Walt Murphy is one of the finest track geeks that I know. Walt does #ThisDayinTrack&FieldHistory, an excellent daily service that provides true geek stories about our sport. You can check out the service for FREE with a free one-month trial subscription! (email: [email protected] ) for the entire daily service. We will post a few historic moments each day, beginning February 1, 2024.
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By Walt Murphy’s News and Results Service ([email protected]), used with permission.
This Day in Track & Field—April 12
1941—Cornelius “Dutch” Warmerdam jumped 15-2 5/8 (4.64) at Stanford to better his own World Record in the Pole Vault (15-1 1/8 [4.60]), but the mark wasn’t ratified as a WR since the IAAF hadn’t received the necessary paperwork before they had already OK’d his subsequent clearance of 15-5 ¼ (4.72) in June.
WR Progression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men’s_pole_vault_world_record_progression
1958–Glenn Davis, the 1956 Olympic Champion in the 400-meter hurdles, was the star of the show at the Quantico Relays in Virginia. On Friday (4-11), he won the yards version of his specialty (51.8) and the Long Jump (22-1 [6.73]), then came back on Saturday to win the 120-yard hurdles (14.3) and anchor Ohio State to wins in the Shuttle Hurdles and Mile relays. Hall-of-Famer Davis went on to win his 2nd Olympic hurdles title in 1960.
1958—San Jose State’s Ray Norton ran 9.3 for 100 yards at the Armed Forces Day meet on his home track to equal the World Record that was shared by 7 others, including Mel Patton, Dave Sime, and Bobby Morrow.
1974—Francie Larrieu-Smith ran 4:37.88 for the Mile at the Texas Relays, breaking her own American Record of 4:38.7.
AR Progression(unofficial): http://tf-stats.com/american_outdoor_women.php
1976—Kathy McMillan (Hoke County,NC) long-jumped 21-7 ½ (6.59) in Raeford,NC. That mark was not only a National H.S. Record, it also matched Martha Watson’s American Record. She would improve the AR three times that season, finishing with a best of 22-3 (6.78), which was her winning mark at the U.S. Championships! That final mark lasted for 39 years as the High School Record, with Kate Hall (Lake Region,ME) jumping 22-5 (6.83) in 2015! McMillan still has 4 of the all-time top-10 marks by a prep (indoors/outdoors). Later in the year, McMillan went on to win the silver medal at the Montreal Olympics.
She was a member of the inaugural class that was inducted into the National H.S. T&F Hall of Fame in 2018
https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/79569
http://tshf.net/halloffame/mcmillan-kathy/
All-Time H.S: https://trackandfieldnews.com/tfn-lists/high-school-all-time-top-10s-girls/
H.S. Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech
1980— The U.S. Olympic Committee’s House of Delegates, in the face of intense pressure from the Federal government, voted in agreement with President Jimmy Carter’s demand for a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow (in protest of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan). Mike Moran, the chief spokesman for the USOC at the time, gives an inside look at that fateful decision and its aftermath in this edition of Rich Perelman’s The Sports Examiner.
(WM-While most of the athletes who had qualified for the Olympics in their respective sports disagreed with the decision, there were some who supported it)
