Charles William Paddock was an American track star who competed for the University of Southern California and was a two-time Olympic sprinting champion. In his professional career, he was a nationally-known sports journalist and eventually managed a string of newspapers. In 1981, he was portrayed in the award-winning film about the 1924 games, Chariots of Fire.
Paddock was born in Gainesville, Texas, to Charles Hurd Paddock and Lulu (Robinson) Paddock. His family moved to Pasadena, California, when he was a child. He attended Throop Polytechnic from the 2nd through 8th grades. When his uncanny running speed became apparent, school officials had to overcome his father's objections to his competing.
Paddock attended Pasadena High School from 1915–18. On April 8, 1916, as a freshman, he won the 100 and 220 at the California State Meet. On April 28, 1917, at State, he finished a close 2nd in the 100, and won the 220. On April 27, 1918, at State, as a junior, Paddock won the 100 and 220, and P.H.S. won the team competition.
He skipped his senior year to attend the University of Southern California.
He interrupted his freshman year at USC to train at Camp Zachary Taylor, Louisville, Kentucky, from November 1918 to about January 1919, graduating as an Army 2nd lieutenant from the Field Artillery School. He restarted college in the second semester. He won the 100 and 200 m in the first major sporting event after the war, the 1919 Inter-Allied Games, in which soldiers of the Allied nations competed against each other.
University of Southern California
Managed by gifted coach Dean Cromwell, Paddock lettered at USC consecutively from 1920-1923, and captained the team as a senior in 1923. He attended the university aided by an athletic scholarship. During his collegiate years, in 1921, he first set 100-yard dash world record and tied the world record in the 220-yard dash at a Berkeley, California track meet. As a tribute to his collegiate achievements, he was later honored as a member of two All-Century Teams for the Pac-10.
In 1920, Paddock represented his country at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp under Head Olympic Coach John F. Moakley, who coached track at Cornell for fifty years. In Belgium, he had his greatest successes, winning the 100 m final, while placing second in the 200 m event. With the American 4 × 100 m relay team, Paddock won a third Olympic medal. Paddock became well known for his unusual finishing style, leaping towards the finish line at the end of the race.
In 1921 year, he ran the 110 yd dash, which is slightly more than 100 m, in 10.2 seconds. It was not until 1956 that the world record for the 100 m became lower than Paddock's time over 110 yard. Paddock broke or equaled several other world records over Imperial distances.
Under the management of Coach Lawson Robertson at the 1924 Paris Olympics, Paddock again qualified for both the 100 and 200 m finals, but he was less successful than four years earlier. Paddock finished 5th in the 100 m and won another silver medal in the 200 m., and was not a part of the American relay team. In Chariots of Fire, the 1981 Oscar-winning film about those races, Paddock was portrayed by Dennis Christopher.
Again under the management of Lawson Robertson in 1928, Paddock participated in his 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, running a 22.1 in the semi-final of the 200m sprint, but did not reach the final. Percy Williams of Canada took the gold with a time of 21.8, Walter Rangley of Great Britain took the silver with a time of 21.9, Helmut Kornig took the Bronze with a time of 21.9.
In July 1929, Paddock announced his retirement from running in a syndicated news article. By early 1930, he'd changed his mind and started aiming at making his 4th Olympic team. It didn't work out, and at the Olympics Trials, July 15–16, 1932, he was merely a spectator.
Paddock aspired to be an author from an early age. While a 13-year-old 8th grader at Throop Polytechnic, his local Pasadena Star described him as “writing a number of stories that have won high praise from his teachers and friends.” Two of those stories were published in the paper on December 24 and 29, 1913. He also edited Throop’s school paper, Elementary Life.
The following June, he impressed all concerned by dramatizing Sir Walter Scott’s narrative poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel. He also acted in the performance. The News lauded him as “the youngest dramatist in Pasadena, if not the entire state.” He followed up with dramatizations of Scott’s The Lady of the Lake and Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. For these plays he “organized, costumed and drilled companies of boys and girls of his own age and older for the presentation of these dramatizations before audiences of his elders numbering hundreds.”
At Pasadena High, he participated in debate and oration contests. For example, on April 24, 1917, as a sophomore, he won a prize for his speech on “Alcohol and Labor.”
At USC, he wrote for the Daily Trojan, serving as editor-in-chief for the 1920–21 school year.
After attending the Inter-Allied Games, Paris, in 1919, he wrote a 10-part series about the event for the Pasadena Star-News. He followed up with two 4-part series on postwar conditions abroad. He continued as an occasional sports reporter for the Star-News. A highlight was his 12-part report on the Antwerp Olympics. He joined the staff of the Star-News in this period.
In 1921, he said that “his greatest ambition in life is to become a novelist really worth while.” That year, he started a long record of appearing in mass-market magazines like Leslie's, Scientific American, and Physical Culture, generally writing about track and fitness. He eventually appeared in the most popular magazines, like the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's. He never published a novel.