"Where is Thane Baker?" by Carol Sweson

Elkhart, Kansas, population 2,233. Elkhart High School: seven individual and one relay state championships in the first 99 years of the Kansas state high school track and field championships, Class 2A in 2010 with 99 students in grades 10-12. Yet, out of that “small” town on the plains of southwestern Kansas have come two Olympic medalists, national collegiate champions, and world record holders – Glenn Cunningham and Thane Baker.

Yet, when I dug through the old state meet results while doing research for the KSHSAA’s centennial state championship commemorative book, “100 Years of Kansas High School Track & Field 1911-2010 – A century of Milestones”, I could find no mention of Thane Baker. This was really puzzling! Was there an error in the results? Where was Thane Baker?

This was particularly perplexing since of the 33 Kansas high school students that would go on to represent the United States of America as track and field Olympians, it appeared that Baker was the only Kansas prep, later Olympic “medalist” who didn’t have a Kansas high school state championship to his credit. [See notes at the end for details on the other non-state champion Olympians.]

But, back to Elkhart. Most observers of track and field history and Kansas track history in particular are aware of the story of Glenn Cunningham.

Cunningham suffered severe burns in a country schoolhouse fire as a youth; burns that almost led to the amputation of his legs. After a long, painful struggle to regain the use of his legs, the scarred limbs would eventually carry him to two Kansas state high school championships, the first such titles in Elkhart High history, collegiate conference and national championships for the University of Kansas and the NYAC, being tabbed the “King of the Boards” as the world’s top indoor track performer of the first half of the 1900’s, world records at 800 meters, 880 yards, and 1-mile, berths on two US Olympic teams, and a silver medal at the 1936 “Nazi” Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany.

Having had a keen interest in the Olympics, and track and field in particular since I was in grade school, I had read the stories about Cunningham, the fire, his injuries, and recovery. I even had the pleasure of meeting the famed miler when visiting his “ranch” near Cedar Point with family friends when I was in sixth or seventh grade.

I had grown up just 25 miles south of Manhattan so I was a life-long K-State fan (and later graduate) and was aware of the other “Elkhart Flash.”

Thane Baker had also gone to Elkhart High School before matriculating to Kansas State College in Manhattan. At K-State, Baker would become an NCAA champion under the tutelage Track & Field Hall of Fame coach Ward Haylett. He would set or tie eight world and/or American records at distances from 60 to 300 yards. Baker too would go on to represent the USA on two Olympic teams. At the 1952 Games in Helsinki, Finland, he would earn his first Olympic medal, silver at 200 meters. Then in 1956 at the Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, Thane would reach the pinnacle of his career, winning silver at 100 meters, bronze at 200 meters, and finally, a gold medal as part of the United States’ Olympic champion 400-meter relay team.

But, what was the story of his not showing up in the state meet results? With my curiosity aroused, I decided I had to find out the story behind “Why, no Thane Baker?”

I was aware that following his Olympic career, Baker was instrumental in the founding of the international Master’s track and field and had competed at the elite level of Masters’ track and field, nationally and internationally, for years. An internet search led me to the Masters’ track club in Dallas, Texas, that Thane had competed for in recent years. I e-mailed the secretary of the club explaining the project I was working on for the 100th running of the state meet and asked if it would be possible to get the contact information for Baker. The secretary wrote back that they would not give me Baker’s contact information, but he would forward my request to Thane. A short time later that afternoon, my phone rang.

It was Thane Baker! That phone call and a later visit to his Texas home on the Brazos River filled in the missing parts of the story.

While “maybe” not quite as dramatic to some, and definitely not as well documented as the Cunningham story, Baker had his own story of a childhood injury to overcome before reaching national and international athletic fame. What was it about those Elkhart boys!

As a freshman at Elkhart High School, Baker suffered an injury that left him with a piece of steel embedded in his left knee where it remains to this day. While pulling nails out of old, hard lumber, the head of a nail broke off and embedded itself in his knee. When the local doctor refused to try to remove the piece of nail, Thane’s parents took him to a doctor in Hays. There they were told that any surgery to remove the piece of metal would likely leave Baker permanently crippled because the operation would involve the cutting ligaments and tendons in the knee. Besides, Thane seemed to be able to walk with it in there.

Because of the injury Baker didn’t compete in athletics until his junior year of high school. The most noticeable result of the injury was the growth of his left leg had been stunted, leaving him with a left leg that would always be shorter than his right.

Like many small schools of the day, Elkhart High didn’t have a true “track”, but rather an unmeasured, graded dirt loop on which to train. Still, as a senior at EHS, the young Baker earned berths in the 1949 state meet in both the 100 and 220- yard dashes with wins at the regional meet, which was held on a half-mile horse race track in Kinsley. But while training for his one, final chance at state meet glory, Thane developed a severe case of shin splints. Finally on the state’s biggest stage, and with his shins taped to lessen the pain, Baker would qualify for the finals in both events. But, the coveted state title, a spot on the awards stand, or even a place among the top five finishers wasn’t to be for Baker as he finished sixth, dead last, in both dashes.

No wonder his name never showed up in any of the old state meet results. Only the first five finishers were listed. The mystery of the Baker missing from the state meet results solved!

With only the offer of a partial football scholarship to Dodge City CC on the table, Baker decided to be a student and further his education at Kansas State College. Once in Manhattan, he saw an ad placed in the school paper by coach Haylett announcing open tryouts. When Baker told the veteran coach he was a sprinter, Haylett said Thane could come out for team because “they might be able to use him on a relay or something.” After four years of consistent, dedicated work, daily doing the workouts to the best of his ability, Baker developed into a Big 6 Conference as well as NCAA champion, a two-time USA Olympi¬an and world record holder.

“I always believed my shorter left, inside leg gave me an advantage in running the curve in the 220,” said Baker.

Only in the last few years has Baker ended his competitive masters’ career, but he has never ventured far from the sport, serving as starter for the Texas Relays for 43 years and doing some private coaching.

When asked what advice he would give today’s young athletes, Baker said, “Having never won anything at the state meet, I’m not sure what I can offer. Maybe it’s ‘You have to have heart; you don’t just get fast overnight.’ In high school my best time (for 100 yards) was 10.1. In college it dropped from 9.9 my freshman year, to 9.7 as a sophomore, 9.5 as a junior, and then to 9.4. In ‘56, I ran 9.3 and 10.2 (for 100 meters), tying the world record in both.”

“Unlike most of the athletes I competed against in college, going to the Olympics was always my goal. I was six years old when a ‘Glenn Cunningham Day’ was held in Elkhart after he came back from the 1936 Olympics. He ran down (Elkhart’s) Main Street in his Olympic uniform, and for a six-year kid, that was something. So going to the Olympics was always in the back of my mind.”

Summing it up, Baker offered this sage advice, “Be patient and keep working. You really have to want to do it. Don’t give up; keep training.” Words of a champion and one that has been there, both last and first!


NOTES on other non-state champion Kansas prep Olympians: Three women who attended Kansas high schools before becoming Olympians never competed in the Kansas state championships: 1964 Olympian (400m) Janell Smith of Fredonia HS; 1968 Olympian (80m H) Julia Dyer of Topeka HS; and 1996 Olympian (SP) Valeyta Althouse of Wamego HS. Two other Olympians competed in the state meet but were unable to win a state championship: 1984 Olympian (PV) Doug Lytle of SM North HS, and 1996 Olympian (Stpl) Sarah Heeb of Topeka West HS.

I knew or found out the stories behind the other Olympians who had not won state titles: Smith and Dyer competed before the KSHSAA had an official state championship for girls and most schools didn’t have any athletics at all for girls; Althouse transferred out of state after her freshman year; Lytle finished second at state while competing during the greatest era of prep pole vaulting in Kansas track & field history; Heeb had finished sixth as prep senior in the 300-meter hurdles before finding an event that better fit her skills as a collegian, the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and in which she would become the first official IAAF world record holder.