Hey IronHead
charlie must freak each time you make a post on this site. those pink shorts of his are even for the 80’s the worlds worst fashion statement of all time. up there with billy ray cyrus’ mullet
one photograph i am sure he wishes was never taken. 
My 10.1 legal was at the Pan Am trials in Vanc in 1971. The times in Munich are correct but the 10.51 was in round two.
I also had 2 10.1s windy and 18 10.2s over 2 years. The injury I had in 72 occured at the Oly trials/nats, the first race I’d lost in Canada since 1970.
I first won the Nats in 1970 in rain and headwind in 10.4, second was John Swainson (pb 10,3 that season) at 10.8, third was Harry Jerome at 11.0 after an earlier season windy 10.2)
My favourite Nats was in Vanc in 1973. the track was grasstex (rubberized asphalt) and had been laid the day before. It was so soft that everyone left footprints all the way down the track. After the race, the official who’d left us to compete on that surface came up to me and said: “10.8 huh! Would have been good in 1928! Ha Ha.”
Just for the record, I’d run 10.3 the week before in Toronto and others there had run similar times as well.
And you wonder why I stopped running at 24.
Now you know how desperate I was for free clothes!
What would it take to get you in some masters meets ?
Insanity!!
did mr. francis fight in vietnam…
curious !!!
ciao
He is canadian!!! They don’t tend to get too mixed up in stuff below the boarder from what i can tell. (Though before I get told that canada was involved in Vietnam I have no idea of american history)
“Charles” appears on stat lists with 10.51, but wind aided he did 10.36 in Cali on 1st August 1971 with +4.2m/s, in semi finals of Pan Am Games in Cali. Don Quarrie won that race in 10.23, from Ramirez 10.32, Dr. Meriwether 3th 10.35 and Charlie 10.36. Earlier, Charlie was second in heats with 10.44 (wind +2.5) as Lennox Miller won in 10.30.
The final had 0.0 wind reading and Don won in 10.29, Lennox Miller 10.32, Meriwether 10.34, Montes 10.44, Ramirez 10.44, Charlie 10.53.
Two days later, Don won run 19.86 for his 200m win. Wow.
In 1970, the EG’s pointed out that Electronic timing had a .05 delay built in to compensate towards hand timing and the IAAF removed it rather than expand it as the East Germans had asked. I was supposed to have been done by 1971 but apparently wasn’t. that’s why my original time of 10.31 was adjusted to 10.36, and of course DQ’s WR in the 200 was changed from 19.81 to 19.86.
In any event, the only point to recounting this is to show that I was fast enough on occasion to feel the effects of technique and workload yet frustrated enough to drop out early and try to coach others to do a hell of a lot better than I did.
Do you think that as you describe it being “fast enough on occasion to feel the effects of technique and workload yet frustrated enough to drop out early” you were more analytical as an athlete and person of training technique, philosophy etc.?
Its just that in many countries and sports there is a view that you need to be top-class athlete to be a top-class coach.
[Sometimes I think this mindset hampers nations and one example I would think of is across the Irish Sea in the UK where the focus is on what Johnson has to say or what Christie is doing rather than on finding the best people.]
My own opinion is very similar to that a new Gaelic Football manager was asked when he got a job but had no illustrious footballing career behind him …
Reporter - “How do you think you’ll cope having not played at the highest level, do you not need experience at the top to manage the top?”
Manager - “You don’t have to have been a horse to be a jockey”
I suppose this is off track, but Charlie did you meet Delano Mereweather? What was he like? He had this meteoric rise to fame and was gone almost as quickly.
I read that he worked as a doctor and could only train late at night so he sprinted the stairs in his apartment block around midnight or thereabouts. Was that all rubbish or true? Anyone know?
I remember seeing him win some indoor races and he was wearing red braces to hold up his pants. Was he one of the guys that went pro with ITA (?), was it Mike O’Hara or a name like that who set up that earliest attempt at pro track and field? That was when the Big O went berserk with the shot WR
Was Franno ever a world class sprinter? As for him being a Jockey well i wouldn’t want to be the horse!
Yes, I did talk with Delano. A very interesting season. A 9.0wind aided 100y win of the US champs and an American Science Award for research into Sickle Cell Anaemia in the same year. That’s a double you don’t see every day. He was 27 at that time, I believe.
I guess he ended up carrying the can for the ill-fated swine flu vaccination program he was put in charge of during the Jimmy Carter Administration. Didn’t hear of him after that.
Off topic question:Will Charlie Francis Time(CFT)(as in the title of this thread) replace Eastern Standard Time(EST)?
Is CFT gonna be a 25-hour day? If so… COOL!
Cool F’ing Time! Charlie Francis TIME!
C’mon the pink shorts are classic!
not to mention Ben looks like he is picking the biggest wedgie out of his arse.
i ask again…any vids of charlie running the 100
200…
anything… look around, lift every stone on the planet, find one.
ciao
i’ve got him in the 400 against USC in the collisim in 8mm.
just kidding