Craig Dixon Interview

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Craig Dixon — April, 2018

Craig Dixon won the Bronze Medal in the 1948 Olympics in the 110 meter high hurdles. He finished second in the 1948 Olympic Trials. He is a 1949 graduate of UCLA where he won NCAA and AAU titles in the 110 yard high hurdles and 220 yard low hurdles in 1949. Dixon won 59 consecutive races in 1949 and was ranked the number one hurdler in the world. He tied Jesse Owens’ World Record of 22.1 seconds in the 220 yard low hurdles. At the 1950 Millrose Games and NYAC indoor meets he won the 60 yard high hurdles. Craig held every record in both the high and low hurdles in every UCLA dual meet, and all records in the high hurdles in every relay invitational meet. After his competitive days ended, he was the first full-time Assistant Track and Field Coach at UCLA, recruited and trained athletes such as Rafer Johnson and C.K. Yang, and helped coach UCLA to the 1956 NCAA Track and Field team title. His personal best times are: 100 meters - 10.6; 200 meters - 21.2; 400 meters - 48.6; 110 meter high hurdles - 13.8; 220 yard low hurdles - 22.5; 440y intermediate hurdles - 53.4. Craig was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 1985. He graduated from UCLA in 1949 and spent most of his professional career in advertising and as a publisher’s representative before retiring in 2004. He has three children and resides in his childhood home that his father built in Los Angeles. Craig was kind enough to spend one and a half hours on the telephone in April, 2018.

GCR:	You represented the United States at the 1948 Olympics in London in the 110 meter high hurdles. Since it was the first Olympics in 12 years due to World War II, what was the feeling for you and others to run for our country in the land of one of our staunchest allies?
AA	For the reasons you mentioned, it was great. The team all met in New York where we got our uniforms. We went to London on a ship which took seven days to cross the Atlantic. The spirits were high. When we got to England we stayed at Uxbridge, which is an army base. There was a track where we could work out.

GCR:	With only six or seven years of racing the hurdles in high school and college under your belt, was it a bit daunting to be competing on such a big stage?
AA	I was only a junior in college. Going to the Olympics was unheard of. It was just amazing to think of the Olympics.

GCR:	How was the trip by boat to Europe, were you able to train on board and was seasickness a challenge?
AA	We couldn’t do any real training onboard the ship. We could just run around the deck in circles. Of course we couldn’t set up any hurdles to train over. The skeet shooters were able to shoot off the back of the ship. The swimmers were able to train because there was a pool on the ship. We spent seven days onboard and it was wonderful, though I did become very seasick.

GCR:

Take us through the 110 meter final – how was your start, where were you in the middle of the race, what were key moments and just how close was the finish for the top runners?

I had won both my heat and my semifinal easily and hadn’t had to finish strongly. I thought if I got out front in the final that I would be in position. I thought I would win the race, but I didn’t. William Porter was off to my right and we both had good starts. We were close at the first hurdle and he may have been over just before me. I was leading in the middle of the race and ahead of him until off of the last hurdle when I staggered a bit and he finished just ahead of me. I thought I had second place until I saw on the scoreboard my name in third place which was very disappointing.

GCR:

At the Olympics, even though you didn’t win, how special of a moment was it to stand on the podium, hear our National Anthem and to have an Olympic Bronze Medal placed around your neck as USA athletes swept the medals?

The biggest thing was seen in a picture of the three of us walking on the track after the race. We were all just so excited. The winning didn’t seem to be so important after I finished. The fact that I finished in a respectable time was important. But later I went over by the tunnel by myself and I was disappointed thinking, ‘Why didn’t I do a little better?’ All three of us when we got to the podium were a little delirious because none of us were very old then.

GCR:	Baron de Coubertin’s words about the Olympic Games are, ‘The important thing in life is competing not conquering. The important thing of the Games is competing well and not winning.’ How did these words affect your performance at the Olympic Games?
AA	I did compete well. I was only an inch off winning, so I did well and so did Scott. The three of us were really right together.

GCR:

How amazing was it that Harrison Dillard hit a hurdle and didn’t make the team in the hurdles, but then he made the team in the 100 meters and won Gold in that event in London? How great an athlete was Harrison Dillard?

He was just incredible. It was just a shame in the Olympic Trials that he fell in the hurdles. There was a lot of pressure to make the team and he just dropped his leg, hit about the fifth hurdle and fell. He was the best hurdler in the world in 1948 and he would have won the Olympics easily. But then in the 1952 Games he did win it. Barney Ewell thought he won the 100 meters in 1948 and many of us thought Mel Patton was going to win it because he was the fastest man. And here Harrison Dillard comes in and wins. It was incredible. Everybody thought he was just a hurdler and not a sprinter.

GCR:	Was it neat that your roommate in London, George Stanich, who was your high jump teammate from UCLA, also earned a medal in London?
AA	Since we roomed together it was great. He had misfortune as he could have won the high jump but it was pouring rain when they finished. The takeoff was not good. He was right there. I still stay in touch with George. I also stayed in touch with Mel Patton until he died.

GCR:

What else of the Olympic experience stands out including the Opening Ceremonies, other track and field competition or other events you may have attended?

I did go to the Opening Ceremonies because the hurdles weren’t right away. I had time. I can’t remember the exact position, but they were near the end of the running events. I also went to the Closing Ceremonies. Both of them were spectacular. I didn’t go to as many events as I could have because I was trying to rest my body. Where we stayed was the Uxbridge Military base. That wasn’t right near the stadium so we had to take a bus and find a seat to watch. I did watch George Stanich. The man I really watched was Emil Zatopek from Czechoslovakia. He was a little guy, but he was in the army. He just won the crowd. He always ran with his head cocked to the side. When he was running the 10,000 meters as he passed each group, they started saying, ‘Zat-o-pek, Zat-o-pek.’ And the next group in the crowd would say his name. After a while the whole stadium was screaming, ‘Zat-o-pek.’ He won by a big margin. He came here later to L.A. as he won an international award. In the evenings we sometimes went to downtown London and walked around. My mother had some relatives in a farming town called Eyemouth, near Edinburgh, and I visited them.

GCR:	We’ve discussed your Olympic experience, but first an athlete must make the team. After you finished third at the 1948 NCAAs in the high hurdles, how did you feel your chances stood to make the team?
AA	Oh, yes, that’s what gave me a lot of motivation to make the team and a lot of motivation for 1949.

GCR:

At the 1948 Olympic Trials you finished second to make the U.S. Olympic team. As we noted, Harrison Dillard hit a hurdle and didn’t make the team. How was the pressure to be clean over the hurdles, to execute and to make the team, and I guess it didn’t matter if you were first, second or third just to make that team?

The night before I was a nervous wreck since George Stanich had already made the team and I wanted to be sure I made it. I visualized the race and making the team. My concentration was so good that when the race started I was calm. I ran really well. Porter beat me, but the fact that Dillard fell was a shock. The rest of us were running for second and third. Two weeks before Dillard had just broken the World Record in the high hurdles.

GCR:

Over the years times in most events have gotten faster due to improved training, nutrition or lengthening of careers due to professionalism, but great runners are always measured by their championships. You won NCAA and AAU championships in high and low hurdles in 1949. Were any of these races close, or were you in top form and it was hard for your competitors to stay close?

That year I was just better than everybody. I’ve got to say that. I won both races in every dual meet at UCLA, which were ten dual meets. I won easily at NCAAs. Nothing is easy, but I won convincingly. After I won both the NCAA hurdle races, the AAUs came up in Fresno and my biggest thought was to beat Dillard in the highs. He didn’t run the lows. Sure enough I beat Dillard in the highs by a yard or maybe two yards. It wasn’t a photo finish. I won the race. I beat the other runners in the lows. Then I went to Europe and finished up there. I was a senior at UCLA and I was the number one hurdler in the world.

GCR:

Along with championships and race times, runners are recognized for their consistency. What does it say that you took first place in 59 consecutive races in 1949 in the hurdles where so many things can go wrong and that you were ranked number one in the world?

It was satisfying. And then Los Angeles voted the one hundred best athletes on the 100th anniversary in every sport. I got it in the hurdles. That was really a nice affair. Next Dorothy Chandler decided to come up with a banquet with all athletes who were best in the world in all the sports. Guess who was selected for track and field? Mel Patton and Craig Dixon shared the award. I remember that as really being significant because there were so many people that they could have picked. Bob Hope was the Master of Ceremonies. There were a lot of movie stars there and it was another special affair.

GCR:	Fast times are also a measure of an athlete’s significance. What was it like when you tied Jesse Owens’ World Record of 22.5 seconds in the 220 yard low hurdles?
AA	That was a real thrill. I was running well, but I was never quite that low. I’d run 22.7 and 22.6. That was a dual meet at UCLA. They announced, ‘The World Record is held by Jesse Owens and today Craig Dixon tied it.’ What a thrill! They also said that Harrison Dillard had run 22.3, but it hadn’t been approved yet.

GCR:

You mentioned that you went to Europe for quite a few competitions. What stands out from Europe as to the cities you visited, the competitions or the fans in the various stadiums?

After the Games we went to France and I ran the hurdles as did Harrison Dillard. He beat me so easily that it was kind of disappointing. I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to do better.’ The rest of the tour Dillard and I ran together and we ran very, very close. We had a lot of photo finishes, but he always won. After France we went to Prague, which was still held by the Russians. Barney Ewell had been there before and they had a trophy for him that was crystal and about three feet high because they knew he was going to win the 220. So, I decided to run the 220. I thought, ‘My God, what if I can win that trophy?’ They had a good sprint and I got second place behind Barney Ewell. Very close – but second. The other guys that were there couldn’t believe I did that because they were all half milers and quarter milers. They figured all I was was a hurdler and I couldn’t do that. Near the end of the tour we were in Frankfort, Germany and I decided to run the 220. I ran the hurdles with Dillard and again we were right together. But I had the inside lane for the 220 – lane one. Barney Ewell was in there too. I figured the only way I could beat him was if I hit the gun. The number one lane is the farthest away from the starter. He said, ‘On your marks,’ and I just counted to a half and I left right on the gun. I was just lucky. Anyhow, I beat Dillard and Barney Ewell in twenty-one flat for the 220 on the curve which was the best I’d ever run. That was a thrill. Barney didn’t like it. He was so used to winning. We ran in the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark and Finland and the girls were captivated by the black athletes. Those countries had no prejudice. The biggest track meet was in Norway as that was the international track scene for Europe. They brought in everybody to that area. They brought Harrison Dillard in and they brought in other top athletes. I was already there. When that race came up, Dillard decided not to run it. He ran the sprint instead. So, I won that by a good margin. It was at the end of the European tour.

GCR:

Fans these days won’t be able to relate to how popular the big meets were back when you were racing. Can you describe the crowds at the outdoor meets, whether you were in Europe or Los Angeles or elsewhere, as to their size and enthusiasm?

The crowds in the United States weren’t as big as in Europe except at the Coliseum Relays that had fifty thousand people. That was the biggest. I won that race in 1949. But when I got to Europe the crowds were terrific and they loved track. They were all close to the track. The stadiums weren’t that big – maybe a fifty thousand seat maximum for the better stadiums. But most of them probably held thirty thousand people and they were packed. It was really fun to run because they really appreciated track and field athletes.

GCR:

At two major indoor track meets in 1950 in New York City, the Millrose Games and the New York Athletic Club Invitational at Madison Square Garden, you won 60 yard high hurdles. How was the excitement and closeness of the crowd of fans compared to racing outdoors?

Those were social events and the men wore tuxedos to come and watch. The athletes were so crowded together that it made a really noisy affair. I ran the 60 yard hurdles and did win that event. The Millrose Games was the biggest meet they had in New York. Two weeks later they had the New York Athletic Club Invitational and I won that. The prize was an 18 carat medal that I’d say is an inch-and-a-half around. That was a great feeling too. Years later I gave it to my daughter and she put it in a necklace which she wears. I loved the indoor hurdles because it was a different kind of a race. Sixty yards isn’t that long. I think I ran 7.1 seconds. The other thing I’d never done before was that they had a rope and a pad after the finish because there was no room to run off. So, you ran right into this.

GCR:

Did you do much other racing that year?

After those two indoor races, I got a call from the AAU sponsor and he asked me if I wanted to go to Cuba for a week for some races. I would have loved to but I had just taken a new job and I didn’t think that was appropriate. In 1951 Jack Davis beat me in the AAU hurdles, but it was close, very close. They asked me to go to Japan for the summer for a month. I turned that down too. Now I’m sorry that I did. I would have loved to have gone to both places.

GCR:	When you graduated from UCLA in 1949, you went to work, had personal relationships and other priorities. How hard was it to balance other parts of life with training and to prepare for the 1952 Olympics when you were working and were set to get married?
AA	I tell you, it was very hard. I couldn’t train that much. I worked with Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company in their group insurance department. I’d have to work out after work and it was dark. I didn’t run in a lot of the meets. I didn’t think it was necessary. But I was picked to make the 1952 Olympic team.

GCR:

At the 1952 Olympic Trials you won your heat and semifinal before tripping on one of the last hurdles in the final and not making the U.S. Olympic team. How disappointing was it to not have the opportunity to go to the 1952 Helsinki Olympics?

I was considered one of the favorites. Dillard, Dixon and Davis were the favorites to go. And of course Dillard and Davis made it and I didn’t. In the Trials at the ninth hurdle the person running to my left hit his hurdle as I was coming off of my hurdle. His hurdle tipped my hurdle and it hit my back leg. And so I went down and I didn’t make the team. But I was right there even with Dillard at the ninth hurdle. I would have made it, but I didn’t. What are you going to do when that happens? I was terribly disappointed because I was getting married the next day and my wife was going to go over to the Games to watch. But that all fell apart. I didn’t run any more after that. I wasn’t going to try to stay in shape. That was probably the biggest disappointment at that time in my life. Now it doesn’t seem to matter so much because I went to an Olympic Games and I was the best in the world the next year. All of that has passed.

GCR:

Let’s take a look back at how you got started in athletics in your youth. In what sports did you participate and how did you get started as a hurdler?

I attended Fairburn Avenue Elementary School in West Los Angeles and played sports between classes. I played baseball and basketball. I started track when I was in Elementary school and I was a high jumper. When I got to high school I went out for the track team as a high jumper. But the Coach, Jim Pursell, had all the athletes get in a line and he put three hurdles up. We each had to run over the hurdles. When I finished my little three hurdle run he said, ‘You’re my hurdler. You did better than anyone else getting over those hurdles.’ So that’s how I started to be a hurdler. Jim did make a big mistake because he said that as hurdler I need to have shoes with spikes in the heel because he thought when you came over the hurdle you landed on your heels. That wasn’t right. You land on your toes. I went downtown to Spalding where they made shoes and told them I wanted shoes with a heel with two spikes. They brought out this shoe that is a shot put shoe and a discus shoe and a javelin shoe. It was heavy and had a big heel and two spikes. I thought that, since the coach said I should have it, that I should get it. I ran in them all throughout high school which made a big difference. I could have run a lot faster in regular track shoes.

GCR:

How good was your high jumping?

I wasn’t that good of a high jumper when I was first starting. In those days we didn’t jump the way they do now. We jumped with the scissors. I jumped six feet, which was really high for that era but I gave up that. Dean Cromwell, was the guru of track coaches at Southern Cal in those days, and had put out books you could get them at the library to see the different styles. I learned by looking at those books and experimenting.

GCR:	Did Coach Pursell help you with hurdle technique or did you learn more from other athletes?
AA	I learned most of my hurdling on my own. My coach didn’t know much about hurdling. The most productive part of my training was at UCLA, though there was a gradual growth from grammar school to high school to college.

GCR:

How was the change to higher hurdles when you got to college and how did the hurdle construction compare to modern hurdles?

When I got to UCLA the hurdles were higher. Instead of 39 inches, they were 42 inches high. And those hurdles in those days were made out of wood. Nobody knows that these days. The cross board was one-and-a-half inches by a half inch. The upright was a two-by three. And the bottom had a ‘T’ that wasn’t quite a two by four, maybe a two by three. If you hit the hurdle, it kicked up and it knocked you right on the ground. That’s the way I learned to hurdle. I learned with a lot of room between me and the hurdle. Later on when the hurdles were changed and I could run differently, I had to adjust my style in between the hurdles and over them.

GCR:

What were the main things that Coaches Harry Trotter and Ducky Drake did at UCLA to help you progress toward your potential?

The coach that really helped me there was Harry Trotter. Ducky Drake replaced him the next year. But Harry Trotter was the one that told me that this hurdler in Texas who held the World Record had an unusual style of going over the hurdles with two arms forward instead of one arm back in the traditional way. He went over the hurdle with two arms so that he got on the ground quicker. So I said, ‘Well, I’m going to try that.’ In my first meet, in my first effort it was fantastic. I ran so much faster than I had run. The other people running couldn’t even believe it, but it was all because of my entry into the hurdle. I didn’t worry about the height or getting my body over the hurdle. I was smooth and worked on my rear leg so my toes would be up. Little things like that during my career helped. Hugh McElhenny, the great football player who went to Washington and then into the pros, was a hurdler in high school and at the Compton Relays was going to run the hurdles. They made a big deal out of him and that he was going to beat me. So, he ran the hurdles and it didn’t happen. He didn’t beat me. He didn’t run any more hurdles in college. He just concentrated on football.

GCR:	Did you do a lot of sprints or repeats to work on your speed and strength?
AA	I ran a lot of 100-yard dashes and 220-yard dashes and quarter miles. Ducky would have me finish up with a quarter mile at the end of the day every day even if I was very tired and didn’t want to do it. In the dual meets at UCLA I’d usually run three races – the 100 yard dash, the highs and the lows.

GCR:

After your competitive days were over you went back to UCLA and coached for five years with Ducky Drake. How rewarding was it for you to help the program by recruiting athletes such as Rafer Johnson, C.K. Yang, Russ Ellis and Bob Seamon and building the team that won the 1956 NCAA Track and Field Championships?

Our team was not that strong when I competed. I went back to coach with Ducky Drake because he asked me since he was involved as a trainer with the track team and also as a trainer for the football team. There was nobody out there that could really work with the kids so I did it for those years. Training C.K. Yang and Rafer Johnson was something because you know how great they were. C.K. is dead now, but when he died they asked me to go over to Taiwan for the funeral. I had to turn it down and I found out the funeral lasted a week and every day there was another event to go to. I wouldn’t have been able to do that. I still see Rafer Johnson and he is one of my best friends. In 1956 with C.K. Yang, Rafer Johnson, Bob Seamon and Russ Ellis they were all outstanding. We won every meet which was nine straight meets. It came down to the dual meet with Southern Cal and we had the meet won. But we had to win the last race which was the mile relay. We had four good men and I figured we would win it. But one of the men came over and said he couldn’t run because he pulled a muscle in the half mile. We didn’t have anybody else to run except Rafer, and he had just run the 220 low hurdles right before which is real tiring. So we made a mistake and asked somebody else to run. We didn’t ask Rafer and he would have because he was a decathlon athlete. That was really Ducky and my fault. We should have had Rafer run the third leg and got the baton to Russ Ellis who could beat anybody on that team. If he got it close we would have won the meet. But we didn’t get it close. So, we won nine out of ten meets, we won the Pacific Conference meet and then we went on and won the NCAA meet. We only had that one defeat the whole year at that SC meet. All of the athletes looked up to me because I was an Olympic athlete and figured that I knew what I was doing.

GCR:

What were some of the training programs you used to help the UCLA athletes to reach their potential?

I worked in the fall and instituted a fall track program and cross country. I trained the cross country team and we won the conference. I was happy about that. For the fall track program it had people work not just on their event, but also to get stronger. I also started a lifting program. Ducky didn’t believe in weightlifting. When C.K. Yang came over with his personal assistant who took care of him, I took one look at C.K. and said, ‘Oh my, he needs to get stronger.’ He was tall and thin. I enrolled him in a weightlifting gym and the owner knew exactly what C.K. needed. He wasn’t there to be a weightlifter. He was there to get stronger for the track and field events. He did and when Rafer came out in the spring after playing basketball, he said, ‘C.K., what have you been doing? Look at you. You are much stronger and much heavier.’ C.K. told him, ‘Craig had me go to this gym to work to get fit.’ So Rafer went down to the gym. Both of them did really well for me.

GCR:	Did you pick up many coaching methods from Harry Trotter and Ducky Drake or were you learning a lot of the techniques on your own?
AA	Track coaches in those days didn’t know that much about track. Ducky was more of an institution who gave more advice on character and how to act. I learned the hurdles myself except for that method where Harry Trotter taught me how to get my arms right. But Ducky was one of my best friends. He went to the 1948 Olympic Games and watched George Stanich and me compete.

GCR:

Did anyone else at UCLA have a memorable effect on you as an athlete and coach?

I got to be friends with the football coach, Red Sanders, and he took a liking to me. He said, ‘Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.’ That’s really right. Nobody knows how much someone was second by or how much they were third by. They don’t know you had a photo finish with three people who were just as good as each other. In the 1952 Games Dillard won it but Davis was second with the same time as Dillard. He was right with them. I figured if I had made the team I would have been right there with him too. But I didn’t.

GCR:

Weren’t you also friends with John Wooden the great basketball coach?

I was a close friend of John Wooden and our offices were close to one another. So, when I would come in to work I would talk with him. He was just a marvelous basketball coach and motivator. I learned a lot from him. He had no qualms about what he thought. One of the interesting things is when he recruited Lew Alcindor, who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He had this New York kind of haircut. It was hanging down like they wear now. Wooden sat him down and said, ‘I want you on this team and I think we can win everything, but you can’t come to this team and play with me with that hairdo. You have to make a decision – either you get a haircut or you go home.’ And of course he got a haircut. Wooden was that strong. He would have given up that player because of his values and that’s what he carried on for his life and what I learned from him.

GCR:

Is there anything that stands out from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in your hometown that is a special memory?

When the Games were in the Coliseum, they had these plaques in the east end where the Olympic torch had been Rafer was picked to have a plaque. He’s six feet and two inches, but the plaque is about seven feet high and five feet wide. That’s how big they are. It’s a big, bronze plaque of Rafer with some words underneath. I was invited to the event and I didn’t realize until then that after the information about his career achievements it said, ‘Trained by Ducky Drake and Craig Dixon.’ I just about fainted because I didn’t think I would get any more recognition. As long as the Coliseum is there, my name will be there.

GCR:

You mentioned that you recently had your 92nd birthday. How is your health and do you do much walking or exercising to stay fit and healthy?

I don’t do anything now. I had a stroke ten years ago and as a result of the stroke I had some bad calamities. One was an infection that got into my system. I think I got it in the hospital. They couldn’t find an antibiotic. They thought the infection was from overseas. I had a nurse come to the house for a year and put various antibiotics in my system. They made a hole that was longer than my finger to put in the antibiotic. Next they had an orthopedic doctor check me and he had me take a test and an x-ray to see what was going on. He told me I had to stay in the hospital because that infection had gone into my bones in the upper leg and was eating through in a couple places. ‘If you even stub your toe that bone is liable to break. He operated and fixed it and put in a stainless steel bar from the knee to the hip. I was not subject to any further breaking.

GCR:

Was your recovery from that operation a lengthy one?

For almost a year I was in therapy to try to get it stronger. Another time I was out in my garden and fell and hit a stone on my knee and broke my right knee. That tore the patella tendon clear off the bone. That was the most pain I’ve ever had. It was just horrible. The paramedics got me to the orthopedic guy at UCLA. He told me the patella tendon had broken on the bottom side of the knee which was very unusual. When they tear it is usually on the top side. He told me I was going into surgery the next day which was Labor Day. He performed the operation and had to pin it to the lower bone with two pins to hold the tendon. The next day he looked at it and thought everything would be okay. Then he said, ‘But I have some bad news for you. Tendons don’t heal very easily. I’ve got to put you in a brace from the heel to the hip.’ That lasted for nine months until it got stronger. He put me in rehab all of that time.

GCR:

Didn’t your wife also have grave health issues at the same time?

Yes, to make things worse, I had a young wife and she had a blood disease that was very unusual. The disease started in France and spread across the world. We were married three years and the blood disease got a hold of her and she died. It got to her heart and it couldn’t beat enough. Then not enough blood got to the brain for it to function. When we got to the hospital the heart doctor said, ‘Craig, we have contacted specialists and your wife didn’t get enough blood to the brain. She’s never going to be the same. We can probably bring her back, but she won’t be who you knew. My advice is that you just let her go.’ So I did. Even now talking about it I get a little upset. In the meantime after that I lost nearly one hundred pounds from 220 down to 130 pounds. That changed my whole life. Now because of that I have to have full time care. I have three caregivers who take turns and one is here with me the whole time. That is very, very expensive. I’m doing better. I’m in a wheelchair and I can walk with a walker for about a hundred yards. But my life, of course, is not the same.

GCR:	You had a combination of great things and sad things that happened in your life and, based on your life’s experiences, what are the major lessons you have learned and advice that form the ‘Craig Dixon Philosophy that you would like to share with my readers?
AA	It is important for young people who want to achieve that they focus on their goals. They should have a balance in life and enjoy life while still being dedicated. To do your best you have to have your sights on your objective.

	Inside Stuff
Nicknames	I’ll tell you one that’s secret – my mom always called me ‘Craigy.’ Everyone else called me ‘Craig.’ I had no nicknames
Favorite movies	I like action movies. I like Clint Eastwood movies. We were friends when he first signed
Favorite TV shows	I like the NBA playoffs. In fact a game is starting soon. I love watching basketball. I played it but wasn’t good enough to play it in high school. My favorite team is the Warriors. My second favorite is Oklahoma City. I also like Houston, but they are third. I tell you who I hate – Cleveland. Lebron James has made basketball more like football. You have to be tough. There is no more finesse to it now
Favorite music	I like classical music best. I don’t really care for the hip-hop music. It’s not my bag
First car	A 1940 Ford. I loved that car
First Jobs	I was selling the Saturday Evening Post and after that I delivered the Los Angeles Times. I had a route for the Times. I had to get up at 5:00 in the morning to go and get the paper. I delivered the papers on my bike for an hour which helped my legs
Family - parents and brother	When I was growing up my dad wasn’t very good at giving us an allowance, though he had done very well money-wise. That’s why I worked selling the Post and the Times while I was still in school, so I could have some money to spend for myself. My dad was born in Lincoln, Nebraska and was an engineer on a railroad. Then he went to Alaska with another fellow to hunt for gold. They spent a year up there looking for gold and didn’t find much. In the winter they did get snowed in and couldn’t get out from where they were. They found a cabin and ate spiders and bugs until they could get out. Then he ended up in Vancouver, Canada and he started a Ford dealership. My mother was born in Scotland and had gone to Vancouver where they met. She was a little Scots’ lady, just over five feet tall. My dad got to know Henry Ford personally and I still have a picture of them here in the house. In those days the entire company was owned by Ford. My dad was very successful with the Ford dealership. But he was very intense and he got ulcers. In those days, he went back to operation after operation. I had an older brother who was two years older than me. He was on that American Airlines plane that went down in Chicago many years ago. He was on it, so he lost his life. He was President of a chemical company whose main office was in New England. My dad had already died, so my mother was alive here. That was a terrible blow to all of us, to me and my mother. He had two sons and a daughter, so that was tough
Family - children and first wife	I have three daughters and the youngest daughter loved to run, but I had a problem with my oldest daughter. Then my middle daughter got into trouble with friends and they were on drugs and she died at age fifty. My youngest competed in high school and my former wife never told me about it. She didn’t want me to work with her. And so I missed out on helping her train in high school. It would have been fun for me and good for her. She is the only one that has kept in touch with me. She lives about fifty mils away in Dana Point and she tries to come by once a week to see me. She’s been a Godsend. They put me in a psyche center at UCLA for people they think might want to commit suicide. That’s how bad I was, but I got over my bad times and my daughter really helped me there. My first wife and I were married for thirty-seven years and she had an auto accident that should have killed her, but it didn’t. She lost one leg and she was in the hospital over a year. I tried to help but she didn’t want help and I just lost her. She drank too much before that and then when she got home from the hospital she drank more and she got meaner and even got mean with her children. I tried to help her again and she said she didn’t want me around and that she was going to divorce me. That’s what happened
Favorite breakfast	I don’t like oatmeal so much though I do have it once in a while. I like cream of wheat. Normally I have cream of wheat with a whole bunch of strawberries or bananas on it. One of my caregivers is a really good cook and she makes scrambled eggs with cheese and tomatoes and onions. On the side I’ll sometimes have ham or bacon, but never a steak
Favorite meal	Since I had the stroke and rehab, they didn’t have the best food, so I got used to not liking steaks. I like fish, especially fish sticks. I also like sushi and sashimi. Plus, I like tacos
Favorite beverages	When I had the stroke, when I left the hospital they said I could have two glasses of wine every evening or one drink. I started out having the wine. When I had these long stays in the health centers I had to give that up so now I don’t drink alcohol at all. When I did drink alcohol, I mainly drank vodka. I like vodka. I drink orange juice and lemonade and vitamin water
First running memory	I was one of the best athletes in grammar school when I was really young. They had an exercise where someone would get down on their hands and knees. Then you would run up and put your hands on their back and flip over and stand. So I did pretty well on that except one time when I missed a little bit and dislocated my elbow. I thought it was broken. I was the best high jumper in grammar school. I think the best I jumped was five feet, six inches
Childhood memories	When I was a kid I use to walk from my house to UCLA in straight line. There were no houses on the way. This was the first house that my dad built on the block. He probably sold the car dealership because of his ulcers problem. He married a gal who was born in Scotland and working in Vancouver. He retired down here. I’m living in the house that my dad built. My dad died in this house and my mother died in this house. And I’m going to die in this house. Everybody tells me I’m going to live to one hundred years old, even with the problems I’ve had, but I don’t think so. I don’t have ulcers or cancer, so I guess I’m okay for now
Childhood activities	We had paddle boards with a ball attached by a thick rubber band. It was a big deal in my younger days. They had a contest with all of the kids and the paddle boards. I got down to where there were just two of us left and we were on the stage at the movie theater. First prize was a bike and second prize was a month of free movies at the theater. We were up on the stage paddling away and the man gave instructions to ‘paddle up’ or to ‘paddle down’ or to ‘paddle straight.’ I took him at his word and was paddling up high and down low. The other guy would just fudge it and he would just move it a little bit because it was easy to go straight. Anyway, I missed and he won and I got second. That was nice though
Running heroes	My hero was Mel Patten. He was so good. He went to the same high school as I did. What is interesting about that is he was in the class a year before me. When he competed I was there watching all the time. Then he went into the service. In the 1949 NCAA meet, I won the highs and low hurdles and Mel Patten was at USC and won the 100 and 220 yard dashes. Then we had another guy from our high school, Taylor Lewis, who got fourth in the discus. I scored twenty points, Mel scored twenty points and Taylor Lewis got five points. And that would have won the NCAA meet with three guys from one high school. Jim Pursell coached all of us at Uni High. That was a big thing
Greatest running moments	I had two or three. The greatest, of course, was beating Harrison Dillard in the 110 meter high hurdles. Another was at the Fresno Relays in the 880 yard relay. I was running the anchor for UCLA and Mel Patten was running anchor for USC. When I got the baton I looked back and Ron Frazier had dropped the baton on the pass to Patten. So Mel had to stop and pick it up. And I figured, ‘I’m gonna win this.’ So I went around the curve and I’m running down the stretch and nobody is around me. Suddenly something comes by me like a hurricane. Here comes Patten. He just left me in the dust. I couldn’t believe it because he was so far back. They timed it at 19.1 or something like that. I ran 20.2, which I had never run anything like that. It was incredible. That was a real memorable race. And we were from the same high school
Worst running moment	Even though it may be missing the Olympic team in 1952, in a way I think that God was helping me. Maybe it was good I didn’t go because the gal I married had a mother and father who were in real financial trouble and it spilled over to me. If I had gone to the Olympics I would have had to spend a lot of money for her to be there. They didn’t have any money to send her, so I was going to send her. In a way I don’t feel badly about it now. She was going to room with Sammy Lee’s wife and a couple of other gals whose husbands were going. But that race was a disappointment. I think maybe in retrospect it was better that I didn’t go, though I sure would have loved to have been there
Youthful dreams	When I was in high school I took college courses. World War II was still going and I joined the Navy Air Force. They had a program to take in new pilots. I passed the exam and they sent me to Occidental College. I did well there and was highest in the class in trigonometry and a couple of other classes. So I decided I would be an engineer. The war ended and they eliminated the flight program for the Air Force and sent me to UCLA to be a deck officer in the ROTC program. That required quite a bit of work. The head of the Engineering Department told me I had to take 23 units of finals in engineering every semester. I told him, ‘You’ve got to be kidding! I can’t do that and run track. I needed to spend some time working out.’ He said, ‘That’s tough.’ So I quit engineering and went into kind of a general program with naval science courses. I got my degree, all right, and got out
Favorite places to travel	All of the countries like Norway, Sweden and Denmark. I like Prague in Czechoslovakia. I also like Germany. But there were so many areas with no houses, no buildings and just rubble. I wanted to take a trip over to where Hitler ended up, but they didn’t let us. I liked all of Europe and France a lot. London was still pretty well torn up and they didn’t have all the amenities they have now. I went to a couple homes for dinner when I was there for the Olympics and all they had was boiled beef and baked potatoes for dinner. London is a lot different now than it was then and so is Europe