by Elliott DenmanLET’S SALUTE QUENTIN WHEELER.
HIS FRANKLIN FIELD 400 HURDLES RECORD
ENDURED FOR 49 YEARS.
By ELLIOTT DENMAN
It only took 49 years.
If a measure of any performance on the record lists – global, national, local, facility – is its longevity, then Quentin Wheeler’s 48.55 clocking for the 400-meter hurdles at Philadelphia’s storied Franklin Field back in 1976 rates right up there wth the best.
Remember Quentin Wheeler?
Not too many ardent track and field fans do, but I surely do.
He’s (as I still envision him) that long-legged lad from two towns over from me (Tinton Falls. NJ), out of Monmouth Regional High School, a star pupil of Coach Ed Scullion, right here in Monmouth County – you know, at the Jersey Shore – who seemingly was ready to climb the absolute heights of his sport.
He almost got there.
The 48.55 came at the NCAA Championships of 1976, a year that saw so many other major events staged in Philadelphia’s Bicentennial celebration. Out of Monmouth Regional, he’d snared a scholarship to San Diego State University, heading to America’s southern-most West along with 800-meter high school teammate Odie Huffman.
In those 48.55 seconds, with the Olympics looming that summer in Montreal – closest they’d ever be held to Tinton Falls – everything seemed to be possible An eight-hour drive up the NY Thruway to five-ringed gold, even with the young Edwin Moses emerging on the global scene with a similar objective, seemed a definite possibility. (And Uganda’s 1972 Olympic champion John Akii-Bua boycotted out of the picture.)
Track analysts that spring of 1976 were now rating New Jersey’s Wheeler at least an equal candidate for the top of the Montreal podium with Dayton,Ohio’s/Morehouse College of Atlanta’s Moses. With another terrific candidate emerging in Mike Shine, the Penn Stater and member of the NY Pioneer Club.
Well, those 1976 Olympic Trials showed how close this rivalry could be. Moses won it in the American-record time of 48.30. Wheeler was a tight second in 48.65. With Shine third in 49.33, Team USA had the strong potential of a 1-2-3 Montreal sweep. Moses had edged Wheeler in a semifinal, 49.02 to 49.29.
The track and field world, of course, knows that Moses went on to Montreal gold in the world-record time of 47.63 – thus launching an incredible, astounding 122-race winning streak that ran through nine years, nine months and nine days. After the boycott year of 1980, he’d earned another Olympic gold at L.A. in 1984, and snared a bronze at Seoul in 1988.
But Quentin Wheeler’s world-class career was defined by too-many coulda-woulda-shouldas. His early stride-pattern in the Montreal final was askew. He struggled and lagged over three and four barriers. By midway, though, he got it together and was coming on – well, like the proverbial gangbusters. Alas, he was a tad too late for the podium. Moses (47.63), Shine (48.29) and Soviet star Yevygeny Gavrilenko (49.45) were up there 1-2-3.
Wheeler ran a just-miss, just-too-late fourth in 49.88, not close to his Franklin Field form.
He’d continue running the global circuit but his career-best of 48.39 in 1979 represented just a meager improvement on that 48.55 in Franklin Field.
Wheeler’s story is just another of this sport’s great maybes. He had what it took. He just missed.
If all had gone perfectly, could he have beaten Moses at Montreal? Could he have lowered his career PR into the 47’s? Could he, like Moses, have been a forever-icon of track and field, too ?
We’ll never know. Reportedly, Wheeler has lived much of his latter years in Switzerland, building a new life.
But , for 49 years, he at least had that Franklin Field 48.55 record as a remembrance of how superb an athlete he’d been.
Now, even that is gone.
In one smashing Saturday – at Franklin Field, day one of Grand Slam Track’s visit to Philadelphia, 31st day of May 2025, his was one of 11 all-time Franklin Field best-evers erased by Michael Johnson’s superbly-rewarded gathering of global all-stars.
Brazil’s Alison Dos Santos crossed the Grand Slam finish line in 48.11. American Trevor Bassitt was right behind in 48.25.
Few-few-few records of any description endure for 49 years. Wherever he can be found these days, Quentin Wheeler can tell you it had been a very-very good run. Win some, lose some. Life moves on.
