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Jimmie Cox Fixed Cunningham's Legs Before Coming to Train Teams Here

Athletic Performance Depends On Relaxing Muscles Not Used, He Says

Jimmie Cox, new athletic trainer, kneaded a baseball man's swollen ankle with educated fingers as he talked freely in his Kansas-Missourian drawl of his experiences as a trainer.

While working for his A.B. at the University of Kansas he served at the same time first as an assistant trainer, later as head trainer of Kansas athletes. It was while he was an assistant that a young man named Glenn Cunningham reported as a candidate for the Freshman track team.

"Glenn had quite a high school record when he came to K.U.", Jimmie went on to say, "but when he was put under my care his legs were in pretty bad shape. He had one of the worst cases of shin splints I have ever handled. He didn't do much of anything those first two years, and Glenn has oftened issued the statement that the only exercise he got in his Freshman and Sophomore years was on my rubbing table. Ever since then I have been his trainer and he comes to me whenever I am anywhere around.

"Gienn's legs, you know, were severely burned in a fire when he was a little fellow. Some thought he would never walk again, but his determination to overcome this handicap has not only enabled him to walk but to become the king of American milers. His legs, though, are full of new tissue and new blood vessels, and consequently his blood circulation is very poor.

During the winter season Jimmie divides his time between the Dillon Field House and the Indoor Athletic building where he assists in wrestling. Reports have it that he is as good at finding unbreakable wrestling holds as he is at grappling with a twisted knee. His knowledge of anatomy serves both his constructive and destructive proclivities. At his desk at the Field House when business is light or all his patients are "baking" in the hydrothermal tanks, he spends his time poring over anatomy books or sympathetically follows Soames Forsythe in his quest for "ivory skinned" Irene's love.

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"The ultimate secret to perfect performance in athletics." Cox stated, "is the relaxation of muscles not used. All the top-notch runners, you will notice, are perfectly relaxed through the shoulders when running. Good form is essential to the runner. And there are times in the continued use of a limb when certain muscles in that limb should be relaxed: the muscles of the lower leg for instance need be contracted only half the time. Fellows that don't relax muscles not in use tie up easily."

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