In 1919 Creed Haymond was a runner
representing his college in an annual track meet involving 1,700 men. The night
before the meet, Creed’s coach said, “Creed, I’m having the boys take a little
sherry wine tonight. I want you to have some, just a little of course.”
“I won’t do it, Coach.”
“But, Creed, I’m not trying to get
you to drink. I know what you Mormons believe. I’m giving you this as a tonic
[refresher].”
Creed responded, “It wouldn’t do me
any good; I can’t take it.”
His coach said, “Remember, Creed,
you’re captain of the team and our best point winner; fourteen thousand
students are looking to you personally to win this meet. If you fail us we’ll
lose. I ought to know what is good for you.”
Creed believed in the greatness of
his coach and knew that the other coaches felt a little wine was useful when
men have trained muscles and nerves almost to the snapping point. He deeply
wanted to give his best efforts for his team, but he looked his coach in the
eye and said, “I won’t take it, Coach.”
The coach replied, “You’re a funny
fellow, Creed. You won’t take tea at the training table. You have ideas of your
own. Well, I’m going to let you do as you please.”
Creed was left in a state of extreme
anxiety. He worried what he could say to his coach if he performed poorly the
next day. He was going against the fastest men in the world. Nothing less than
his best would do. His stubbornness might lose the meet for his college. His
teammates were doing as they were told. They believed in their coach. What
right had he to disobey? Only one reason: he had believed all his life in the Word of Wisdom. He knelt and earnestly asked the
Lord to give him a testimony regarding the source of the revelation he had
believed and obeyed. He then went to sleep.
The next morning, all the boys on
the team except Creed were sick. Creed’s coach was unsure why. Creed suggested,
“Maybe it’s the tonic you gave them.”
“Maybe so,” answered the coach.
As the events of the track meet got
under way, it was plain that something was wrong with Creed’s team. In event
after event, his teammates performed well below what was expected of them. One
teammate was even too sick to participate in his event.
Then the 100-yard (91-meter) dash
was announced; it and the 220-yard (201-meter) dash were Creed’s races.
The starter shot the pistol for the
100-yard dash, and every man started running except Creed. The earth gave way
under his foot because of a hole made by a previous runner, and Creed came down
on his knee behind the starting line. He got up and ran his hardest. At 60
yards he was last in the race. He then began passing other runners, and at the
last moment he swept past the leader to win the race.
Through a mistake in planning, the
finals of the 220-yard dash came five minutes after the last heat of the
semifinals in which Creed had just run. Creed had already run in three races
that day, but he would not be allowed any more time to rest.
This time Creed shot from his marks
and soon sprinted away from the crowd of runners. Creed was the first across
the finish line with a time of 21 seconds, the fastest time the 220-yard dash
had ever been run by any human being.
As Creed Haymond was going to bed
that night, the question he asked the night before about the divinity of the Word of Wisdom came back into his mind. Events of
the previous day passed before his mind: his teammates’ decisions to take the
wine and their failure in their events, and his decision to abstain from the
wine and his victories. As he lay in bed contemplating, he received the
assurance he had sought about the Word of Wisdom being from God. (Adapted from
Joseph J. Cannon, “Speed and the Spirit,” Improvement Era, Oct. 1928,
1001–7.)
Elder David R. Stone of the
Seventy:
“Let us clearly understand the
pressures that the four young men were under. They had been carried away as
captives by a conquering power and were in the household of a king who held the
power of life or death over them. And yet Daniel and his brothers refused to do
that which they believed to be wrong” (“Zion in the Midst of Babylon,” Ensign or Liahona,
May 2006, 92).
President Boyd K. Packer of the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:
“I have come to know … that a
fundamental purpose of the Word of Wisdom has to do with revelation. …
“If someone ‘under the influence’
can hardly listen to plain talk, how can they respond to spiritual promptings
that touch their most delicate feelings?
“As valuable as the Word of Wisdom
is as a law of health, it may be much more valuable to you spiritually than it
is physically” (“Prayers and Answers,” Ensign, Nov.
1979, 20).
Elder Russell M. Nelson of the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught about not defiling our physical bodies:
“When we understand our nature and
our purpose on earth, and that our bodies are physical temples of God, we will
realize that it is sacrilege to let anything enter the body that might defile
it” (“The Magnificence of Man,” Ensign, Jan.
1988, 68).
