A pair of thick-rimmed glasses gave Jim Milor Klein a distinct Clark Kent look.
But behind those spectacles was Superman.
Dennis Savage was shocked when even a spear couldn’t pierce the steeled chest of his Westmont College track and field coach.
“He walked into a javelin that was still stuck into the ground at an angle,” Savage recalled. “If he hadn’t been so well-muscled, it would have gone right into his heart.”
But even the saga of Superman must have an ending.
Klein, who literally built the track along with the track-and-field program at Westmont College in Montecito, died July 24 … “Peacefully, surrounded by family,” according to daughter Leslee. They had all celebrated his 90th birthday just six days earlier.
He is survived by three daughters — Leslee Klein Kinman (Robert), Lynn Battisti Westlake (Eric) and Jennifer Klein Speier (Craig) — and a son, Joseph Klein, along with eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Klein, a graduate of Glendale Hoover High School and Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington, was only 19 when he burst upon the national decathlon scene by placing 15th at the 1952 U.S. Olympic Trials. He took 11th in 1956 even while serving in the military.
Superman was leaping tall buildings with a single bound — winning the high jump at that year’s U.S. Air Force Championships.
When in Rome
Klein rose in the decathlon as high as No. 4 at the 1960 Olympic Trials. That earned him a spot as the alternate on a U.S. team that gold medalist Rafer Johnson led to Rome as America’s flag bearer.
A year earlier, Klein came to the Central Coast to complete his graduate studies at UC Santa Barbara. He soon began training with Westmont freshman Paul Herman, a fellow decathlete who finished several spots behind him at the 1960 trials.
Klein was hired a few months later as Herman’s coach at Westmont. He guided him to a national Amateur Athletic Union decathlon championship in 1961 as well as onto the 1964 U.S Olympic Team. Herman placed fourth at the Tokyo Olympics with 7,787 points, coming within 22 of a bronze medal.
“When I arrived at Westmont, I had two things: ‘The ‘Green’ and Paul Herman,” Klein once said. “It was all anybody needed to have a track program.”
The Green, he explained, was a weedy meadow on the sloping Montecito campus that had been commandeered as the college’s track. More than six decades later, it’s been groomed into a glittering sports complex with modern facilities for track and field as well as Thorrington Soccer Field.
“It had been rough-graded and grass seed had been thrown out,” Klein said of the track’s humble beginnings in the late 1950s. “During my years at Westmont it was undulating, never really leveled. Water would accumulate six inches deep after a rain. But it’s what we had.”
Ruth Kerr, one of the college’s founders, gave Klein enough money to buy clay and lumber to build a track and field oval at “The Green.” The coach and several of his athletes, including his future Olympian, provided the labor.
“Paul worked many hours driving stakes and nailing 2-by-4s to make a very homemade track,” Klein recalled. “A Westmont professor surveyed the quarter mile which had to accommodate two drains that were at either end of the oval. That it came out even close to the necessary 440 was something of a miracle.”
Wheels of Fortune
Klein became the master of improvisation. He once transported Westmont’s cross-country team to the NAIA National Championships in Omaha, Nebraska, by converting a rented Volkswagen van into a makeshift recreational vehicle.
“We took out the middle seat of the van and put a piece of plywood over the two remaining seats which made a dark sleeping den underneath,” he said. “We drove nonstop except for gas. Seven guys and a coach.
“Can’t remember how well we ran … I think OK.”
Savage, a star middle-distance runner from San Marcos High, heard tales of that journey after getting recruited to the private, Christian liberal arts college during the fall of 1966.
“It is an example of the attitude of doing a lot with a little that still pervaded the school when I attended,” he said. “When I was the first guy to actually fly back to the Nationals, I felt an enormous amount of pressure to do well.”
Savage, who remained in Santa Barbara as a biology teacher after graduation, represented Westmont well. He won three NAIA National Championships in the mile — two outdoors and one indoor — and set Westmont’s school record in that race with a time of 4:00.7.
He earned nine NAIA All-America awards — three in cross country — and also won the mile at the 1970 NCAA College Division Track and Field Championships.
Klein coached several nationally ranked decathletes at Westmont. After Herman came the late Dave Thoreson (1962-1963), George Pannel (1966-1969) and Bill Bakley (1971-1972).
The eclectic Thoreson, known later for creating his own unique games as a physical education teacher at local junior high schools, provided his coach with one of his most memorable trips.
“Paul Herman and Dave Thoreson and I took the train to the Nationals which was being held at Sioux Falls, South Dakota,” Klein said. “We had to change trains at Omaha. With a few hours to kill in the middle of the night, we roamed Omaha and saved hotel money.
“Thoreson, the renowned wall scaler, scampered up the side of a building to try and accost a large white ‘Michelin Man.’ What he had in mind, I don’t know. The Omaha police arrived and cut the adventure short. They let us go. Another little miracle.”
Wild About Harry
Klein liked to lighten the mood when the training got hard. He once brought a “surprise guest” to one of their Wednesday night team meetings. He introduced him as Harry Seymore, the world record holder and 1940 Olympic champion in the 400 meters.
Harry Seymore was actually Jim Shelton, uncle of Dave Shelton — the only team member who was wise to Klein’s gag.
“Harry launched into an inspirational discourse about his great Olympic victory and stellar career,” Klein said. “About 10 minutes later, Harry finished and said he would be happy to answer any questions and give helpful tips on being a champion.”
Most of the team broke out in laughter, knowing full well that the 1940 Olympics had been canceled by the outbreak of World War II. But one Warrior, Perry Webb, didn’t get the joke. He raised his hand and “stammered quietly, politely” to say, “Mr. Seymore, there was no Olympics in 1940.”
“Harry looked shocked, stunned,” Klein recalled. “He turned to me and said, ‘Coach, I came here as a favor to you and I don’t have to stand here and take this kind of abuse.’ He left the room and was never heard from again.
“I don’t know who first started laughing. It was a mixture of mirth and astonishment and some anger. I don’t know if Perry Webb ever forgave Harry and me. I expect he did, being the kind of guy he was.”
Klein did mold the careers of many elite athletes in various events. They included distance and middle-distance runners Doug Wiebe (1962-1965) and Rick Tussing (1970-1973); weights throwers Dan Bryant (1969-1971) and Jim Howard (1975-1976); high jumper Ron Coleman (1969-1972); pole vaulter Steve Hughes (1971-1975 and 1976-1978), and sprinters Jean-Louis Ravelomanantsoa (1971-1972) and Paul Brown (1976-1977).
Ravelomanantsoa became Klein’s second Olympian when he represented Madagascar at Mexico City in 1968 and at Munich in 1972. He qualified for the 100-meter finals both times. By the end of the 1971 season, Track & Field News had ranked him as the world’s No. 2 sprinter.
“We were supposed to attend the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico but instead Jenny was born in October of 1968,” said Leslee Kinman, Klein’s eldest daughter. “We spent a lot of time at track meets and Olympic trials, which I never realized wasn’t just normal life.”
Klein even coached the national teams from Sri Lanka and Pakistan at the 1974 Asian Games. He sought to inspire his Westmont athletes by introducing them to the sport’s greatest stars.
“One time he took us to the home of Bob Mathias in Tulare,” said Savage, referring to the decathlon’s gold-medal champion at both the 1948 and 1952 Olympic Games. “Bob’s mother welcomed us in and showed us his gold medals and numerous awards.”
The Adams Family
Klein also helped Sam Adams, his former decathlon rival during the 1950s, in coaching some of the world’s top athletes at their multievent training center in Santa Barbara. Bill Toomey, the 1968 Olympic decathlon champion, was among those who flocked to their camp.
“We spent a few summers at Olympic training camps because he was coaching there,” Kinman recalled.
Klein grew Westmont’s program to the point that it even scored several dual-meet victories over Adams’ NCAA Division 1 teams at UCSB.
“He did an amazing job of creating a powerhouse small college team that was the object of a short story in Track & Field News in the early 70s,” said Russell Smelley, who has coached the Warriors since 1979.
Klein left Westmont in 1977 and spent a season assisting Adams at UCSB before becoming the head track and field coach at Idaho State in Pocatello. He won the Big Sky Conference championship in his first season with the Vandals.
Boise State hired Klein in 1982 to head up its women’s track and field program. He had worked with female athletes as a P.E. instructor at Westmont long before the Warriors started their own women’s program. He even inspired a Westmont coed, Donna (Fisher) Broznan, to become a track coach herself.
“Much has been said about the influence that coach had on the lives of so many young men, (but) there are some young women that he influenced as well,” Broznan told Noozhawk. “He taught us much more than how to perform in the various events.
“We learned about the magnificent way that our bodies were designed to manage those feats. We learned about the history of the sport. And we learned to love the sport and to appreciate the talent and hard work required to be successful in any of the events.
“He was patient, so very kind. He was an educator, an instructor, a mentor, and I praise God for that experience and so many more experiences at Westmont.”
Klein guided Boise State’s women to four Mountain West Conference outdoor championships. He was voted NCAA District VII Coach of the Year in 1988. He also reconnected to his Westmont roots.
“Jim and I became friends over the years,” Smelley said. “He brought his Idaho State women’s team to the Easter Relays in the 1980s.
“The Sam Adams-Jim Klein Combined Events we host each year is a tribute to two great track and field coaches who were decathlon rivals in the ’50s at the Olympic Trials and then college rivals between Westmont and UCSB. I had the privilege and pleasure to know both of them as friends.”
Klein retired from coaching in 1993 and resettled in Goleta to watch his many grandkids excel in their own sporting ventures. They included Gabe Speier, a little left-handed pitcher in the Goleta Valley South Little League who would grow up to become a Major League Baseball pitcher with the Kansas City Royals.
And he remained a mentor for the rest of his long life.
“He stayed in contact with a vast majority of his guys and some of his gals from his coaching days,” Kinman said.
Many even came to Santa Barbara during his last days, cheering him as he approached his final finish line.
— Noozhawk sports columnist Mark Patton is a longtime local sports writer. Contact him at sports@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook. The opinions expressed are his own.