Η άλλη ατυχία ήταν το ότι ζούσε σε μια εποχή που ο στίβος στο δυτικό κόσμο ήταν αυστηρά ερασιτεχνικός
Έτσι παρ όλο που στην Αμερική ήταν τεράστιος αστέρας όπου γέμιζε τα στάδια που αγωνιζόταν
και ο τύπος έγραφε τεράστια αφιερώματα για τα κατορθώματα του
Broke 15-Foot Barrier
Many observers of the sport believed it was simply impossible for human beings to propel themselves that high. At the time, vaulters used fairly rigid bamboo poles, very different from the flexible carbon-and-fiberglass poles currently used, and landed in sand-and-sawdust pits instead of on the currently used air-and-plastic cushions.
According to Cordner Nelson in Track's Greatest Champions, Warmerdam once described the process of vaulting: "No athlete has much left after sprinting 50 yards at top speed, yet I still have to figure on the body shock that comes when the pole strikes the ground. The pole vibrates, jars your whole system. It can tear loose the grip of your right hand. It can do something to destroy the physical coordination so necessary to finish the job after momentum ends at the crossbar."
"They told him it was physically and geometrically impossible" to go over 15 feet, Warmerdam's wife Nita told John Canzano in the Fresno Bee.
Once Warmerdam had accomplished the 15 feet, he altered people's perceptions of previously "unbreakable" barriers-perhaps the true barriers were in people's minds, not in their bodies. According to Canzano, Stanford track coach Dink Templeton wrote, "I doubt that the achievements of any other man in the entire history of American athletics has ever had so great an effect, not only on American sports but on the minds of American people, as those of Warmerdam from the day in Berkeley when he first vaulted to the supposedly impossible 15 feet."
το 1945 κλήθηκε στο ναυτικό, σε πολεμικό πλοίο στο μέτωπο της Ιαπωνίας
Ευτυχώς για αυτόν δεν χρειάστηκε να πολεμήσει καθως
When they were almost to the Marshall Islands, they received word that President Truman had ordered that the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki be leveled with atomic bombs. The bombing ended the war, and to this day, Warmerdam believes his life was saved when his ship did not have to go into battle.
Επιστρέφοντας όμως πίσω στη πατρίδα, έχοντας οικογένεια να συντηρήσει δέχτηκε τη δουλειά προπονητή στο κολέγιο του
Αυτό όμως
According to Olympic rules at the time, athletes could not participate in the Games if they made money from their sport, so he was disqualified from all future Olympics because he was a coach. This is unfortunate, because when the 1948 Olympics took place, he was still the best pole vaulter in the world, even though he had taken time off during the war.
While he was coaching the Fresno team, Warmerdam "fooled around" with the pole, and easily vaulted higher than any of the Olympic team vaulters.
Ήταν πράγματι κρίμα καθώς τα μετάλλια στο Λονδίνο το 1948 κρίθηκαν σε άλματα που ο 33χρονος Warmerdam ακόμα και ψευτοπροπονημένος αλλά δυστυχώς επαγγελματίας, τα ειχε για πλάκα
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brGUAkC9aO0
