3:58.7 to become the first American under the barrier.

Santee sued the AAU and a court initially upheld him. But the AAU responded by threatening to ban anyone who raced against Santee. The court eventually ruled the AAU had jurisdiction.

Santee, 23 when he was banned, told Life magazine a year later that he wasn't bitter.

"If I had it to do over, I would follow the same pattern, which others in my position have followed for 25 years," Santee said, shortly before the 1956 Olympics.

Santee since then has worked in insurance and served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, retiring as a colonel.

Now 65, Santee splits his time between Prescott, Ariz., and Eureka, Kan. He continues to run occasionally. He carried the Olympic torch last year when it reached Topeka and was quick to accept when he was invited to Bermuda to run a special mile race. The field included Jim Ryun, the Olympic miler turned congressman, and other former record holders.

The runners were given staggered starts by age.

"I ended up beating them all," Santee said, the old competitive fire burning through.