It never fails.  After you publish a story, someone comes forward with new and interesting material to add to the story.  Now its true with Hot Foot too.

After a successful tour of the Scottish Highland Games where Walter Knox dominated the circuit, he was on the lookout for a high profile matched competition for an all-around championship.  He saw in a Glasgow newspaper a challenge for just that type of event by an Australian, "Weller".  Walter immediately wired to accept his challenge, but only if it was held in Scotland or England.  That was the end of the story in my book.  It never happened.

Well, I have been corresponding with Doug Fox, an Australian lacrosse historian, and asked him who this "Weller" was.  He sent me all kinds of information.

Clarence Weller, or "Weber" as he was known there, was a renown strongman in Australia.  Four years younger than Walter, he was at the height of his powers in 1913 when Walter proposed a matched contest.  Weber had taken up "Sandow's" weight-lifting program in the 1890's and had honed his body into an impressive power machine.

Throughout the years leading up to WWI Weber set dramatic world records in weight-lifting:  251 pound clean and jerk, a 160 pound one-armed lift overhead, holding 60 pounds in each hand straight to the side in an iron cross pose.  He toured Australia doing strength demonstrations and accepting matched strong-man competitions, never losing.

But he was more famous as a wrestler.  He was the director of a physical culture institute where he taught wrestling.  Again he toured the country taking on all comers.

Australian champions wrestler, and Australian champion cyclist too.  He was accomplished at many sports.

At six feet and 168 pounds he was a lean and muscled athlete.  Early in his athletic career he did track and field, being adept at all races from 50-440 yards, the high jump, pole vault and all the throwing events.  He was an all round athlete.

Hence his challenge to anyone in the world to a multi-sport contest for a $500-a-side stake (Walter said it was for $2500).  But, Weber said later, he never issued the challenge.  Someone else sent it out in his name without his knowledge, he said. Possibly a gambler who wanted to see a match like this and was using Weber's honour to corner him into accepting a challenge like Walter's.  Or Weber did issue the challenge and was looking for a way out. Who knows, but when Weber received Walter's acceptance of the challenge he said he intended to accept it, and even planned a trip to Scotland the following year (the year Walter won the World All-around title from Cramb), but never seemed to get there.

All this begs the question, how would that match have turned out?

Walter, in an interview, said, "He has enough athletics on the card for me to win, and in addition I can swim and cycle well, while I doubt he can beat me at weight-lifting."  The card also included "physical culture" but not wrestling, curiously, though Walter probably would have expected to win a wrestling match too.

Obviously Walter had no idea who Weber was.  Weber would likely have out-classed him badly in weight-lifting and "physical culture".  Swimming would not have been included if Weber was not a strong swimmer, Walter never even said if he could swim before.  Cycling?  Walter was notoriously weaker at the longer running distances, he was a sprinter, so cycling, an endurance event, would have been tough.

But 8 or 10 track and field events?  Walter may have swept them.  Weber dabbled in track and would not have had the best technique, Walter's ace in the hole.  With world record marks in the sprints, shot put and pole vault, Walter was top tier in the world in all the track and field events.  That was all he needed to win.

It would have been a fascinating contest between two magnificent and egotistical athletes.  Neither accepted losing well.  

Walter was four inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter.  Then look at Weber below, Walter would have looked pretty ordinary next to him.  But when Walter started performing Weber would have been pretty surprised.  

I'd put my money on Walter.

Recently I've been exposed to the wild diversity of sports in my home town.  It has made me suddenly aware of what and how and why athletes do what they do, it made me realize how different people are.

I'm researching a list of Orillia's greatest athletes, an exhaustive list, all sports, all eras.  Its been great fun.

What a variety.  There are the professionals and the amateurs, the serious and the recreational, the traditional sports and the downright weird sports.  And every one of them, at the elite level, is passionate about what they do.

One athlete in Orillia really opened my eyes.  Was his really a "sport"?  Was it "good" or "bad" to be doing what he was doing.  That is, "healthy" or "obsessed"? 

I know some ultra-endurance athletes in Orillia, like Steve Burrows, who routinely did 24-hour races and 100-mile running races.  Crazy events for the ultra-fit.  But that's nothing, I see now.

John Waite, a friend of mine - we were on the YMCA board of directors together - goes way beyond anything Steve ever did.  John is a Spartan Death racer.

A what?  Who's ever heard of that.  

The Spartan Death race, as John described it after his first (!) one, is a race that is designed to "break" you.  Non-stop for 48 hours, task after task to completely tax you physically and mentally.  Carry this 90-pound log up that mountain, lift these 100 60-pound rocks up onto that pedestal,  solve this pen and paper problem in this time limit 36 hours into the race,  "run" up these rapids for two miles chest-deep, swim across this frozen, slushy pond, and on and on for 48 hours.  Their goal is to have only one entrant finish.

John said that in his first race in 2011 over 200 people entered, but 100 never even started when they heard what was expected of them at the starting line.  Then only 35 people finished, and these were all incredibly fit, mentally tough athletes.  John finished near the top.  Wow.  John makes my list of Orillia's greatest athletes.

But he made me think.  Is it a "sport"?  Does he do it for the same reasons the hockey players and swimmers do it?

The Olympians do it for the achievement, the gold medal.  The pros do it for the money.  Some of the martial artists do it to feel safe or to build their self-esteem.  A lot of athletes do it because its just plain fun to do what you do well, to develop your aptitudes.

I think its different for John.  It is a spiritual thing.  Survival at its basest is all-encompassing - mind, body, spirit all wrapped into one soggy mess.  At a certain point the body is just on remote-control, you are getting brain-dead tired and the only thing keeping you going is your inner spirit.  If you talk to John you can see that in everything he does.  He gets it.  Track and swimming coaches tell their Olympians all the time to just relax and focus, get in the zone.  That's letting your spirit bubble up, your unconscious abilities that you, hopefully, trained all year to develop.  It's toughness, and courage, and confidence, and inner peace.

How do I place John on my list of athletes (I'm trying to roughly rank them by accomplishment)?  Above or below an NHL hockey player?  A World Cup season champion freestyle skier?  Walter Knox, the brazen hustling world champion track athlete?  I dunno.

So I made a special category for John, the "Special, 'You've got to be Crazy"' category.  Or maybe he's the only sane one on the list.  I dunno.

John is now the director of the whole Spartan Death Race program.  He's in Mexico this very weekend running the next event.  Check out the entry information page (here).  Only two rules:  Do not die.  Do not get left behind. 

Yeah, he makes my list, but, like, holy cow...

After reading Hot Foot, it would not be surprising to assume that Walter Knox was Orillia's greatest athlete.  That may not be true.

Before WWI Orillia was known far and wide as "The Town of Champions".  Walter made it clear he wanted to emulate those champions, most notably his neighbour George Gray who held the world record for the shot put for 17 years and was undefeated over that span.  He also admired his older brother Jack who was Canadian pole vault champion.

But Orillia has developed many other athletes who succeeded on the level Walter did.

Jake Gaudaur, in 1896 at the age of 38, won the world professional sculling championship, and proceeded to defend it for 5 more years, when his advanced age finally caught up with him.  He had duelled the best in the world for two decades already winning enormous sums in those matched races just as Walter did.

Harry Gill won the North American All-around title in 1900 and the professional All-around title in 1902.  He also broke the world record in discus and almost broke the high jump world record.  His career was cut prematurely short when he lost his amateur status and, in frustration, retired and took up a coaching career. He was Walter's training partner.

Lovering Jupp, in the four years prior to WWI led Orillia's hockey teams to three Ontario championships in four years, first as a 16 year old phenom.  At the outbreak of war his whole team enlisted in the Sportsman's battalion.  While training in Toronto he joined the battalion hockey team organized by Conn Smythe which was the dominant team in the Ontario Senior hockey league until it was called to France late in the season.  17 years later when Smythe's Toronto Maple Leafs had won the Stanley Cup, Smythe said his old teammate, Love Jupp, would be on his first line today!

And speaking of hockey, Orillia is home to Rick Ley, the great player of the 1970's.  After 4 years with the Leafs, Ley jumped to the new WHA where he was an all-star and once was named the league's best defenceman.  In the 1974 Russia vs the WHA All-Stars series, Ley was assigned the job of shadowing the great Russian, Kharlamov.  Ley was the best defenceman on the team.  He returned to the NHL with the Hartford Whalers playing with Gordie Howe and his sons.

And we couldn't forget the great Brian Orser, the 8-time Canadian champion figure skater who trained in Orillia from his early teens.  He was on the podium for a remarkable 8 consecutive years at the World Championships in the 1980's, winning gold once.  He also contested for two closely fought Olympic medals, both times ending up with silver , mainly because of the out-dated "figures" component that was eliminated in future Olympics.  

Walter Henry was Canadian flyweight boxing champion for 8 consecutive years starting in 1958.  He fought to a career 385-18 record, but many of those were one or two classes above his weight owing to a lack of competition for him in Canada.  He fought for Canada in two Olympic Games.  His was a very long career in a light weight class.

More recently, Toyin Olupona won the Canadian 100-metre sprint title four out of five years starting in 2005.  A stand-out high-schooler in Orillia, she blossomed into an All-American at the University of Tennessee.  Frustratingly for her, the COC would not take her to the Olympics in 2008 because her trials winning time, into the wind no less, did not make their standard, even though she did make their standard just three weeks earlier.  Toyin did get to a World Championships where she was a quarter-finalist.

Yes Walter was a great athlete, but he has competition for the title "Orillia's Greatest".   

I have a list, that's still growing, of Orillia's Canadian Champion athletes (or their equivalent).  It stands at 39 names and is growing as I sort through the files at the library and museum.  Come on out to Doors Open Orillia (linked here) in June to read more about the "Orillia's Greatest Athlete" poll, and vote for your favourite.  We'll even be having a celebrity debate on the issue aka "Canada Reads" show on CBC radio.  That'll settle it once and for all!

Yes, Walter is great, but so is Orillia, "The Town of Champions".      

So, it's super bowl weekend again.  For two weeks there has been constant chatter on the radio and TV dissecting the game, debating the minutiae of strategy, drumming up the gossip.  Naturally, the betting websites are going crazy.  This is the big weekend, the greatest sports spectacular of the year is about to unfold.  

It seems like every weekend is a sports spectacular of some sort:  hockey, basketball, baseball and football have all have staked out their highlight events and playoffs; tennis has it's four majors, as does golf; there are the amateur world championships in all kinds of sports, and of course, the Olympics, Pan Ams, and Commonwealth Games to pay attention to.  There is hardly a break for a sports fan.

Common to all those events are the ubiquitous sports betting opportunities, from office pools to in-your-face website bookies.  There is a large part of society that thrives on betting as recreation or addiction.

It is all so familiar now.  You either tune in and get absorbed or just tune sports right out.  The casual sports fan is becoming a bit of a thing of the past.

But, you know, modern sports are not so different from sports 100 years ago.  Sure, now there are way more "big" events vying for our attention now, but 100 years ago there were events just as big on a local scale.

When Walter Knox would have a high profile matched race in some small mining town in BC, the chatter and excitement was just as all-encompassing as our super bowl this weekend.  The miners had very little distraction from their plodding days. To have this "champion" take on that "champion" was a spectacle only seen once or twice a year.  It was wildly anticipated.

And these miners, holed up in isolated towns with money burning holes in their pockets, were quite willing to put their money where their mouths were.  The gambling was integral to the whole event, it drove up the excitement.

Naturally, the local newspapers beat the drums - it sold papers.  

It was not uncommon for a little town of 500 people to have 500 men lining the two sides of the race course down the main street whooping and hollering when Walter stepped up to the starting line.  Men from miles around gathered for the novelty of a big race. 

And who were the big winners?  The saloons, of course.

These little towns wanted nothing to do with the Amateur Athletic Associations and their codes of conduct and rules against gambling.  These matched race spectacles were good for business, good recreation for the miners and a good payday for sports hustlers like Walter.  

Boys will be boys.

So, today when I'm settling into the couch to watch "the Big Game", I'll be reminded of Nelson, BC or Cory, Pennsylvania or Mexicali, Mexico, towns that got swept up by Walter Knox's sporting spectacles 100 years ago.  Towns that got "worked" in just the same way that ESPN "works" us today on a grander scale.