Yet C. K. Yang is a decathlon athlete entirely by accident. He had scarcely heard of the 10-event competition until he was 20 years old and had not distinguished himself athletically in any way. At the kindest, he could have been described as a lackluster baseball pitcher and an indifferent broad jumper, barely good enough to make the second team.
His discovery for the event that was to bring him world fame and a chance for athletic immortality came about in this way:
It was 1954, and trials were being held to select China's team for the second Asian Games at Manila. Yang trailed Lin Teh-sheng in the broad jump but it was thought that he might be good enough for a second spot.
More or less because jumping is jumping, it was suggested he have a try at the high jump, too, although he was not in the same class with winner Hsieh Tien-hsin.
The decathlon was safely in the hands of Huang Chien. No one even thought of Yang, the losing pitcher and so-so broad jumper.
As training proceeded for the Manila contest, the head coach, Ssu Ling-sheng, one day decided on a change of routine to relieve the monotony. He laughingly put track athletes in the field events and vice versa. Everybody had a wonderful time and the marks were horrible—with one startling exception.
C. K. Yang and his wife, Daisy Jue (File photo)
Coach Ssu watched to his amazement as Yang Chuan-kuang ran over two star sprinters as though they were standing still. Additionally, Yang had given the discus and shot put a whirl for the first time. His maiden efforts were close to national records.
Why not C. K. in the decathlon, Ssu thought. Yang himself could think of two good reasons. He had tried the high hurdles only once or twice and didn't like the event. Worse, he had never had a pole in his hands for the high vault that also is included in the decathlon.
In the end, the coach prevailed. Yang scored 4,429 points in a tryout, well above Huang Chien, the regular decathlonist, and second to the Asian record of a Japanese. Two weeks later, Yang was on his way to Manila as the No.1 man in the decathlon.
'Iron Man of Asia'
His victory was an easy one. More important, his point total was up to 5,454 and not so bad even by Western standards of the time. Philippines sports writers called him "the Iron Man of Asia," a name that has stuck. "The Iron Man" was on his way to that April 28 day almost a decade later when he would score 9,121 points for a world record.
The scene was Mt. San Antonio College stadium, tucked away in the rolling San Jose hills some 30 miles east of Los Angeles. A crowd of 1,200 fans cheered themselves hoarse as Yang, now a senior in physical education and co-captain of University of California at Los Angeles track team, broke the former mark by 438 points.
Appropriately, the old record of 8,683 points was the property of a friend and former classmate, Rafer Johnson. It had been set at Eugene, Oregon, July 7-8, 1960.
Yang said he could have amassed 9,500 points except for leg cramps that slowed him down in the last two events, the javelin and 1,500-meter run. His closest rival had only 8,061 points.
"I had to take it easy in the 1,500," he said. "But I'm happy about the way things turned out."
One of the first to congratulate him was his attractive wife, Daisy Jue, who had a big kiss ready.
"He promised me he would break the record," said the one-time co-ed of the University of Southern California.
Yang said his next performance would be in defense of his U.S. National Amateur Athletic Union crown at Corvalis, Oregon, in late June. Beyond that is the goal of a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympiad in 1964. That will be not only for himself but for his country, the Republic of China.
He will be 30 at the time, yet his scores are still going up and up. He is far ahead of his level at Rome in 1960.
That Olympic contest was between Yang and Johnson, both then students at UCLA. The lead changed hands four times in the two days. Yang won five first places and bettered Johnson in six events but finished with 8,334 points and a silver medal, 58 points behind his American rival.
The younger Johnson heaved a sigh of relief and announced his retirement from the decathlon. Yang had beaten Vassily Kuznetsov, the Russian champion, decisively but he still lacked a world record and an Olympic gold medal. His decision was to continue.
Two and a half years later, he is not only the decathlon nonpareil of the world but also one of the all-time great pole vaulters. Using a fiberglass pole, he flew to an indoor record of 16 feet 3¼ inches last February. The mark was broken a week later but Yang is still topping 16 feet and expects to reach 17.
It all began in the humble hillside village of Malan, about half an hour's drive from Taitung in eastern Taiwan in 1934. Yang is of aboriginal stock. His people number only around 200,000, about a fiftieth of the island's population. But they are of wiry build and possessed of great stamina.
Yang's grandfather, Kras Mahanhan, was a strong and fiery chieftain of the Amis, one of the seven tribes of Taiwan. Legends still tell of his many feats and adventures.
After Kras died, his son turned to farming. He changed his name to Yang Po-chung and sent his eldest son, Marsan Mahanhan, now Yang Chuan-kuang, to school.
In high school, Chuan-kuang showed long, muscular legs but didn't do much with them. He liked baseball. In 1949, he represented his county as a relief pitcher in the Taiwan provincial games. His team was defeated.
For the next five years, he showed athletic interest but achieved little. He was awaiting the 1954 discovery and his initiation into the rigors of the decathlon.
High jump was one of Yang's first events and gives him more than 900 points in decathlon (File photo)
Two years after the Manila games, Yang's level of performance was greatly improved. In the Olympic Games at Melbourne in 1956, he scored 6,521 points, an Asian record but good only for eighth place. He was disappointed but not discouraged.
Two years later, in the third Asian Games at Tokyo, Yang not only retained the decathlon title with 7,101 points but took second in the broad jump and third in the 400-meter hurdles.
Into Yang's life had come a friend and patron, S. S. Kwan, wealthy sportsman and architect, who saw that C. K. would be one of the athletic greats. Kwan launched a fund-raising campaign to send Yang to the United States for the American national decathlon championships at Palmyra, Virginia. Yang scored 7,625 points but lost to Johnson.
Topping 8,000 Points
The performance proved that Yang could break the 8,000-point mark if given better training. Kwan organized another fund-raising drive to keep Yang in the United States and give him the best of coaching.
In 1959, Yang entered UCLA arid came under pucky Drake, who also coached Johnson. That year Yang entered the U.S. decathlon championships again. Johnson did not compete and Yang won the title.
In July, 1960, Vassily Kuznetsov became the decathlon record-holder by surpassing the 8,000-point mark. But his glory was short lived. In the same month, both Johnson and Yang surpassed him in the American championships at Eugene, Oregon. Johnson had 8,683 points and Yang 8,426.
Yang has never forgotten what Kwan did for him. "Without him, I wouldn't be here today," Yang said recently. "You can say he helped bring me up."
Kwan died soon after the 1960 Rome Olympics.
Dr. Gunson Hoh, Chinese Olympic Committee member, left, and Education Minister Huang Chi-lu pay tribute to late S. S. Kwan, who was the principal patron of Yang in late 1950s (File photo)
After news that Yang had broken the world record, Education Minister Huang Chi-lu and Dr. Gunson Hoh, executive member of Chinese National Olympic Committee, paid their respects at Kwan's graves.
"We know and the world knows that it was Kwan who made it possible for Yang to enter into sports as the representative of China," they said.
Four Others Help
Four other men did much to help Yang. Two were athletes: Bob Mathias, twice world decathlon champion in the mid-50s, and Bill Miller, decathlon champion from the University of Arizona. Both came to Taiwan to help train Chinese athletes and gave Yang both tips and inspiration.
A third moving force in creating a great decathlon champion is Ducky Drake, the UCLA coach.
Professor Wei Chen-wu took Yang to Drake in 1959, when the future champion enrolled at UCLA as a physical education freshman.
Drake said of Yang: "He's intense in competition. One of the finest athletes I've ever worked with, quick to catch on. Miller and Mathias proved an inspiration; the rest he did himself. He's inflexible. If things go wrong, if he's down in an event, he can shake it off and go on. Win the next. You need that in the decathlon."
In an interview in mid-May, Drake added: "He is a young man with the weight of a continent on his shoulders... He is doing a great thing for all the young athletes of Asia, not only for Taiwan. He's got millions of people to drive him on. He carries a load nobody knows about, and for people who don't know about sports. He had the greatest desire of any athlete I've known."
The coach believes Yang's age—old by decathlon standards—doesn't matter because what is old for some is young for others.
"An athlete who keeps in good physical condition, doesn't lay off—no one's proved when such an athlete is through," said Drake.
The fourth Yang supporter was Chen Keng-yuan, who first helped him to receive modern physical education. Chen, who was the principal of Taitung Agricultural School, died in November, 1958, after a motorcycle accident.
Tribute to Principal
One rainy afternoon in September, 1960, just four days after Yang's triumphant return from Rome, the athlete paid tribute to his principal.
With trembling hands, Yang laid a wreath on Chen's grave in Taitung. He stood in silence for about 10 minutes. Then, his eyes filled with tears, he took out his Olympic silver medal and placed it on the tombstone.
Chen was a baseball player and devoted his life to the promotion of school athletes. It was Chen who detected Yang's athletic genius and gave him special permission to transfer from Taitung Middle School to Taitung Agricultural School so he could receive better physical training.
"Without him, I wouldn't have been able to participate in the provincial games," Yang said. And in that case, Yang might never have tried the decathlon.
Yang is married and the father of a son, Edward Cedric Yang. He met his wife, Daisy Jue, then an SC co-ed, at a Double Tenth celebration in Los Angeles in 1959.
Yang is greeted by (from left) sister, mother, and nephew on his Taiwan arrival from United States in August, 1962 (File photo)
Yang's parents are still living in Taitung. The government has built a modest house for them.
He has three sisters, Ah-yu, Shio-mei, and San-mei Ah-yu is married but the others still live at home.
C. K. Yang's athletic greatness is a product of many forces: his aboriginal forebears, a driving determination to raise the flag of the Republic of China to the top of the Olympic victory staff, and the many far-sighted, generous individuals who have helped him.
But the man is also the measure of himself. When he is hovering over a bar set at more than 16 feet, taking the high hurdles in 14 flat, or hurling the javelin more than 235 feet, C. K. Yang has his own great heart as a principal reliance.
His six feet one inch and 180 pounds of muscle and agility can carry him only so far. The world is full of such athletes, but there is only one C. K. Yang. He wants to win and he has legitimate reason to do so. Given good physical equipment and the great endurance of his forefathers, it is enough.
When C. K. has won an Olympic gold medal for himself and for China, and when he has accumulated some coaching experience in the United States, he will return to Taiwan and try to inspire other young men, then coach them to greatness.
S.S. Kwan and Chen Keng-yuan would be pleased by an ambition worthy of the champion they helped to make.