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Show A I fiCEjj j A LEADING expert on brain and muscular action has announced that man's mental and physical prime or peak is around 33 years that most of his good work i.i done before he Is 40 and little of it niter 50. The expert admits that there are certain exceptions, but he is taking the general average. aver-age. He fixes the V physical peak , ! around 33 years in j ; the matter of age. r- s ., -i : The mental peak ,i .-.; j around 40. He may . , be entirely correct : ,,-In ,,-In sizing up the J mental side of the J argument. So many , K ' golden autumns s . .. ; have slipped by since we were 33 Bill Tildcn that most of the details de-tails are a bit hazy. But the expert uses up too many years In calling the athletic peak. Here are just a few leading examples ex-amples 1. Jack Dompsey was Just 24 the day he manicured Jess Willard and in this Massacre of Maumee Bay, Dempsey was at his peak. He was better that hot July afternoon than he ever was later on. He earned a one-round knockout in that Toledo assault, bell or no bell. 2. Ty Cobb was 25 when he turned in his greatest season. This was in 1911, when Ty delivered 248 base hits, 147 runs, 83 stolen bases and a batting average of .420. He was almost as good a year later with a .410 average, but not quite up to his 1911 collection. The two ages of 25 and 26 found the Georgia Peach at the top of a great career. 3. Babe Ruth was 33 years old when he blasted his 60 home runs. This was in 1927. But the Babe fired 55 four base blows In 1921 when he was only 27. But it should be recalled re-called that the Babe was a pitcher until he reached the age of 25. He was around 24 when he came to his pitching prime. Jones a Champ at 21 4. Bobby Jones found his best year in 1930 when he ran into his Grand Slam. He was then 28 years old. A "Boy Wonder" at the age of 14, he was 21 before he won his first championship in 1923. While Jones was only 28 when he retired from active competition, he still had known 15 seasons of hard, tournament tourna-ment golf. . 5. Big Bill Tilden was 26 before he won his first major crown. His top years ran from 26 to 31, although he remained a star through another decade. But you could name his peak at 28 or 29 and not miss the mark by many weeks. 6. Jim Thorpe, greatest all-around athlete, came to his best year In 1912 when he was in the general neighborhood neigh-borhood of 25 years. That was the year Old Jim won the Olympic all-around all-around championship while also playing his best football and baseball. base-ball. You'll find this cross section gives you man's athletic prime around 26 or 27. I mean the top ones. I could name other examples. Walter Hag-en Hag-en was 21 when he bagged his first TJ. S. open crown In 1914 and he was 26 when he won his last one at Brae Burn in 1919. But after that his British campaign was just as brilliant. The war cut into any Joe Louis rating but you could name his 27th year and not be far wrong. And there's the case of Mel Hein, the Giant center now facing his 19th or 20th football season, adding in his college years at Washington State. Hein's peak was in the vicinity vicin-ity of his 27th and 28th year. Value of Experience The eminent expert in sizing up the mental and physical side overlooked over-looked one important detail it is the physical side that collapses or takes the first dip. Many veterans still hang on, veterans vet-erans with fading legs and fading arms, through greater experience and the smartness that only the years can bring. These men have to offer their brains against younger legs and younger arms. Jack Quinn was a winning pitcher well beyond 40, after 26 years of pitching. When some one asked Jack how he could hang around so long his answer was quite simple "A wife and six children." But the golden age of sport is still youth those years that run from 23 to 27. At the ages of 26 and 27 we have the winning combination of physical youth and experience. Possibly Pos-sibly the ages 22 or 23 would be the big years physically, but they lack the experience which later years bring. Knute Rockne never liked sophomores sopho-mores and John McGraw never cared for rookies. After all, there is no substitute for experience, eight times out of ten. In this diagnosis we must stick with the general average not with the exceptions. In sport the best physical years would be around 23 the top mental years around 28. "As a matter of fact," several well known trainers tell me, "the ideal physical age, minus experience, is around 21 or 22. It is experience and the know-how that make 26 or 17 the better years." |
