The Story of the 4 Minute Mile

    Until 1954, the four minute mile was something beyond human comprehension, and thus beyond human achievement. It was believed to be a real physical limit for a human being to run a mile in four minutes or less. “The four minute mile was the goal that athletes and sportsmen had talked of and dreamt about for so many years,” wrote British runner, Roger Bannister. Like climbing Mount Everest before Hillary, Bannister wrote, runners “used to think it was quite impossible, and beyond the reach of any runner.” It seemed to be as absolute a limit as the waterfalls cascading off the edge of the Earth were to early mariners. And it proved to be just as much a mirage.

    In May 1954, on an Oxford track, Bannister shattered this barrier, running the mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. Two months later, in Finland, Bannister’s “miracle mile” was again broken by Australian rival John Landy, who achieved a time of 3 minutes 56 seconds. Within three years, 16 other runners had also broken this record.

    What happened in those three years? Was there a sudden growth spurt in human evolution? Was there a genetic engineering experiment that created a new race of super runners? No, the basic human equipment was the same. What changed was the mental model. The runners of the past had been held back by a mindset that said they could not surpass the four minute mile. When that limit was broken, the others saw that they could do something they had previously thought impossible.

    Transforming our world begins with changing the way we think about it. The more we understand the role of mental models in this process, and the better able we are to recognize these models, the better we can examine the strengths of our models and their limitations. We can sustain the models that allow us to act effectively in the world and get ride of those that constrain us unnecessarily. 

    If Roger Bannister had accepted the barrier of the four-minute mile as a real, physical limitation, he might never have tried to surpass it. As Bannister writes, “No one can say, ‘You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.’ The human spirit is indomitable.”

–Yoram Wind and Colin Crook

A Late Wish for Everyone to Have a Merry Christmas

I ran across this story about a boy named Teddy a few years ago.  I wanted to share it.  Have a Merry Christmas!

It seems that there was a lady named Jean Thompson and when she stood in front of her fifth-grade class on the very first day of school in the fall, she told the children a lie.

Like most teachers, she looked at her pupils and said that she loved them all the same, that she would treat them all alike. And that was impossible because there in front of her, slumped in his seat on the third row, was a boy named Teddy Stoddard.

Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed he didn’t play well with other children, that his clothes were unkept and that he constantly needed a bath. Add to it the fact Teddy was unpleasant.

It got to the point during the first few months that she would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold ‘X’s and then marking the ‘F’ at the top of the paper biggest of all.

Because Teddy was a sullen little boy, nobody else seemed to enjoy him, either.

Now at the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child’s records and--because of things--put Teddy’s off until last. But when she opened his file, she was in for a surprise.

His first-grade teacher had written, “Teddy is a bright, inquisitive child with a ready laugh. He does work neatly and has good manners … he is a joy to be around.”

His second-grade teacher wrote, “Teddy is an excellent student and is well-liked by his classmates--but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness and life at home must be a struggle.”

The third-grade teacher wrote, “Teddy continues to work hard but his mother’s death has been hard on him. He tries to do his best but his father doesn’t show much interest in school. He doesn’t have many friends and sometimes sleeps in class. His is tardy and could become a problem.”

By now Mrs. Thompson realized the problem but Christmas was coming fast.

It was all she could do, with the school play and all, until the day before the holidays began and she was suddenly forced to focus on Teddy Stoddard on that last day before the vacation would begin.

Her children brought her presents, all in gay ribbon and bright paper, except for Teddy’s, which was clumsily wrapped in heavy, brown paper of scissored grocery bag.

Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents and some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet, with some of the stones missing, and a bottle that was one-quarter full of cologne.

But she stifled the laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and she dabbed some of the perfume behind the other wrist.

At the end of the day, as the other children joyously raced from the room, Teddy Stoddard stayed behind, just long enough to say, “Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my mom used to.”

As soon as Teddy left, Mrs. Thompson knelt at her desk and there, after the last day of school before Christmas, she cried for at least an hour.

And, on that very day, she quit teaching reading and writing and spelling. Instead she began to teach children. And Jean Thompson paid particular attention to one they all called Teddy.

As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded and, on days that there would be an important test, Mrs. Thompson would remember the cologne.

By the end of the year he had become one of the smartest children in the class and … well, he had also become the “pet” of the teacher who had once vowed to love all of her children exactly the same.

A year later she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling her that of all the teachers he’d had in elementary school, she was his favorite.

Six years went by before she got another note from Teddy. And then he wrote that as he finished high school, third in his class, she was still his favorite teacher of all time.

Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things had been tough at times, that he’d stayed in school, had stuck with it, and graduated from college with the highest of honors. He assured Mrs. Thompson she was still his favorite teacher.

Then four more years passed and another letter came.

This time he explained that after he got his bachelor’s degree, he decided to go a little further. That she was still his favorite teacher but now that his name was a little longer. And the letter was signed, “Theodore F. Stoddard, M.D.”

The story doesn’t end there. You see, there was yet another letter that spring. Teddy said that… well, that he’d met his girl and was to be married.

He explained that his father had died a couple of years ago and he was wondering … well, if Mrs. Thompson might agree to sit in the pew usually reserved for the mother of the groom.

You’ll have to decide for yourself whether or not she wore that bracelet, the one with several rhinestones missing.

But I bet on that special day, Jean Thompson smelled just like … well, just like she smelled many years before on the last day of school before the Christmas Holidays begin.

Dax Crum

College basketball: Southern Utah guard Crum plays with one hand

By Doug Alden | The Associated Press

3/8/2008

Photo by: Douglas C. Pizac/The Associated Press

CEDAR CITY, Utah — When Dax Crum was a first-grader, his teacher stopped calling on him because he tried to answer every question.

Dax took to standing on his chair to make sure the teacher would see him. The teacher called the boy's father.

"He just laughed at her," Crum recalled. "He said, 'You're making it a game and he likes to win.' "

There's something else to remember about Dax Crum. That hand he used to raise so eagerly in first grade was the only one he had.

Crum, a senior guard at Southern Utah, was born with only a left hand. Yet he still plays well enough to be part of an NCAA Division I program. It was what he wanted to do all along. And those who mocked him as a kid and told him he couldn't play basketball didn't stand a chance.

Crum's playing career will end with Southern Utah's season. The Thunderbirds open the Summit League tournament against IPFW today in Tulsa.

The fact that he has had a college career at all amazes everybody but Crum. It's hard to notice there's something different about him when he's playing. He can dribble on either side, although he's definitely better with his left. His right arm ends at the wrist, other than an extension that looks like a finger. There's not much he can do with the finger alone, but combined with the stump at the end of his wrist he can control and hold the ball.

He plays aggressive defense and is quick with his left hand and looks like anybody else when he shoots.

He said sometimes opponents don't even notice until the post-game handshake.

Southern Utah assistant Ron Carling said about a month into the season, he told his wife he couldn't believe that he was coaching a one-handed player. Karin Carling had watched the games from the bleachers and hadn't noticed.

"She said, 'Which one is it?,' " Ron Carling said.

Crum kind of prefers it that way. This has been his life, not a novelty show. His biography in Southern Utah's media guide makes no mention that he lacks a hand. But Crum, quiet and modest, understands why he's considered a standout without being a star.

Crum is an average shooter from the floor, but he's made 18 of 19 free throws this season. That's almost 95 percent, a total most players with two hands can't match.

"I'd like to be known as a good basketball player," Crum said. "A good one-handed basketball player wouldn't bother me, either."

Crum walked on at Southern Utah in 2005-06 and played in 11 games. He sat out last season, taking his redshirt and graduating, and planned to return to the team last fall as a graduate student. But when new coach Roger Reid was hired, he told Crum his chances of making the team were slim.

If Reid expected that to be enough to discourage Crum, he was mistaken.

"It's a marvel and a great story about a young man that has said I can do it instead of 'I can't do it,' " said Reid, who started Crum in the last six games of the regular season. "He's earned it. He could have quit many, many times."

Crum wasn't recruited for basketball despite winning three New Mexico state titles at Kirtland Central High School. He also excelled in soccer and went to Arizona Western junior college on a soccer scholarship. He also played basketball there before transferring to Southern Utah.

"I didn't like being told that, 'You can't do this. You're not going to be a basketball player,' " Crum said. "Well, why not? People don't want to answer that question."

Lately, fewer have been asking.