Mr. America Magazine, Vol 1, No 6, Page 16, July 1958
HIS face tense, sweat pouring from his brow, Tom Sansone stretched out his exhausted body full length on the bench and closed his eyes. The two teenagers who were working out nearby looked at each other and grinned.
"See, he gets pooped just like the rest of us," one said.
"Yeah," the other answered, "I guess he's human after all."
A few minutes passed and Sansone was back struggling with the gruelling job of preparing for the 1958 Mr. America contest - a contest he is favored to win.
Sansone speaks with an air of nervousness when the forthcoming contest is mentioned; he gives the impression of being extremely superstitious and in constant fear of being jinxed. So he wages a continual battle against complacency and becomes furious at those who say, "you'll breeze in, Tommy. There's nobody around who has a chance against you."
"I've been breaking my hump for years," Sansone growled angrily. "I spent what money I had for equipment and I fought off pleasures other guys live to enjoy. Girls. Staying up late. Maybe a beer now and then. For me it was straight right down the line, like a Monk. My whole life was aimed at a single goal - winning that Mr. America title."
When you listen to this twenty-two year old New Yorker growl about his self-inflicted sacrifices you can't help feel the immense underlying pride and satisfaction he gets from being what he is - one of the most beautifully proportioned men in the world. It is doubtful if young Tommy Sansone could have attained such tremendous personal satisfaction and so perfect a means for self-expression in any other way. For although Tommy is a physical education student at the City College of new York he readily admits "I'm no brain. All I want is a degree and the know how to someday operate my own gym."
Like every champion, Sansone's entire life is built around his chosen field. When not actually training, which he does three hours a day, three times weekly normally, his mind is constantly formulating new training methods and working out new types of equipment which he says "look like Rube Goldberg inventions."
When you study Sansone's striking physique and watch the ease and grace with which he works, it seems incredible that he has been training only 4½ years. It is even more incredible when you examine the long list of championships he has won during his short career.
Devoted physical culturists Sansone avidly defends weight lifting against it's critics. "I hear people say, lifting weights makes a guy muscle bound, and I boil. I hear them say, lifting will give you a hernia. Such garbage! I never met a weight lifter with a hernia yet and as for that muscle bound stuff, well, I disproved that when I was in high school by hitting a baseball further than anybody in the league. They even wrote it up in the paper and when this reporter interviewed me I told him: "look, buddy, I don't give a damm what you say about baseball, but be sure to put in your paper that one of them 'muscle bound' weight lifters hit the ball longer and harder than anybody else."
It should be encouraging to some of you just starting to enjoy the fruits of bodybuilding to learn that Sansone eats exactly what he wants to eat with the exception of sweets. "Candy and the like," he says, "have a way of taking from the body more than they give."
When Tommy is training for a contest he naturally steps up the pace of conditioning. Instead of the normal three hours per hay, three times a week, he puts in from four to five hours of strenuous gym work four to five times per week. Special attention is then given to even the most minor details: the calves, the forearms, etc. He will concentrate on one of these "minor" points with the same gusto and drive as he normally gives his entire upper body.
"In this business you can't overlook anything," he grunted with a shake of his head. "Those judges have six eyes, and they'll magnify your weak spots until they take on greater meaning and importance than the strong points. That's why I keep studying my body in the mirror continually. I look for the points that might possibly ruin me and then I sweat and strain to correct them."
Sansone loved baseball in his high school days and at one time thought seriously of trying out for the big leagues. he was the outstanding star of his team and major league scouts pinpointed him for closer study. But after graduation Tommy suddenly quit playing ball.
"It was fun and I enjoyed it. But there was something missing. I might even have made the big leagues, but I asked myself, so what? So I'm a big league player and maybe I last five or six years. What then? And besides, baseball didn't have the kicks that body building does. I sweat and I curse and I ask myself why in hell am I working so hard conditioning my body. Then I take a look in the mirror and I feel warm inside. I have a feeling of accomplishment because there in front of me is everything I've been working for. I can see it with my own eyes, like a big bonus from the boss only better, because with it goes perfect health and the sensation of controlling tremendous physical powers. Baseball, even if I turned out to be another Mickey Mantle, couldn't possibly have given me the full satisfaction I receive from body building."
Tommy wiped the sweat from his forehead, sucked in a deep breath and with a sudden leap caught hold of the chinning bar. Others in the gym looked with admiration as the magnificently proportioned athlete went through the routine, an important part of his training. His stomach muscles revealed their superb definition on the upward lifts and when he relaxed his body on the way down, part of that striking definition was still evident; the mark of a man who is conditioned from within.
He completed his routine and then returned to the bench when he tried to relax and ease the tension.
You seem to drive yourself harder than anybody else in the place I said. I guess thats the reason why you're what you are.
He managed a smile and started to work his arms. "Maybe," he said. "You know you've got to want something very bad to work as hard as I've been going. But even if I don't win the title I'll still have my health and a body of which I'm proud. In my book that's what really counts."
But still you'd like to be Mr. America, I shot back.
As he started for the chinning bar again he turned his head and looked me squarely in the eye. "You're dammed right I would. And I'm gonna win it, too!"
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