SE: 69 Years Later, Thane Baker Reflects on Olympic Debut as K-State Junior

By: Greg McCune

Thane Baker is the most decorated Olympic Track and Field athlete in K-State history, winning a silver medal in the 200 meters in Helsinki in 1952, and a gold, silver and bronze in Melbourne in 1956.

But his remarkable achievements beginning at age 20 might never have happened had he not met legendary K-State track coach Ward Haylett at the old Nichols Gym his freshman year in Manhattan.

"He put an article in the newspaper asking for interest in the track team," Baker, who will be 90 years old later this year, said in an interview from his home near Omaha, Nebraska.

Using a 16-millimeter projector, Haylett gave a presentation to students about Track and Field at K-State and met one-on-one with those interested in joining the team after the talk. When Haylett heard Baker's story of being an underachieving sprinter for Elkhart High School in western Kansas, Haylett invited him to walk on.

"'We might be able to make a quarter-miler out of you,'" Baker recalled Haylett saying at the time.

Thus began a partnership that would develop Baker into one of the best sprinters in the world. He equaled Jesse Owens' longstanding time of 10.2 seconds in the 100 meters, set a world-record of 20.6 seconds in the 200 meters in 1956 on a curved track that would still rank him third on the K-State all-time list 65 years later.

Just to get to that meeting at Nichols, however, Baker had overcome a big obstacle that might have derailed his running career.

In October of his freshman year in high school, Baker said he was working in the Ford garage in Elkhart tearing up some wooden boxes with two hammers. A piece of steel came off the head of a hammer and went inside the knee joint.

A surgeon in Hays, Kansas, tried but couldn't get the steel out. So Baker has lived with it ever since. He believes the time on crutches and surgeries set back his athletic development. He didn't resume playing sports in high school until his junior year.

"That leg wasn't too strong for a couple years of inactivity. That probably was why it took me a while to get stronger and faster," said Baker.

He also believes that a factor in his development was that his right leg became bigger and stronger than the left leg with the steel in the knee. The right leg is on the outside pushing hard on the curve of the 200 meters, which Baker believes was fortunate.

Some biographies of Baker say that his left leg was shorter than the right, but he said that is misinformation. The trainer at K-State measured them and said they were the same.

At the state meet in Wichita his senior year in high school, Baker said he barely made it into the finals and finished sixth in both the 100- and 220-yard dashes.

Even when he joined the team at K-State, he wasn't allowed to compete immediately. Freshmen weren't eligible back in those days, so he only practiced with the varsity and was expected to help time the older guys during training.

Every day, Haylett would put on a chalkboard the training program for each group. Baker would always do more than the coach instructed.

"If we were supposed to run six 220 yard runs at a certain time I would run a seventh at a faster time," said Baker.

It is surprising, from today's perspective, that Baker did not lift weights during his career.

"Coach said don't do any weight training. It will make you musclebound. And don't go swimming. It will make your muscles used to slow activity," Baker said.

But Baker said he instinctively knew that he needed to be stronger, so he would do jumping jacks, pushups, setups and exercises every day.

Finally, after his freshman year was over in May, he was allowed to run at an AAU meet in Kansas City. He won the 100, 220, ran on the sprint relay and was high point scorer of the meet.

Baker began to believe he could be a pretty good collegiate sprinter.

"My times weren't that great," he said. "It never entered my mind that I could be on the Olympic team in two years."

Baker credits another facet of his training program that helped him improve - "The rabbit."

Dick Towers was a half-miler on the K-State team, halfback on the football team and also a good quarter-miler.

"He was my rabbit," Baker said.

They would line up on the straightaway and start running with Towers five yards ahead. They ran at three-quarters speed at a smooth pace, then Baker would shout "seven-eighths" and they would speed up. Finally, Baker would shout "hit it" and the race was on.

He had to overtake Towers by the end of the 100.

"When you really hit it and surge you can learn to run faster," Baker said.

The Olympic qualifying process in 1952 required that he finish in the top six of the NCAA or AAU National Championships or first in military service competitions. Baker finished third in the NCAA in the 200 meters and certified through the AAU as well.

The 100-meter trials were first on June 27 and he advanced out of the preliminary round but did not finish in the top three of the final. The next afternoon, 13 men ran the preliminaries of the 200 meters for six spots in the final and Baker advanced.

Baker said that to survive the two 100s and two 200-meter races in two days he built up his stamina by practicing repeat 220s with short breaks. Baker wasn't expected to make the team in 1952 but his philosophy was that anybody could beat anybody on a given day.

Some years there is a dominant sprinter, as there was at several recent Olympics in Usain Bolt of Jamaica. But Baker was fortunate in 1952 that the U.S. team was fairly wide open in the 200 meters.

To the surprise of many, Baker finished second in the 200-meter final at the trials, which was only an hour after the preliminaries.

He was off to Helsinki, Finland, for the 1952 Olympics as a junior in college.

"I was 20 years old and I was a wide-eyed kid from western Kansas," Baker said. "I can't express what a cultural shock it was."

None of his family got to go to the Helsinki Olympics. In fact, his father had never been able to get off work to watch him run.

Baker didn't think Coach Haylett would be in Helsinki either, but the people of Manhattan took up a collection so the K-State Track & Field coach could go to the Olympics and watch Baker run.

During two days of Olympic competition, Haylett watched Baker advance from the preliminaries to the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals from up in the stands near the 200-meter start line.

Baker won the silver medal in the biggest race of his life. Haylett quietly went outside the stadium and waited for Baker by the transport bus. What a surprise for Baker to find his coach standing there 5,000 miles from home.

Haylett said he hadn't told Baker because he didn't want to disrupt his focus before the race, and because of a rule preventing U.S. team members from talking to coaches other than their Olympic coach.

Baker went on to run all over the world in exhibition meets and at another Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, where he won gold in the 4x100 relay, a silver in the 100 meters and a bronze in the 200.

He had a long career in the oil industry and was instrumental in developing the U.S. Masters Track and Field program for athletes who want to compete long after their elite careers are over. Baker competed in Masters track meets all over the world from age 40 to age 65.

He joined the Air Force after K-State, married K-State student Sally Doyle in 1954 and at his second Olympics in Melbourne in 1956, she was there to cheer him on. Sally passed away in January 2021, after 66 years as a driving force in Thane's life and traveling partner.

Their daughter Catherine Baker Nicholson was a standout 800-meter runner at Rice University and won the Division II national championship in 1981.

She will attend the 2021 Big 12 Outdoor Track & Field Championship in Manhattan with Baker this weekend, as her father returns to the place where his journey in the sport began.

Baker said that the Helsinki experience opened the world to him and transformed his life.

"It's hard to describe how motivating it was for me," Baker said.

Photos courtesy of the Baker family's private collection.

Kansas State University Athletics

SE: 69 Years Later, Thane Baker Reflects on Olympic Debut as K-State Junior

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