by RBR Admin
Walt Murphy is one of the finest track statisticians 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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Walt Murphy’s News and Results Service ([email protected])
This Day in Track & Field–June 9
1928—Stanford, winner of the IC4A title two weeks earlier in Cambridge, MA, dominated the team scoring at the NCAA Championships, held at Chicago’s Soldier Field, beating runner-up Illinois by 41-1/4 points (72-30-3/4). It was the 2nd straight NCAA team title for coach Dink Templeton, a future Hall-of-Famer.
Stanford had 5 individual champions
440y-Senior Bud Spencer 47.7/Meet Record–had set a World Record of 47.0 for 400 meters the previous
month…1928 Olympic gold medalist-4×400
High Jump—Senior Bob King 6-4 ½ (1.945) 1928 Olympic gold medalist
Pole Vault—Junior Ward Edmonds 13-6 ½ (4.13) won again in 1929 (co-champion)
Shot Put—Sophomore Harlow Rothert 49-10 ¾ (15.205) won again in 1929&1930…1932 Olympic silver medalist
Discus—Sophomore Eric Krenz 149-2 (45.46?)/Meet Record…was 2nd in the Shot Put 48-6 ½ (14.795)
Rice sophomore Charles Bracey was a double winner, setting a Meet Record of 9.6y in the 100y and equaling the MR
of 20.9 in the 220y (straight). Finishing 2nd in both events was another sophomore, Ohio State’s George Simpson,
who would win both sprints the following year and a 2nd title in the 220y in 1930.
Finishing 3rd in the Shot Put was Washington senior Herman Brix, the 1927 Champion. Later known as Bruce Bennett,
he portrayed Tarzan in the movies.
As was the case in some of the other early editions of the NCAA Championships, many Eastern teams chose to end
their season at the IC4A Championships, which were considered just as important (if not more so) at the time
than the newcomer on the college scene.
NY Times Coverage: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1928/06/10/100990813.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
Results: https://trackandfieldnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/1928.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_NCAA_Track_and_Field_Championships
1945—Just as Stanford did in 1928, Navy followed up its IC4A win with a victory at the NCAA Championships, held in Marquette Stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was the first time a school from the East had won the team title in the 24-year history of the meet.
Navy got wins from John Van Velzer in the 100 (10.1), Bill Kash in the 440y (49.8), and Robert Patton in the Javelin (191-1 [58.24?]).
Keeping with the family tradition, Michigan’s Ross and Robert Hume, the “Dead-Heat Twins”, holding hands, tried to finish in a tie for 1st place in the Mile, just as they had done at the 1944 Championships (and 12 other previous occasions!), but officials separated them, giving the win to Ross(4:18.5), who was also a winner of the 880y (1:55.2)!
Navy personnel were not allowed to be away from schools longer than 48 hours, so the meet was held in one day; prelims in morning, finals at night. Freshmen were eligible. (From T&F News)
NY Times Coverage: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1945/06/10/305280642.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
https://trackandfieldnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/1945.pdf
1965–France’s Michel Jazy ran 3:53.6 in Rennes, France, to break Peter Snell’s World Record in the Mile (3:54.1).
WR Progression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile_run_world_record_progression
https://vault.si.com/vault/1965/06/21/the-big-three-are-miles-apart
Racing Past: http://www.racingpast.ca/john_contents.php?id=159
1973—Free from the confines of a job (I had been let go from my Wall Street position in April), I decided to enjoy my new-found freedom and drove from Queens,NY, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to take in the NCAA Championships.
There were stars galore at the meet and here are the accomplishments of just a few, most of whom had to deal with hot (90d on Saturday) and humid conditions:
Maurice Peoples stunned the heavy favorite, UCLA’s Benny Brown (45.6), to win the 440y in 45-flat, anchored Arizona State to a 2nd-place finish in the 440-Relay, then ran a 43.4 split, the fastest in history, to bring the Sun Devils (3:05.0) home in 3rd place in the Mile-Relay.
Bowling Green’s Dave Wottle (3:57.1), the 1972 Olympic champion at 800-Meters, used his trademark finish to win one of the greatest miles in history. Despite a 2:04+ first half-mile, a total of 8 men broke 4-minutes, including the North Carolina duo of Tony Waldrop (3:57.3) and Reggie McAfee (3:57.8), Oregon State’s Hailu Ebba (3:57.8), Michigan State’s Ken Popejoy (3:58.5), San Jose State’s Mark Schilling (3:58.6), Oregon’s Knut Kvalheim (3:58.9), and Missouri’s Charlie McMullen (3:59.6). Finishing 9th in 4:01.3 was Brigham Young’s Paul Cummings, who would win the Mile at the 1974 NCAA Championships.
Another 1972 gold medalist, Southern University’s Rod Milburn, won the 120y-Hurdles (6-8) in 13.1, the 2nd-fstest time in history (behind his World Record of 13-flat). 2nd was North Carolina Central’s Charles Foster (13.4), who had a successful career as a college coach before retiring in 2015. (Foster passed away on March 31, 2019 at the age of 65).
Oregon senior Steve Prefontaine, 4th in the Olympic 5000 in Munich, won his 4th straight NCAA title in the 3-Mile/5k-1972, running 13:05.4 (Meet Record) to beat a deep field that included the Colorado pair of Ted Castaneda and John Gregorio, both of whom ran 13:10.6, Washington State’s John Ngeno (13:14.8), Manhattan’s Mike Keogh (13:14.8), and Western Kentucky’s Nick Rose (13:23.4). Castaneda was the long-time coachat Colorado College before retiring in December, 2020.
Cal Poly/SLO’s Rey Brown, who made the 1968 Olympic team just before the beginning of his senior year in high school, won his 2nd NCAA High Jump title (also won in 1971), clearing 7-4 (2.235?) to beat Oregon State’s Tom Woods, the defending champion, on misses. Brown also won NCAA Div.II titles in 1971 and 1973.
Oregon’s Mac Wilkins, known as “Multiple Mac” for his achievements in all 4 throws, won the Discus with a throw of
203-11 (62.15) after finishing 3rd in the Shot Put (63-8/19.405?). Wilkins, who would become a world record holder and the 1976 Olympic gold medalist in the Discus, wound up with career bests of 69-1 1/4i (21.06) in the Shot Put, 232-10 (70.98) in the Discus, 208-10 (63.65) in the Hammer, and 257-4 (78.44) in the Javelin.
Rice’s Dave Roberts, another future Olympic medalist(bronze-1976) and World Record holder, won his 3rd straight title in the Pole Vault with a clearance of 17-4 (5.285).
The Deluge
Another performer almost stole the show from these great athletes–the weather! The meet was delayed on Thursday when a violent storm dumped almost 4 inches of rain on the area in less than three hours. Dubbed “The Deluge”, it was a storm that all subsequent storms at track meets would be measured against. Some of us in attendance were sitting in an auxiliary (and open-air) press box that had been built to accommodate additional members of the press. When the rain (and hailstones) came, we cowered under a bench that offered some protection. But then the wind changed direction and there was no escaping getting drenched! Some running shoes still hadn’t dried out by the time we left for home once the meet was over!.
Host City
While the legendary Southern Hospitality was evident in many parts of Baton Rouge, there were still some vestiges of outdated racial attitudes, leading some African-American coaches to formally complain to the NCAA about the treatment they received in some areas of the city.
TAFWA
The weekend also marked the birth of The Track & Field Writers of America (TAFWA), a group formed to help promote, among other things, proper working condition for members of the press who covered the sport on a regular basis. http://tafwa.org.
Once the meet was over, I embarked on the 2nd phase of my “Excellent Adventure”—a cross-country drive to the U.S. Championships in Bakersfield, CA.
Results: https://trackandfieldnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/1973.pdf
http://www.ustfccca.org/ncaa-100/steve-prefontaine-oregon-ncaa-history-5000-meters
Pre’s Oregon Bio: http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=30594
1973—When fans talk about the greatest prep runners, Jim Ryun and Gerry Lindgren immediately come to mind.
Fair enough, but maybe Craig Virgin’s name should be added to the mix. Virgin put together a series of marks during his senior year at Lebanon(IL) H.S. that was nothing short of amazing, topped by the 8:40.9 two-mile that he ran on this date in 1973 to break Steve Prefontaine’s National H.S. Record(8:41.5). That was his 9th(!) sub-9 minute race (and 4th under 8:50) within the span of 2 months. In addition, he also recorded all-time top-3 marks in the 3000 (8:10.2), 3-Miles (13:36.8), and 5000-Meters (13:58.2). Oh, and he also ran a 4:05.5 Mile (See season recap below). Finishing a distant 2nd in his record race at the International Prep Invitation (IPI), with an impressive time of 8:56.8, was Matt Centrowitz (Power Memorial, NY).
Virgin’s record-setting race received some attention in the Chicago papers the next day. Still, he probably would have received more extensive coverage if Secretariat hadn’t won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths in NY on the same day to complete horse racing’s Triple Crown!
Virgin took time out recently to reminisce about his record-setting performance.
“I was running out of time… I had run 8:45.6/4:08 indoors at Champaign in early March… and then 8:46.6 outdoors at an Invite at Centralia H.S. in early May… then just missed the record by one second (8:42.6) at our state meet… in hot/humid conditions at 1 PM!!! I did run a 4:05.5 fresh (not coming back off a 2-mile) the next weekend… so I knew that I was ready.. and hoped to break 8:40…. but I knew that I had to be under 4:20 for the mile mark to have a chance…. or to build a little buffer in there… in case I could not rally for a fast last 440 (yes, Martha, we did run yards back then).
“I knew that the chase for the record could come down to a second or two… and that’s why I had my coach Hank Feldt over near the 220 mark… giving me splits…. so I could hold goal pace… which was 64-66 per lap… and I (can) remember his splits and comments to me even today. He just retired from coaching (in 2013) after 54 years!
“I agree with Centrowitz (see below)… that had we been under the lights and later at night… cooler and drier…. w/ no wind…. and on a urethane track…. that I could probably have run 2 seconds a mile faster….and certainly not suffered the physical damage to my feet that I did on the black asphalt track… that was so hot… that you could have literally fried eggs on it! I did miss Golden West the next weekend… because my feet were hamburger still….and I tried to recover for the 2nd AAU Jr. Nationals… to be held down at Gainesville, FL later that month…. to make the US Jr. team again… which was slated to go overseas. (Virgin won the Junior 3-mile in 13:36.8)
Here’s an excerpt from Virgin’s biography, written by Randy Sharer:
Craig was involved in the opening ceremonies at which he was invited to read the “International Prep Oath.” As Centrowitz remembers it, “The rest of us were laughing or couldn’t believe how much Craig was doing to promote the meet and his race at the same time.” (Joe) Newton (the meet director) wanted Craig in front of the crowd as much as possible.
“When Joe says to do something, do you turn him down?” asked Craig, whose predicament caught the attention of Ted Hayden, the famed coach of the University of Chicago Track Club. Hayden suggested that Craig warm up inside Prospect High School to stay out of the sun. After jogging through the hallways and locker room, Craig returned to the track 10 minutes before the gun to spend the last few moments in the shade of a Coca-Cola truck.
The race quickly turned into one of Craig’s many solo time trials. “Craig took off and, after two laps, there was no more race,” Centrowitz said. But Craig wasn’t exactly alone as the estimated crowd of 8,000 chanted “go, Craig, go” through all eight laps. “They kept my morale up,” he told a reporter later. “A crowd gives you tempo and I kept listening to the announcer calling off the times.” The crowd included University of Illinois coach Gary Wieneke, who couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “People literally dropped out of the competition,” he said. After the race, Craig told Wieneke, “Yes, it was hot, but it’s been a lot hotter on the tractor down at home.” Absent from the audience were Craig’s parents, who had to tend to their farm.
Craig blitzed the first lap in 62.5 and the second in 64.9. His feet began blistering inside his red-white-and-blue Nike spikes during a 65.6 third lap. A fourth circuit of 66.5 put him at 4:19.5, a time that would have placed him seventh against a national-caliber field in the mile contested earlier. After a 65.8 and a 66.1, Craig’s stomach began to hurt. A seventh lap of 65.9 left him needing a 64.2 to break Pre’s record of 8:41.6. “Going into the final 100 yards, all I could think about was that I had just missed the record at the state meet, and I just wanted to be sure that I didn’t miss it again,” Craig told the Chicago Tribune. With the help of a standing ovation, Craig ground out a 63.5 last lap to complete an 8:40.9 masterpiece. “It’s over! It’s over! It’s over!” he said as Feldt removed his spikes.
It would be 35 years before anyone in a race limited to high school runners would go faster. Centrowitz, a straightaway behind, placed second in a personal best of 8:56.8 while (Robbie) Perkins was third in 9:01.1. “A good track on a cool night, he had another five or six seconds in him,” said Perkins 36 years later. “These guys running fast today would have had a hard time beating Craig Virgin that day.”
As Craig signed autographs afterward, his immediate reaction to the record was not joy. “Relief,” he said, “relief that it was over now. I had that monkey off my back.” It was a good thing he got the record when he did because his feet were so blistered he had to pull out of the Golden West Invitational scheduled the following week. (END)
There was never any danger that Virgin, still only 17 at the time, would ever get a big head despite all of his accomplishments. “The next day after I broke Pre’s record… Coach Feldt and I drove back home in his fancy Thunderbird midday… and I got home to discover that my dad was baling hay out in the field. Instead of celebrating… I promptly changed into work jeans and boots… and headed out to the hay wagon to stack heavy hay bales in the heat/humidity of southern Illinois for the rest of the day… and then put them up in the barn. I think my mom gave me a hug….and fixed something special for me at dinner that night….but that was the extent of my celebration of the accomplishment that I had been chasing all year. That happened a lot to me during my career…. the farm always brought me down to earth…. after some of my biggest victories/accomplishments…. as well as some of my worst disappointments/losses. The cows or hogs or crops….didn’t care one bit about where I had been… or what I had done…. good or bad…. they all just wanted to be fed and watered on time! In many respects… I maintain that I was like a “white Kenyan” with their tough and physical agrarian background. I just didn’t have to run to school barefoot on dirt roads!”.
Virgin went on to have a great collegiate career at Illinois, was a three-time Olympian at 10,000 meters, a two-time World Cross Country Champion, and was inducted into the U.S. Hall of Fame in 2011.
And he was inducted into the National High School T&F Hall of Fame in 2020. Sadly, his coach at Lebanon H.S., Hank Feldt, passed away just days before the ceremony took place in NY City.
“I was getting ready to take off when I got a phone call. It just paralyzed me,” Virgin told the St.Louis Post Dispatch. How could this happen? I was going into my first high school hall of fame, and my coach died that week. I was heartbroken.”
National Hall of Fame Bio: http://www.legacy.usatf.org/HallOfFame/TF/showBio.asp?HOFIDs=247
Intro & Acceptance Speech: https://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=13078&do=videos&video_id=298410
https://www.facebook.com/NSAF1990/videos/237251137674246/
His website: http://www.craigvirgin.com/
A great look at his career: http://runningentertainment.com/runningshots17.html
Gary Cohen Interview(2010): http://www.garycohenrunning.com/Interviews/Virgin.aspx
1973 Season (Outdoor marks from Jack Shepard’s High School Track 1974)
(mile/2-mile, unless otherwise noted)
Date Time All-Time Meet
Indoors
February 11 8:51.0, 4:12.5(oversized)
February 23 13:50.0(3-miles,10th) #3 U.S. Indoor Nationals
March 3 8:45.6, 4:08.?(oversized) #2 Champaign
Outdoors
April 7 8:50.4 #10 performance Alton Relays
April ? 4:15.8
April ? 4:14.5, 1:56.8(880y) Triangular
April 24 8:55.6, 4:16.6 St.Olaf County
April 28 8:59.0 Granite City Inv.
May 2 9:24.2 O’Fallon Relays
May 3 4:27.9, 2:02.1(880y) Cahokis Conference
May 5 8:46.6, 4:11.8r #4 performance Orphan Relays
May 15 8:54.0 Cahokis Inv.
May 18 8:53.6 District
May 21 8:48.6, 4:08.5 #6 performance Meet of Champions
May 25 4:10.0(heat) State Meet
May 26 8:42.6, 4:12.2(2nd) #3 performance State Meet
June 1 4:05.5 =#14 Top-10 Inv.
June 9 8:40.9 #1 IPI
June 23 13:36.8(3-mile) #3 U.S. Juniors
July 4 4:06.1(5th) Freedom Mile
July 14 8:10.2(3k) #2 U.S. vs West Germany Juniors
July 20 8:16.0 #3 performance U.S. vs Poland Juniors
July 28 13:58.2(5k) #3 U.S. vs USSR Juniors
