A forgotten gym teacher may have been the best all-around athlete of the early 20th century. Tonight, the History Channel is airing a documentary about Jim Thorpe entitled Lit by Lightning. Promotional excerpts include exaggerated statements about how Thorpe was the greatest athlete of all time and a great American (Why? Because he could run fast and throw a ball?). However, a little-known gym teacher of the same generation performed better than Thorpe in 19 track and field events. Indeed, Thorpe was aware of Richard Perry Williams and called him the fastest sprinter who ever lived. Thorpe won the pentathlon and decathlon gold medals in the 1912 Olympics but was forced to return them when authorities discovered he had played minor league baseball before competing in the Olympics. During the Gilded Age professional athletes were considered tawdry, like sex workers. Williams suffered from the same snobby prejudice. The Amateur Athletic Union, the governing body of sport at the time, considered Williams a professional athlete because he took a job as a gym teacher at Tufts University in 1899. None of his records were officially recognized because he was considered a professional, though he definitely beat the amateur world record of the time in the 100-yard dash.
The History Channel is airing a special about Jim Thorpe tonight. Richard Perry Williams of the same generation performed better than Thorpe in 19 track and field events.
Photo of Richard Perry Williams. He was as fast as a modern-day Olympic Sprinter over 100 years ago.
Photo of Williams when he was in his fifties. He worked for the CCC and an ammunition plant after retiring from being a gym teacher.
Richard Perry Williams was born in Cornwall, England during 1874 and his family moved to the U.S. 5 years later. He began competing in track and field during the last decade of the 19th century. In 1902 he was just 5’9″ and 141 pounds but after meeting Eugen Sandow, a famous vaudevillian strong man of the time, he added 20 pounds of muscle from weight-training, a method not commonly used at the time. In 1906 he ran the 100-yard dash in 9 seconds flat–stunningly ahead of his time. It’s tied with the officially recognized record in that event held by Ivory Crockett in 1974. The world record in the 100-meter dash set in 2009 by Usain Bolt is 9.58. Williams once ran the 100-meter dash in 9.8 seconds, showing he could’ve competed with modern day Olympic sprinters. He accomplished his 100-yard dash on a perfectly measured track and timed with 5 different stopwatches. However, he could never match that time again, and the best he could do was 9.2 seconds–still competitive with modern Olympic sprinters. Here’s a list of some of his feats. Most of them were accomplished when he was between the ages of 22-34 (1898-1910).
100-yard dash–9 seconds
100-meter dash–9.8 seconds
400 meters–46.6 seconds
mile run–4:28
long jump–26.5 feet
standing broad jump with weights–15.4 feet
16-pound shotput–47 feet 9 inches
12-pound shotput–57 feet 3 inches
discus–142 feet 9 inches
baseball throw–418 feet 3 inches
circling the bases on a baseball diamond–12 seconds
chin-ups–48
dips–55
(I can do >60 pull-ups and could probably do more than 55 dips. The last 2 are not exceptionally impressive.)
Wiliams best sport was one wall handball. From 1895 when he was 19 until 1943 when he was 67, he went 14,657-0, never losing a game.
He was a winning coach as well. He worked as a gym teacher and coach at various small colleges in the Midwest including Wittenberg University in Ohio. His track teams went 221-6. His baseball teams (including high school and club) went 426-30. His football teams won 321 games and 16 championships, and his basketball teams won 1016 games and 21 championships.
During the Depression he took a job as an administrator for the Civilian Conservation Corps. He worked as an inspector for an ammunitions plant during World War II when he was in his late sixties. He died in 1966 a few weeks before his 92nd birthday.
References:
Willoughby, David
The Super Athletes
A.S. Barnes and Company 1970
Zimkus, John
“Is One of the World’s Greatest Athletes Buried in Lebanon”
The Historica Log 67 (1&2) 2017
GeorgiaBeforePeople 