So, who will he choose?
When asked if he is worried about competition from our gentle neighbors to the north, he chuckled and shook his head confidently. “We have a strong field of sprinters. In Chicago, their times were bunched close together, so I have a lot of options. I plan to announce a shake-up in our relay team within the next few days.”
With all of this confidence in the air, we can’t help but wonder if turncoat Stella Walsh regrets her decision to abandon her adopted country. After all, what girl doesn’t want to wear as much gold as she possibly can?
WHEN LOUISE READ what Coach Vreeland said in the newspaper, she felt like she had taken a punch to the gut. A shake-up?
Overnight, the tenor of the team shifted.
The next morning, she was on her way to the front desk to check for mail when a group of her teammates filed through the lobby, all in uniform.
Louise stopped Caroline, “What’s happening? Did I miss something?”
Caroline’s eyes widened. “We just took a team photo in the garden. I asked where you and Tidye were, but someone said you both weren’t feeling well.”
“That’s not true at all. We were in our room. No one told us anything about a team photo.”
“I’m so sorry. I should have known that something wasn’t right. Don’t worry, I’m sure there will be more photos.”
Louise felt tears welling up. Who had said they weren’t feeling well? Babe? One of the other girls? How had this been allowed to happen? She reached for the nearby wall, determined not to cry in front of her teammates, not that anyone was watching except for Caroline. All the other women walked by them without a backward glance. Caroline watched Louise struggle to retain her composure, her expression softening in sympathy. “I’m really sorry.”
“I know you are,” Louise said, her throat thick. “It’s fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. Not one bit.
THE NEXT DAY the women gathered around Coach Vreeland at the track, ready to start practice, but he frowned as he studied a piece of paper on his clipboard. Babe leaned in close to see. “Hey, Coach, is that a telegram? My publicist said I might be getting one from the president wishing me congratulations on my win in the javelin.”
Louise kept her face still, but she sensed a ripple of impatience among her teammates. Beside her Tidye huffed, but disguised it in a cough. At every turn, Babe made certain no one forgot her successes.
“No,” Coach Vreeland answered. “It’s actually from the NAACP urging me to ensure that all runners who qualified in Chicago should get a chance to compete here.”
Though he didn’t look at Louise or Tidye when he said this, everyone else did. Mortified, Louise dropped her gaze to her track shoes.
“Let’s try some hand-off practice today,” he said, stuffing the telegram into his back pocket and holding out two wooden batons. “We don’t have much time to prepare.”
While he explained how the transitions worked, Louise clasped her shaking hands together. The last thing she needed was to be so nervous that she dropped the baton during practice.
“Make sure that you hold the baton firmly in your hand before you reach the final line in your zone.” He pointed at a mark on the track. “Your team will be disqualified if you don’t have it by that mark, and all of our hopes for a medal will be gone. Everyone clear? We’re not going to lose this race.”
The women nodded and avoided looking at each other.
Coach Vreeland placed them in pairs and they started practicing hand-offs. Almost every time it was Louise’s turn and she thrust her hand back to receive the baton, it was not a steady transition. Often the girls weren’t giving her the command to be ready as they approached so she was caught off guard and would bobble it. Or they pushed the baton at her too hard so she’d stumble and drop it. Or the other girl would let go too soon and the baton would fall to the ground. The girls would gather around and look at her with dismay and annoyance. Coach Vreeland would frown and make a note on his clipboard, but he never came over to help her the way he did with a couple of the others. What was she doing wrong? She had done relays before and never had the same trouble. Why was it suddenly so difficult?
When Tidye was paired with her, the two of them sailed through the hand-off with no trouble. In fact, they were faster than any of the other pairings. “Finally,” Louise whispered. “I’ve barely gotten one hand-off right so far.”
Tidye pressed her lips together before saying, “The same thing is happening to me. I don’t think it’s by accident.”
“Tidye, Louise, why are you two just standing there talking? It’s like you two don’t even want to run this relay! Get back to work,” Coach Vreeland brayed.
Shaken, Louise turned away to run back to her starting line. Was it possible that some of the other girls were trying to sabotage Louise’s and Tidye’s chances for being selected to run in the relay? Or was everyone jittery and making mistakes?
BACK IN THEIR room, Louise dropped her workout bag and fell into a nearby chair, limp with exhaustion. She watched Tidye remove her track shoes from her bag and wipe the cinder off them. “Did you have anything to do with that telegram?” Louise asked.
Tidye shrugged. “The Defender and the NAACP are following this Olympics closely. Between the two of us and the men, there’s potential for a lot of Negro success. All of those girls seem to have a coach or someone looking out for them, ready to fight to get their girl a racing spot, but we don’t have
