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CITY OP HOPE Public Relations Dept. 208 W. Eighth St. Los Angeles, Calif. 90014 (213) 626-4611 (Hank Brown) (Suggested Column Material) When the great Glenn Cunningham receives his "Victor?ǥ Award on June 27, at the Sportsmen's World Awards Presentations at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, many older sports fans will recall the thrills they felt when it was learned a man had actually run a mile in less than 4 minutes and 10 seconds. Cunningham, running in the 1930's, revolutionized mile running. A master of running strategy, he disrupted all accepted theories of running the mile by invariably running the second half-mile faster than the first* It has been said of Cunningham that he had the combined attributes of all the great milers who had preceded him; even pace, confidence, powerful torso, racing judgement and recuperative powers. As a small boy, Cunningham suffered burns on his legs and other parts of the body in a school house fire. He was not expected to walk again following the accident, much less become a world record holder in track and field. One of Glenn's earliest triumphs was in 1930, when he set a national interscholastic mile mark of 4:24.7 while a senior in high school. He later attended the University of Kansas during 1931-1934. 1?? 1933, Cunningham repeated his victory in the National Collegiate Mile Championship in 4:09.8, having won the race the previous year in 4:11*1* The following year Cunningham set a world record for the mile, 4:08.4, and later the same year broke his outdoor record at the Princeton Invitational Meet, running the standard in 4:06.7. In all, Cunningham set six world records in the mile, 1000-yards, 1300-meters and mile-and- a-half. Cunningham ran the fastest indoor mile of all time in 1938 at Dartmouth College, when he paced a blistering 4:04.4. Earlier, he had placed second in the 1500-meters at the Berlin Olympics of 1936, when he ran the distance in 3:48.4. Between 1932 and 1940, Cunningham ran the mile 41 times in 4:15 or faster, including 16 times in 4:10 or better Winner of the James E. Sullivan Award as the nation's most out- standing athlete for 1933, Cunningham also was named to the Helms Athletic Foundation Track and Field Hall of Fame in that forum's initial elections in 1948. Devoted y??u^^, fair play and good sportsmanship, he now operates the Glenn Cunningham Youth Ranch, Inc., at Augusta, Kansas. It was his exemplary conduct, on and off the fields of athletic endeavor that earned Glenn Cunningham his "Victor" Award. The honor is accorded by a blue ribbon National Selections Committee of ranking sportswriters and sportscasters. The Sportsmen's World Awards Presentations will be syndicated for national television by Hughes Television Network, with honorees and other distinguished guests flown to Las Vegas by Trans World Airlines, official carrier for the event. Jinn WWW (670sj)