Julia Chase-Brand

This page includes two articles by Julia Chase-Brand, MD, PhD. The first, "Getting to Abilene," describes her personal experiences, as a 17-year old, running the women's 800 in the 1960 Olympic Track Trials The second, "Collapse of a 30-Year Hoax," explains why the women's 800 was so important in 1958-1960, and how it contributed to the birth of American women's running.

For more on Chase-Brand, see this NY Times article.

Getting to Abilene

The American ban on women running further than a half lap (the 220), stood from 1928 to 1958, but to the consternation of our AAU, the half mile was added to the 1960 Rome Olympic schedule.

Finally, in 1958, the ban was lifted, and American women were permitted to run the half. New England, however, is very conservative. Its AAU finally relented after two years, and on July 4, 1960 it held its first 880 as part of the New England Women’s track and field Championships.

I was 17 and this was my first race ever. (I even had to register using a false address in Rhode Island because Connecticut still wouldn’t permit a women’s 880). I showed up wearing my brother’s hand-me-down shorts and T shirt and a pair of keds sneakers and my first race ever, was the New England Championships. I shot into the lead and Johnny Kelley had to race over and yell at me to slow down. On the final turn, a couple of young lovers were blocking the inside three lanes and I politely puffed, “Please I’m running a race. Can I get by?” I won by half a lap.

By the next week, my coach George Terry, had made reservations for the two of us to fly to Abilene, Texas for the 1960 Women’s Track and Field Olympic Trials. It turned out that as the New England Champion and record holder, I was eligible for the Trials. Nine days, after my very first race, and I would be trying out for a spot on the Olympic team, Whew! 

We took a night flight to save money, and were sound asleep when there was a sudden commotion on the plane. We awoke at 3 am to see the engine just outside my window burst into flames. The pilot tried to shut down the engine, and when he couldn’t, made an emergency landing at Little Rock, Arkansas. The airlines patched together a series of ‘puddle-jumper’ flights to get us from Little Rock to Abilene, and we finally arrived at 5 pm, exhausted, hot and hungry. My race was scheduled for the next day.

I walked into the drab, stuffy woman’s dorm, and the very first people I saw were the Tennessee Tigerbelles, Wilma Rudoph’s team, in their swank polished uniforms, and here I was, a 17 year old small town kid in sneakers and a wrinkled cotton dress.

George decided that my sneakers had to be replaced with proper track shoes for this important event, but the stores carried no women’s track shoes in 1960, so he duct-taped his over-sized flats onto my feet. Now I felt like Bozo the Clown. 

He then scouted the runners in my heat, and told me to shadow Stella Walsh for the first lap. Stella, he said, had been an Olympic gold medalist (back in1932), and he figured she would know pace. At 49, Stella was also an intimidating, hulking figure who was later found on autopsy to have been a genetic mosaic, half male, half female.

They called our heat to the starting line. I was panic-stricken, and felt like I was suffocating. I ducked under the stands, took off my bra, came back to the track, and stuffed it into George’s pocket saying, “Don’t look!” Someone, was setting up starting blocks in our heat – in the 880? 

At this point, a six-inch grasshopper took off down the track ahead of us and we all laughed, but I was so nervous, I felt sick to my stomach. I was only 17 and I’d run the first race of my life only nine days before, and here I was running in the Olympic Trials, in taped-on shoes no less. I improved my time by four seconds but didn’t make the Finals. 

We stayed another day to watch the finals. Wilma Rudolf was spectacular in the sprints and would go on to win three gold medals in Rome. In the 800 meter, 16-year old Billie Pat Daniels held off Rose Lovelace at the wire in the 800 meter finals, and set a new American record of 2:15.6.

By then, we’d run out of money, so George and I set out to hitch-hike to the airport with our suitcases. Did I mention that it was blazing hot in Abilene, well over 100 degrees and no shade? We stood by the side of the road in the dust and dry grass, for half an hour as cars whizzed by until finally, a Mexican family in a truck pulled over and gave us a lift to the airport for which we were very grateful.

In only nine days, I’d run my first race, won the New England Championship, survived a plane fire, run in the Olympic Trials, and learned how to hitchhike. Not bad for a 17 year old

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