Published: October 15, 2008 10:22 pm            

KITCHELL: Samse — here’s the rest of the story

County’s only Olympian starred despite having sight in only one eye.

One of the most challenging, yet rewarding aspects of the Howard County Sports Hall of Fame, is researching achievements of athletes who made our citizens proud many years ago.

On Oct. 25, our sixth induction banquet will be held at the Howard County Events Center. Larry Ruch, Mike McCroskey and Rick Roberts will personally be on hand to accept their plaques while family members of the late Mal Cofield, Don Lowry and Leroy Samse will attend, speaking on behalf of their loved ones.

All six men have stories, but one is particularly intriguing. And the more we delve into the life of Samse, the more interesting it becomes.

While we hope some day Howard County will send one of its best to an Olympic Games, for now Samse is our only Olympian. He not only attended the 1904 Olympics, but won the silver medal in pole vault.

That 104-year-old Olympic medal, along with Samse’s other awards and photos, will be on display at the banquet. Samse’s family was located in California by the HOF board and grandsons Kim and Keith have made plans to attend the banquet.

Many of us don’t know a great deal about our grandparents and Kim Samse is no different when it comes to his grandfather Leroy Samse, who died in 1956. What he did know was, that he had possession of a journal of sorts his grandfather kept in his years immediately after leaving Indiana University.

Kim Samse has shared that journal with us and two things we’ve learned — one, Samse spent several years doing a triple bar act in Vaudeville after leaving Indiana University and two, all of his vaulting and gymnastics success amazingly came to a man who had sight in only one eye.

But first, a quick summation of Samse’s life. He was born in Kokomo in 1883, graduated from Kokomo High in 1902 and headed for Indiana University. There, he starred in track and field, setting IU’s high jump record, before excelling in pole vault. In 1904, he earned an invitation to the Olympic Games in St. Louis, where, using a bamboo pole, he cleared 11 feet, 9 inches to win the silver medal.

Two years later at the conference meet at Northwestern University, Samse broke the world record with a vault of 12-4 7/8, thus becoming IU’s first conference champion after earlier becoming the school’s first Olympian. Samse’s Big Ten record wasn’t broken for seven years; his IU mark for 28 years, despite the advent of more advanced poles.

After leaving Bloomington, Samse entertained circus offers, but exactly 100 years ago this month, opted to team with fellow gymnast Walter Cromwell and join a Vaudeville tour. Their act’s name seemed to change with the venue, but it was most often called the “Sensational Triple Bar Act.” Samse served as the straight man — the serious gymnast — while the equally talented Cromwell was the clown.

Included on stops in the early going were at Kokomo’s Sipe Theater (then located at the southwest corner of Union and Sycamore streets) and the Broadway Theater in Logansport, where tickets sold for 10 and 15 cents — three shows daily.

The act was well received and eventually covered the entire Midwest. Samse’s journal, filled with newspaper reviews and programs, offers tidbits from stops in cities such as Minneapolis, Minn., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Pueblo, Col., Kankakee, Ill., Madison, Wisc. and Lincoln, Neb.

Included in the journal is a contract for a week-long engagement in Des Moines, Iowa, in March 1909. It called for two shows daily and paid the duo $125 — total. The pair also played a number of theaters in Chicago, including the Majestic, Julian and White Palace. Cromwell and Samse worked Vaudeville for about two years and in Samse’s journal, he logged every trip. The total miles covered were 25,860 — hard to imagine, considering mode of travel a century ago and all the equipment needed to accompany the men.

Never in any newspaper account we found describing Samse’s exploits as an athlete or showman was there a mention of his limited vision. However, in 1950, a columnist for the Star-Courier in Bloomington noted the accident Samse had at age 12, an accident that cost him sight in his right eye.

“[Samse] made a cannon from a piece of old pipe. After firing it a few times, a spark ignited the powder which he kept in a bottle and [in the explosion] a glass fragment punctured his eye,” E. Earl East reported.

Fortunately, the accident didn’t slow Samse in his lust for life that included the Olympics, Vaudeville and a teaching career in California.

We’re glad we’ve finally gotten to know him.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.