Read Online Devil at My Heels: The Story of Louis Zamperini by Louis Zamperini - Free Book Online Page A

began the celebration. The reception was amazing. I even managed a laugh when Chief Strohe said, “After I chased Louie up and down every back alley in Torrance, he had to be in shape for something .” He was right. If Torrance’s only police car went south, I’dhead north. I wondered how many of Torrance’s citizens knew how close I’d once come to being little more than a no-account delinquent.
     
    THAT SUMMER, EVEN before the Olympics, a number of colleges had tried to recruit me. I spent a week at Stanford with Clyde Jeffrey, a sprinter. They gave me a convertible to drive and we stuck around for a few days, checking out the campus. Notre Dame offered me a scholarship and when I turned it down I told Coach Nicholson to give it to a mediocre runner named Greg Rice. I’d beat him by fifty yards in the mile. Afterward, I’d told Greg, “You’re not a miler—you’re a two-miler.” He got my scholarship, switched to the longer race, and broke the world’s record.
    Coach Dean Cromwell of USC wanted me, too. He was a legend. His USC team had won more national championships than any other university in America. When you went to USC you could ask any athlete on the field, “In what event did you hold the world’s record in high school?” However, whenever anyone introduced Cromwell as “the world’s greatest track coach,” he wouldn’t stick out his chest. He’d simply say, “Well, I get the greatest athletes in the world. Why shouldn’t I be the world’s greatest track coach?”
    Cromwell had been on the 1936 Olympic track-team coaching staff and had come to many, if not all, my high school track meets. He was known for his broad grin and the way he encouraged his and other athletes. His famous greeting was “Hi, champ.” Even though part of his job was to solicit and proselytize for his team, his praise made me feel important.
    My brother, already one of the nation’s top milers, attended Compton College. Cromwell was smart and offered a scholarship to both of us.
    I entered the University of Southern California in September 1936 and did well on the field. As a freshman I was invited to the big Princeton Invitational, where I won my first national title in the two-mile. Pete still coached me now and then but I listened less often, shrugging off his advice with a cocky and arrogant “Yeah, yeah. I know.” After all, I was the one who’d been in the Olympics.Clearly, my personality still needed help. Although on the oval, I ran to win and to support the team, off the oval I didn’t win any popularity contests. I was still mostly a loner, stubborn, with a low boiling point.
    That winter, against Coach Cromwell’s advice, I decided to take up skiing. I figured it would develop my legs and lungs and could only help my running. But when I took off down a slope at Big Pines, I ran into ice on the slide, lost control, and landed in a heap. I tried to stand, but the pain in my leg and knee made me topple over again. The verdict: bad knee, torn ankle ligaments, crutches, no running for two months.
    Pete gave me a hard time. “You’ve got a responsibility to the team and to the people who admire you. The kids. You’ve got to sacrifice to uphold the traditions of athletes.”
    That made me angry. “If I can’t live a normal life and do what other people do then I don’t want to run,” I threatened sharply. Those words set the pattern of my life for the next few years. I wanted it all: the fame, new achievements—and all the distractions and fun college offered.
     
    I’D NEVER REALLY set my heart on breaking any world record save for one: the National Collegiate Mile. Bill Bonthron of Princeton had aced my hero, Glenn Cunningham, by inches, and broken the record in 4:08:08. I planned to get the title back someday for Glenn—and for me.
    I trained hard but not in the way Coach Cromwell approved of. In those days the coaches didn’t allow us to train by running uphill, something I’d done ever