Coach Templeton Visits McCurdy, Aids Track Men

For a few days recently it seemed like old home week at Soldiers Field. Bob Rittenburg, a Harvard track immortal ever since his 26-point performance against Yale in 1955, returned to work himself back into shape. Charley Jenkins, the reigning Olympic 400-meter champion and an old habitue of Soldiers Field, was back, and Tom Courtney, Olympic 800-meter king and now an assistant varsity coach, breezed through a 50.8 440 early in the week.

But the center of attention for most of the week was a small, bronzed man whose athletic feats were relatively modest. He was Dink Templeton, track coach at Stanford from 1921 to 1939, whom varsity coach Bill McCurdy, one of his former pupils, calls "the greatest track coach going."

Templeton's disciples flocked to meet him once again. Besides McCurdy, 1937 Pacific Coast 880 champ, there was Lonnie Spurrier, first-year Business School student who set a world's record in the 880 while running for Templeton's San Francisco Athletic Club in 1955. Guinn Smith, assistant Dean of the Business School, came over to see the coach who guided him to the 1948 Olympic pole vault championship.

Tiring of conversation with reporters his first day out, Templeton approached Steven Cohen, a sophomore shot putter, who was having his troubles. He worked with Cohen's body position for a moment and said, "Go thead and throw one." Cohen threw, and the shot landed two feet past the best previous mark. "That's the best I've felt in two weeks," Cohen remarked, and Templeton beamed with satisfaction.