Carter’s Shot Put Prowess Was Legendary

In January 1983, Michael Carter of SMU picked up a shot for the first time in 18 months.

By June of that same year, he was looking to regain the national title in that event at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Houston. 

Carter – who had won in 1980 and 1981 – wasn’t able to try for a third in 1982 when he missed the entire indoor and outdoor seasons recovering from a football injury he suffered in October 1981. He was the starting nose tackle for the Mustangs, who were undefeated in 1982 and only lost one game in 1981.

After the cast on Carter’s right knee came off in January 1982, Carter showed his competitive side, telling John Eisenberg of the Dallas Times-Herald: “As soon as I get the go-ahead, I’m going to bust my butt like I never did before. I’m going to make my legs stronger than they ever have been.”

Meanwhile, another strong throwing figure emerged in 1982 with Carter’s absence – Oregon’s Dean Crouser, who not only won the NCAA shot that year but the discus as well. And the day before the 1983 NCAA shot final, Crouser looked great, repeating his discus win with a meet-record 65.88m (216-2) while Carter was 10th (Carter placed runner-up two years earlier in 1981).

Carter made this shot final his from the beginning. He took the immediate lead with a 20.22m (66-4¼) effort in Round 1 and then followed with the winning have of 20.90m (68-7) – his best since a pre-injury 21.25m (69-8¾) that set an NCAA Indoor meet record in 1981. Crouser, the defending champion, finished third behind John Brenner of UCLA.

As it turns out, Carter’s points were crucial to SMU, which eked out a two-point victory over Tennessee to complete a sweep of indoor and outdoor team crowns.

“I knew in the back of my mind that Crouser could hit a big one at any time,” Carter said after the meet. “I tried to improve after the second throw, but I couldn’t. I wanted to keep my string alive; my goal is eight straight.”

At this point, Carter had six national titles in the shot put – three each indoor and outdoor. He got to seven with his indoor victory in 1984, but his attempt for eight was part of an epic duel with Brenner that will be the subject of its own forthcoming moment in this series. 

Alas for track & field fans, Carter’s last shot put competition came when he earned the silver medal at the Los Angeles Olympics. He then joined the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, with whom he was part of three Super Bowl champion teams.

Michael’s two daughters also won NCAA titles – Michelle (Texas), the 2006 indoor shot put champion; D’Andra (Texas Tech), the 2009 discus champion – making the Carters the first family with three NCAA Division I track & field champions. In 2016, Michelle earned the family’s first Olympic gold medal, also becoming the first American woman to win the shot put.

Lendore Capped Dream Year At NCAAs

Going undefeated in an event like the 400 is no small task.

Deon Lendore of Texas A&M was a giant among men six years ago.

From his first indoor race at the Texas A&M Quadrangular to his final outdoor competition of the season at Historic Hayward Field, Lendore turned away all competitors in his signature event. Lendore posted a perfect 8-0 record in 400-meter finals and added another victory in the 200 to boot. He was also a member of the Aggies’ vaunted 4×400 relay team that won the NCAA outdoor title and helped them finish runner-up in the 4×100 relay.

That resume led Lendore, who celebrates his 28th birthday today, to win The Bowerman, collegiate track & field’s highest honor, over a pair of incredible distance runners who rewrote the record book that year – Oregon’s Edward Cheresk and Arizona’s Lawi Lalang.

Lendore introduced himself to the world in late February when he won the 400-meter title at the SEC Indoor Championships with a world-leading time of 45.03. That mark also made him the fourth fastest performer in collegiate history at the time (Lendore has since dropped to 8th). 

Just a few weeks later, Lendore easily won the NCAA title in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He went 45.21 for a 0.25-second victory over Vernon Norwood of LSU, who’d win the event the next year.

Lendore then turned his attention outdoors and his 44.90 at the Sun Angel Classic was one of two times that he went sub-45 during the season. The other instance came at the SEC Outdoor Championships at 44.36 to become the seventh fastest collegian ever (Lendore is now 12th).

At the 2014 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, Lendore held off Oregon’s Mike Berry at the finish line for a 0.05-second victory in the 400 – 45.02 to 45.07. That victory came one day before Lendore anchored the runner-up 4×100 relay as well as his 44.10 final tote on the 4×400 relay that gave Texas A&M a winning time of 2:59.60 for the third fastest mark in meet history.

Lendore is a five-time global medalist, taking home one Olympic bronze medal as part of Trinidad & Tobago’s 4×400 relay team at the 2012 London Games and four other World Championship medals between the indoor (three) and outdoor (one) installments.

Butler Starred With Three 3K Victories

“When things are tough, I always think back to when I couldn’t run at all.” ~ That’s what Kathy Butler told Cathy Breitenbucher for Track & Field News after winning the individual title at the 1995 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships.

By the time Kathy Butler strode to a third-straight 3000-meter victory in the 1997 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, very few remembered the days when she arrived at Wisconsin.

In the fall of 1994 – when Butler’s club coach in Canada said she couldn’t break 5:00 for 1500 meters – Butler joined USTFCCCA Hall of Fame coach Peter Tegen’s respected program at Wisconsin after back-to-back attacks of asthma (1993) and Graves’ disease (1994), the latter of which wiped out her entire track season.

Butler, as a Badger, was an immediate success: She was fifth at the 1994 NCAA Cross Country Championships and by the spring of 1995, Butler had her first NCAA title, taking the outdoor 3K. The following year saw her win a triple crown of sorts: an individual national title in cross country, anchoring the winning indoor DMR team at the NCAA meet and then a second outdoor 3K crown.

Her final go at the outdoor 3K was actually a collegiate record attempt, which seemed possible after an early-May 8:54.07 made her the second-fastest outdoor collegian ever behind the 8:47.35 of Villanova’s Vicki Huber in 1988. After dropping the field in the first kilometer, Butler eased off the pedal and settled for a win in 9:01.23, the fastest of her three NCAA titles.

“I was trying to go 70-second [8:45] pace, but it was a little harder than I thought,” Butler said afterward.

Myricks Starred Across Divisions At NCAAs

It took three years, but Larry Myricks of Mississippi College finally made it back to the top of the podium in the long jump at the 1979 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

Half of that time – 18 months – was spent recovering from a broken ankle suffered while warming up for the finals of the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Myricks had won the long jump at the 1976 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships with a leap of 7.96m (26-1½) and looked to be part of a U.S. medal sweep in Montreal.

“This championship was more satisfying than the one in 1976,” Myricks told Lee Baker of the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. “Because a lot of people said after I got hurt in Montreal that I’d never be able to come back.”

Myricks’ comeback in 1979 – with a then-PR of 8.11m (26-7¼) – was actually just beginning.

He finished the summer with an incredible 8.52m (27-11½) to win the World Cup at the very same Montreal Olympic Stadium where his career got derailed. At the time, the only jump longer was Bob Beamon’s famous 8.90m (29-2½) from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

DID YOU KNOW: Mississippi College is an NCAA Division II program and was when Myricks competed, so he got an opportunity to rack up national titles in each division in his career (That was when top NCAA DII & NCAA DIII athletes were invited to compete at the NCAA DI Championships). In addition to those NCAA DI crowns, he added five more to his haul at the NCAA DII meet, with three coming in the long jump (1976, 1978-1979) and two more  in the 200 (1978-1979).

Thomas Rose To Occasion In The High Jump

Mazel Thomas didn’t have to look far to find her toughest competition in the high jump at the 1987 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships – usually it was her Abilene Christian teammate Yolanda Henry.

So it was surprising when the bar was raised to 1.89m (6-2¼) that Thomas was the only ACU Wildcat left in the competition. After all, Thomas was second only two weeks earlier at the NCAA Division II meet, when Henry cleared 1.91m (6-3¼) for a fourth-straight NCAA DII crown.*

But this was Thomas’ day as she topped 1.89m (6-2¼) to equal her Jamaican record and register the first – and still, only – Abilene Christian women’s title in meet history.

“I was a little nervous before my second attempt at 6-2¼,” Thomas said afterwards. “My legs started to shake, but I was able to calm down. This really feels great.”

*Yolanda Henry of Abilene Christian is only one of two women in NCAA history who have won four consecutive high jump titles. Kim Oden of Nebraska Wesleyan joined her in that regard between 1989 and 1992 at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships. It has never happened at the NCAA Division I level.

Patton Left Legendary Mark On NCAA Sprints

In the heats of the 1947 NCAA Championships, Mel Patton of Southern California equaled the 100-yard world record of 9.4, but amazingly he didn’t get any credit for the world record.

Even though the wind reading was 1.9 meters per second – less than the legal limit of 2.0 required by the IAAF and AAU – NCAA rules at the time had a limit of 3 miles per hour (1.3 m/s), so the performance was not submitted as a world record. (The NCAA changed its rule to 2.0 m/s the next year.)

It wouldn’t be the last time that Patton – who went on to win the first of his five NCAA sprint titles – lost world record recognition over inconsistent rules.

It happened again in 1948, but this time in the 200 meters as Patton followed up his first NCAA sprint double with an Olympic Trials win in the 200. The 200 that year was held on a turn – just as in the London Olympics that he won later that summer were – and Patton ran 20.7, equal to the fastest ever.

At least Patton was in great company: The other 20.7 belonged to none other than Jesse Owens when he won gold at the 1936 Olympics. (The IAAF did not recognize races on curves for record status until 1951.)

Did Patton ever get credit for a world record? Yes, and two of his most remarkable WRs happened in a week’s time to better a pair by Owens from his famous Day of Days at the 1935 Big Ten Championships.

In the 1949 USC-UCLA dual meet, Patton – nicknamed “Pell Mel” – ran a straightaway 220 yards in 20.2 to break Owens’ WR of 20.3, then a week later followed it with history’s first 9.3 100 yards.

Of the 9.3, Patton commented, “I can hardly believe it is true. I really don’t believe I was going as fast as that. It didn’t feel to be my fastest race.”

Patton completed a second-straight 100/200 double at the NCAA Championships in 1949, winning both at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, nearly on the USC campus. His five NCAA outdoor sprint titles is one short of the all-time best of six set by Marquette’s Ralph Metcalfe (1932-34).

Tough Keeping Up With This Jones

In 1989, Jolanda Jones of Houston became the first athlete to win three heptathlons at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships. 

Jones’s victory in Provo 31 years ago was the most comfortable of her three NCAA titles, winning by 168 points – but her performance two years earlier in Baton Rouge may have been her most impressive.

And, yet, even though she first scored more than 6000 points in the 1987 NCAA meet, the mark didn’t seem to matter.

“I’ll take the win,” Jones told Ruth Laney for Track & Field News. “That’s all I wanted, the win.” 

Why was the win so special? After all, her score of 6068 was a PR by 242 points and made Jones then just the meet’s second over 6000 points, along with Jackie Joyner of UCLA. 

Jones revealed the answer after Day 1, when she led by 25 points. 

“I have tendinitis in my left knee,” she explained to Laney. “I laid off training in the last two weeks. But I’ll go all-out tomorrow. I’m going to try to PR in the long jump and half and will just have to pray in the javelin – it’s my worst event.”

Jones’ long jump was solid at 6.32m (20-9) – less than inch off her best – but her prayers were answered in the javelin with a PR 38.48m (126-3), far enough that a relatively easy 800 (for her) of 2:17.87 generated more than enough points for the win and huge PR score. 

After redshirting in 1988 to concentrate on the Olympic Trials – where she fell at the first barrier in the 100-meter hurdles and didn’t finish – Jones came back in 1989 for her record third NCAA heptathlon win at 6022.

Could there have been a fourth NCAA heptathlon title for Jones, who also won in 1986? No one will ever know, as Jones didn’t compete in the heptathlon in the 1985 NCAA meet as a freshman. However, three weeks after the meet, Jones was second in The Athletics Congress national championships with 5765 points – the most by a collegian that year – and beating the NCAA champ, Lauri Young of Louisiana-Monroe, who was fourth. 

Prior to her career as a Cougar, Jones was a Texas high school legend, single-handedly giving Elsik High of Alief (near Houston) a share of the 1984 Class 5A state team title by winning the 400, 800 and high jump and finishing second in the long jump.

As a post-collegian, Jones became a councilwoman for the City of Houston from 2008-11. Fans of the TV show Survivor may remember her appearance in the 2005 airing of the Palau series.

Student-Athlete + History = Daniel Lincoln

Daniel Lincoln was the walking embodiment of the term “student-athlete.”

Actually, if Lincoln had his druthers, he probably would have skipped the athlete part entirely — but, then, the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships wouldn’t have its only man to complete the steeplechase-10K double in meet history back in 2003.

See, growing up, Lincoln knew he wanted to be a doctor, so he set himself up on that path. He took the hardest classes in school and even left Conway (Ark.) High School to attend the prestigious Arkansas School of Mathematics and Science as a senior. Lincoln earned a full academic scholarship to attend the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where he would earn a degree in chemistry with a concentration in biochemistry and a minor in mathematics and then finish medical school there as well.

Cross country – and eventually track & field – was just a bonus extracurricular for Lincoln. It’s safe to say that he had some talent for it, though, as he finished seventh at the state cross country meet as a sophomore, eventually won the state meet as a senior after students at ASMS convinced him to go out for the team and dropped a 4:16 mile at the Texas Relays after taking up track as well.

Lincoln found his way into the office of legendary Arkansas coach John McDonnell on his tour for incoming students and asked if he could join the program as a walk-on freshman. McDonnell agreed, even though Lincoln later said, “He pretended to know who I was when I asked.”

Over the next four years, Lincoln developed into one of the finest distance runners the program has ever seen, racking up four individual NCAA titles, including three consecutive steeplechase victories between 2001 and 2003, in addition to a 10K crown in the final year. Yes. You read that correctly: Lincoln completed the only steeplechase-10K double in meet history as a senior.

Let’s take a close look at the 2003 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, where Lincoln had a challenging schedule in front of him. He entered the meet as the two-time defending champion in the steeplechase with victories by 0.54 seconds in 2001 and 4.17 seconds in 2002 and would contest the prelims of that event on Wednesday, a 10K final on Thursday and a potential steeplechase final on Friday.

After easily making it through to the steeplechase final, Lincoln turned his attention to the 10K. He and teammate Alistair Cragg dueled throughout the race with Lincoln edging Cragg by 0.09 seconds at the finish line, matching the smallest margin of victory in meet history (John Scherer of Michigan also won by 0.09 seconds in 1988).

With 13,000 meters of racing already in his legs, Lincoln didn’t show worse for wear on Friday. He ran like the two-time defending champion he was and won by nearly three seconds to match James Mulyala of UTEP as the only men to have won three consecutive national titles in meet history (Across the other divisions, four men have also accomplished said feat in NCAA Division II, while no man has done so yet in NCAA Division III).

Lincoln eventually enrolled into medical school, all while continuing his post-collegiate running career. He won the U.S. steeplechase title in 2004, placed 11th at the Athens Olympics that same year and not too long after, broke the 21-year-old American record in the event.

Peters At Head Of Jav U’s Class

If Mississippi State is the rightful “Javelin U,” Anderson Peters is at the head of the class.

Peters, a former standout for the Bulldogs who turns 23-years old today, was a two-time javelin champion at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in 2018 and 2019 with meet record efforts in both of those years, which includes a massive heave of 86.62m (284-2) in 2019 that currently ranks third on the all-time collegiate chart.

The native of Saint Andrew, Grenada, entered the collegiate system in 2018 with a PR of 84.81m (278-3) that would have won him the NCAA title at every edition of the Championships dating back to 1986 and ranked him third in collegiate history if he had thrown it as a collegian.

Well, Peters wasted no time making an impact as a freshman, going undefeated throughout the regular season, which included a near six-foot victory at the SEC Outdoor Championships against Ioannis Kyriazis of Texas A&M, who was the defending national champion.

Peters arrived at the 2018 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in June as the prohibitive favorite – and threw like it. He recorded three marks of 80.00m (262-5) or better at Historic Hayward Field, which included a then-meet record of 82.82m (271-9) on his third attempt and an 82.64m (271-1) missile on his sixth that left him with the two farthest marks in the 96-year history of the meet.

Believe it or not, Peters only got better as a sophomore.

Peters started the 2019 season with an incredible series at the Texas Relays. All five of his legal throws went farther than 82.00m (269-0), with four of those eclipsing his seasonal best from the previous year. Peters ended up with a winning mark of 86.07m (282-5) for the third longest throw in collegiate history, less than two feet shy of Kyriazis’ No. 2 mark.

He returned to Mike A. Myers Stadium in June for the NCAA Championships as the prohibitive favorite to win back-to-back crowns. The only remaining questions surrounding the day were about how far he would throw and how many Bulldogs would flank him on the podium.

Peters opened at 84.70m (277-11) and followed that up with howitzers of 86.62m (284-2) and 86.48m (283-9) on his third and fourth attempts to wow the crowd. All told, that gave Peters a new meet record, the largest margin of victory in meet history and three more all-time top-10 marks to bring his career total to six (Patrik Boden is the only other athlete with multiples).

With Peters leading the way, Mississippi State made history. 2016 champion Curtis Thompson finished second and Tyriq Horsford ended up third, giving the Bulldogs the first podium sweep in the event since Oregon did so 57 years earlier in 1962.

Just a few months later, Peters won the gold medal at the 2019 IAAF World Championships in Qatar with his winning heave of 86.89m (285-1).

Fitzgerald Hurdled Into The Record Books

When defending 100-meter hurdles champion Benita Fitzgerald of Tennessee was entered individually in only the 100-meter hurdles at the 1983 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, it meant something was not right.

Indeed, there was cause for concern as Fitzgerald – third in a loaded NCAA 100 meters the year before – had recently strained a hamstring.

“The week before the NCAA she couldn’t get out of the blocks without hurting,” explained Tennessee head coach Terry Crawford, a USTFCCCA Hall of Famer. “Getting through the meet safely was as much an objective as performing well.”

Fitzgerald wore a wrap in the hurdle prelims and both rounds of the 4×100 – including the relay final, held some three hours before the hurdles final (Tennessee set a school record 43.84 for third in the 4×1).

But there was no wrap for Fitzgerald in her final race in a Lady Vol uniform. Instead, Fitzgerald ran unencumbered into the record books with a collegiate record of 12.84 and held off Kim Turner of UTEP (12.95) in a race that featured two sub-13 collegians for the first time.

The CR also bettered the respected all-dates collegiate best set in 1979 by Deby LaPlante of San Diego State at 12.86, a time Fitzgerald had challenged in April with her 12.87 at the Dogwood Relays.

“I really wanted that record, and I feel great to have gotten it,” said Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald and Turner were even more impressive in 1984: Turner winning the NCAA and then the Olympic Trials in what is still remembered as one of the closest finishes in any event (Both Turner and Fitzgerald were given identical 13.13 times as third and fourth places were inches behind at 13.14).

Six weeks later, Fitzgerald was back on top, winning the Los Angeles Olympics to become the first Black women’s Olympic gold medalist in the hurdles. In 1996 Fitzgerald was one of eight U.S. Olympians selected to carry the Olympic flag in the opening ceremony of Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Games.

Coburn Picked Up Where She Left Off

If it weren’t for an incredibly successful redshirt year in 2012 where she won the U.S. title and finished eighth at the London Olympic Games in the steeplechase, Emma Coburn probably would have become the first woman in NCAA Division I history to capture three consecutive national titles in that event and broken the collegiate record established by another former Colorado great.

After all, Coburn topped the podium in both 2011 and 2013 and dipped under the collegiate record while competing unattached at the 2012 Prefontaine Classic with what was the fastest time ever run by an American on U.S. soil (Jenny Barringer went 9:25.54 in 2009; Coburn clocked her 9:25.28 in 2012).

Coburn entered the 2011 season as the next in line for the steeplechase throne as the top returning finisher from the previous year. The now 30-year-old Crested Butte, Colorado native finished a distant runner-up to Bridget Franek of Penn State, who posted the third largest margin of victory in meet history at 13 seconds.

It’s safe to say Coburn ran like a champion all season, snagging event titles at the always-stacked Payton Jordan Invitational in early May and then at the Big 12 Championships two weeks later. Fast forward to the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in June and Coburn established the tempo for most of the race, before pulling away late for a six-second victory in 9:41.14.

Coburn returned to the collegiate scene in 2013 fresh off that aforementioned standout redshirt year. Using that confidence – and the swagger gained from winning her second NCAA title (This one came indoors in the mile) – Coburn cruised to victory once again at the Payton Jordan Invitational, added the Pac-12 Conference crown to her haul and then clocked the third fastest time in NCAA meet history with her winning mark of 9:35.38.

After wrapping up her collegiate career, Coburn truly hit her stride. Coburn won seven more U.S. steeplechase titles – including each of the past six – and became the first American woman to win a global gold medal in the steeplechase, doing so at the 2017 World Championships in London.

Joe Dial Vaulted To NCAA History

Joe Dial of Oklahoma State was eagerly looking forward to the 1985 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

“Austin is one of my favorite places to jump – like Manhattan is now,” Dial told Don Steffens for Track & Field News in mid-May.

Manhattan – as in Manhattan, Kansas, site of the Big Eight Championships, where Dial had just become the first collegian to clear 19 feet (5.79m). But Dial wasn’t even done, continuing that day to scale an American record of 5.83m (19-1½).

In Austin, Dial was predictably the favorite, but the field turned out to be the deepest yet in meet history and Dial actually needed to better the meet record twice to seal up the victory in his final collegiate competition.

Baylor’s Todd Cooper and Fresno State’s Doug Fraley followed Dial over the first meet-record height of 5.56m (18-2¾) – a notch higher than the MR that Dial had helped set in previous years (along with two other vaulters). Only Dial could negotiate the next height of 5.64m (18-6) for the win.

A total of seven vaulters cleared 18 feet or better to smash the meet’s previous best collection of three set in 1983. An NCAA meet would not have more over that barrier until 1991 saw eight over 18.

Dial’s achievements in the pole vault began as a high schooler in Marlow, Oklahoma. In 1981 he famously became the first prep to clear 18 feet.

As a post-collegian, Dial would set an indoor world best – 5.91m (19-4¾) in 1986. The last of his eight outdoor American records – 5.96m (19-6½) in 1987 – would last seven years, the longest duration for a pole vault AR since the nearly 15 years of Dutch Warmerdam’s last record in 1942.

After retiring from competition in 1992, Dial became a full-time coach – and since 1994, has led the programs at Oral Roberts. One of his pupils – Jack Whitt in 2012 – won the NCAA pole vault title.

An Illustrious Career For Charlie Craig

Charlie Craig not only found a new school in the fall of 1962, but a new event as well – the triple jump.

Newly enrolled at Fresno State, Craig was a 23-11¾ (7.31m) long jumper from Fresno City College before the California Community College Athletic Association even had the triple jump. In fact, the event was relatively new everywhere – even the NCAA didn’t hold the event every year until 1959.

Also new in 1963 was the NCAA College Division, a meet for smaller schools that predated the current Division I/II/III setup (larger schools then competed in the University Division).

The College Division was so strong in the new event that its 1-2 from that meet duplicated the finish at the University Division with Norm Tate of North Carolina Central beating Craig, 51-0¼ (15.55m) to 50-2¼ (15.29m).

The Tate/Craig duo returned in 1964 with a different order of finish as Craig won the College Division meet at 51-9¼ (15.78m), before taking the University Division competition with a wind-aided 51-8¾ (15.76m) to win by more than a foot as Tate was third.

Craig – who earlier in the season had set a collegiate record of 52-4 (15.95m) – had two other marks in the meet that would have won at 51-1½ (15.58m) and 51-0¼ (15.55m).

After retiring from competition, Craig became a Hall of Fame coach, starting the Cal State Bakersfield program from scratch in 1972. Under his tutelage the Roadrunner program had 18 NCAA Division II champions and 195 All-Americans. Craig was inducted into the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame in 2008.

Two Long Jump Titles For Carol Lewis

Carol Lewis of Houston had at least three achievements with her long jump victory at the 1983 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

Many would quickly note that it made her part of the first brother-sister combination of NCAA track & field champions: Her brother Carl had claimed a pair of outdoor long jump titles in 1980 and 1981 (as well as the 100 meters in the latter).

Houston fans might be first to point out that Carol’s win is the only NCAA title earned by a Cougar on the UH campus, as the former Robertson Stadium was the host site for the 1983 meet.

The third achievement merely gives a glimpse of Carol’s success as a collegiate long jumper: She became the first – and still only – woman in the event to set meet records in two NCAA Division I outdoor meets, having broken the wind-legal record she set in 1982. In fact, Lewis would later add to that last distinction when she broke her own NCAA meet record in 1985 for a third time.

The 1983 NCAA Outdoor Championships made up for a somewhat forgettable 1982 NCAA meet, when a freshman Lewis – already the collegiate record holder earlier in the year at 6.73m (22-1) – jumped just 6.59m (21-7½) for third place (Her wind-legal 6.50m (21-4) gave her the record).

That 1982 NCAA Outdoor Championship meet was the first held with women, so Lewis’ mark – the best legal jump in the rainy/windy conditions at Provo – stood up as the meet record when the NCAA meet made its first and only stop the next year in Houston.

On her home runway, Lewis led the qualifying at 6.70m (21-11¾) – but temporarily lost the meet record as defending champ Jennifer Inniss of Cal State Los Angeles leapt 6.65m (21-10) with legal wind, while Lewis’ jump was wind-aided. Two days later in the final, Lewis claimed victory with a legal 6.70m (21-11¾) to reclaim the meet record.

While it would be two more years before Lewis jumped again in the NCAA Outdoor meet – she bypassed the long jump for relay duty in 1984 – her level of long jumping had continued to improve. In August 1983, Lewis earned the bronze medal at the World Championships and in 1984 improved the collegiate record to 6.97m (22-10½). It was also in 1984 when Lewis won the U.S. title and finished ninth at the Los Angeles Olympic Games.

In 1985 the NCAA Championships returned to Texas – this time in Austin – where after two jumps a meet record was the last thing on Lewis’ mind as she sat with two fouls. Carol had a short conversation with brother Carl and responded with a cautious 6.23m (20-5¼), then sewed up the title with a meet record 6.73m (22-1) on her last effort.

By the end of that summer, Lewis twice jumped American records – and “all-dates” collegiate bests – of 7.01m (23-0) and 7.04m (23-1¼).

Harris Set Discus World Record In 1941

Did anyone expect a world record at the NCAA Championships in a throwing event at the 1941 edition held at Stanford Stadium? 

Perhaps, only because of defending champion Archie Harris of Indiana. 

But in a qualifying round? 

Amazingly, Harris did both – and added another layer of history in becoming the first Black athlete to set a world record in any throwing event. 

Harris had challenged the existing world record numerous times with multiple 170-plus throws in the spring of 1941, including a Big Ten victory of 174-1 (53.06m) that was the best then yet on U.S. soil when the ratified best globally was 53.10m (174-2).

At the 1941 NCAA Championships, there were few witnesses for Harris’ ratified WR since the long throws were held outside of Stanford Stadium at Angell Field, where almost 60 years later, the grounds would be transformed into Stanford’s current Cobb Track at Angell Field. 

As the NCAA meet was then a two-day event, no one expected any fireworks in first-day qualifying, even though back then first-day performances in field events carried over to the finals. 

That mindset was changed radically by Harris in the discus. 

Harris opened up with an effort estimated at 162 feet, better than any other competitor would throw that day or even in the finals. He improved to 163 feet, by estimates, then followed with his record-setter of 174-8¾ in round 3 – the only one officially measured, including his performances the next day in the final. 

Incredibly – despite his world record – some claim Harris threw even farther, way back when he was 18 years old in 1937, as a high school senior in Ocean City, New Jersey. Nearly a finalist at the 1936 Olympic Trials, a young Harris warmed up despite reporting to the wrong 1937 AAU regional meet in Passaic, New Jersey. 

As the New York Times reported for that 1937 meet, his warmups were allowed, adding “the tape was put on his last toss and revealed 175 feet 8 inches.”

Harris missed chances at the 1940 and 1944 Olympics due to World War II and served as a pilot for the Army Air Forces.

Two Laps To Glory For Everett

Mark Everett of Florida was looking for one of the few things missing in his war chest of honors at the 1990 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships – a win in the 800 meters. 

This would be the last opportunity for Everett, a 1988 Olympian who was favored to match his 1990 NCAA Indoor title. 

“I’ve won The Athletics Congress (TAC) national title, but the NCAA outdoors has kind of eluded me,” Everett told Darrell Fry of the Tampa Bay Times a week before the 1990 NCAA Outdoor. “But, not this time. This year, hopefully everything will piece together.” 

Everett’s main competition was familiar: He’d beaten George Kersh of Ole Miss all three times earlier in the year – and they knew each other since 1987 when they ran on the national Junior (U20) 4×400 relay team together. Kersh was one spot away from joining Everett on the 1988 Olympic team in the 800.

At Duke’s Wallace Wade Stadium, Kersh won the first heat in 1:46.05, Everett the second in 1:47.86 and Baylor’s Terril Davis the third in 1:47.43. While Kersh’s time would last as the meet’s fastest preliminary for 21 years, the final would produce a performance that would endure for 26 editions. 

Kersh and Davis were closest to Stanford’s David Strang through an opening lap of 51.1 while Everett was near the back of the pack. Kersh took control on the backstretch as Everett followed his lead until unleashing a monstrous outburst in the last 200 that Kersh – or anyone – couldn’t match. 

Everett stormed home in 1:44.70, a collegiate record and just the second sub-1:45 time in meet history as he won by almost a full second over Kersh (1:45.69). The previous bests by a collegian were run by Oregon’s Joaquim Cruz (1:44.91 to win the 1983 NCAA) and Jim Ryun of Kansas (1:44.9 for 880 yards in 1966). 

“I dedicated the race to my mother, who came down to watch me,” said Everett, who hails from Bagdad, a small town near Pensacola on the Florida panhandle. “I always run well in front of her.” 

A day later Everett anchored the fourth-place Gator 4×400 squad in 44.5, displaying sprint speed that would help explain his domination of the indoor 500 meters and 600 yards for the next decade while he also made two more Olympic 800 teams (1992 and 2000).

Everett broke a historic mark in 1992 at the Millrose Games, running 1:07.53 to surpass Martin McGrady’s 600-yard world best of 1:07.6 set in 1970. Both times were set at Madison Square Garden on a 160-yard banked board track.

Brooks Made NCAA Shot Put History

In the span of five years, Tia Brooks went from a prep athlete at East Kentwood (Mich.) High School fighting tooth-and-nail to never throw the shot or disc to a college freshman at the University of Oklahoma battling exponentially harder for the smallest possibility of being able to launch her prized weighted orb just once more after suffering a near career-ending injury.

Perspective has an interesting way of changing things.

“I didn’t want to be the stereotypical thrower – the big girl who didn’t run and wasn’t athletic,” Brooks later told the State Games of Michigan website. “But when I realized that I can maintain my femininity and just get stronger and make strong look beautiful – it’s kind of empowering.”

After a standout prep career where she was a state champion, a two-time regional champion and a four-time all-state honoree, Brooks earned a scholarship to compete for the Sooners. But, not long into her freshman year at Oklahoma, Brooks lost feeling in her legs during a weightlifting session and had to be stretchered out. It was later discovered that Brooks had two bulging discs, a degenerative disc disorder and a narrowing of her spine.

Doctors recommended that Brooks should quit throwing and focus on another sport, yet the Michigan native wasn’t deterred. She vowed to push through her rehab with just as much tenacity as she would in the circle during a competition – and before long, she returned.

After moderate success as a redshirt freshman (runner-up finishes at both the Big 12 Indoor and Outdoor Championships), Brooks had a breakthrough year in 2011. The sophomore won the Big 12 indoor title and finished runner-up at both the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships.

To say Brooks turned it up a notch as a junior and senior would be an understatement. She went a combined 17-3 in shot put finals in her final two years with the Sooners – including a perfect 8-0 mark in championship settings between both sets of Big 12 and NCAA meets to sweep each title twice – and left her name all over the collegiate indoor and outdoor record books.

Brooks, though, saved her best for last. After a junior year where she won both NCAA titles by more than two feet and finished third at the U.S. Olympic Trials, Brooks broke the collegiate indoor record at the 2013 NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships with her winning heave of 19.22m (63-0¾) and then shattered the 15-year-old meet record at NCAA Outdoor Championships by nearly one foot at 18.91m (62-0½). Brooks’ best outdoor mark in 2013 came at the NCAA Division I First Round Championships when she landed the orb just three centimeters (1½ inches) behind Meg Ritchie’s long-standing collegiate record.

“People are not often born with the desire to shot put,” Brooks later told the State Games of Michigan website. “Instead, they progress into the sport. Therefore, it is important to realize that as long as you maintain your athleticism, you can be successful in a variety of sports. I was pretty resistant to being a shot putter, but when I gave it a try, I knew it was my calling.”

Scott One-Upped Himself In 1978

Steve Scott had no chance to win a fourth-straight NCAA Division II 1500-meter title in 1978.

That’s because UC Irvine had moved up to Division I.

However, Scott had already shown he was more than ready for the challenge in 1977, when he finished as runner-up at the NCAA Division I meet a week after becoming the first NCAA DII athlete to complete the 800-1500 double.

In fact, Scott entered the 1978 NCAA DI final at Hayward Field as one of the favorites, having won the 1977 AAU national title. He even had some previous success at Hayward Field, where he gave the Prefontaine Classic its first sub-4 mile in 1977 and was a surprise finalist at the 1976 U.S. Olympic Trials, finishing seventh.

But, like everyone, Scott – a native of Upland, California – knew most in the crowd would be cheering for Oregon’s Matt Centrowitz, a 1976 Olympian running his final race as a collegian at Hayward Field. “I know that nobody wants to win more than me,” Centrowitz told John Conrad of the Eugene Register-Guard before the final.

Neither Scott nor Centrowitz wanted a repeat of the 1977 race, in which Scott found himself boxed in when the finishing kicks started and Centrowitz watched from the stands after not making the final.

So, shortly after the first lap, Scott went to the lead and had his closest challenge from Centrowitz all the way until the bell lap began. Scott maintained the lead as Centrowitz was passed entering the backstretch by East Tennessee State’s Ray Flynn, who stuck with Scott until the finish as Scott won by a tenth of a second in 3:37.6.

Centrowitz, who ended up sixth, was somewhat surprised by Scott’s strategy: “I knew he was capable of running strong the whole way, but I didn’t think he’d do it. He really wanted to win it.”

Scott agreed with that observation, saying “I dreamed all week of taking a victory lap after the race.”

Interestingly, the victory by Scott didn’t make him the first Anteater to win an NCAA Division I crown, as Mauricio Bardales got that honor the night before by winning the decathlon with 8007 points.

Scott went on to become one of America’s best-ever milers, breaking Jim Ryun’s 3:51.1 American record from 1967 and becoming the first American to run sub-3:50 – his PR of 3:47.69 still rates as second-best by an American.

In 1999, Scott became a coach, starting the track & field and cross country programs at Cal State San Marcos – whose women won three NAIA national cross country titles 2009-11 (the men were runners-up in ’11) – before retiring in 2018.

Sheffield Won An Incredible 400H Final

LaTanya Sheffield’s 400-meter hurdle victory at the 1985 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships ended just like her San Diego State coach told her it would the night before – with an American record. 

No one knew how thrilling the race would be – not even her coach, older brother Rahn Sheffield, a former two-time NCAA finalist for the Aztecs who convinced LaTanya to take up the event two years earlier. 

That 1985 NCAA final had all the makings to be special as Sheffield – who scared her collegiate record of 55.23 with a meet-record 55.39 in the heats – started in lane 5, two lanes outside of UCLA’s Jackie Joyner, who had won their conference matchup two weeks earlier in a best of 55.87 when Sheffield didn’t finish as a hurdle ahead of her was accidentally set too high. 

In this duel, Sheffield took initial control and held a slight lead through hurdle 4, at which point Joyner – competing in one of six events – took over through hurdle 7. Sheffield fought back and regained the lead by the 9th hurdle and stormed home to win in 54.64, while Joyner finished in 55.19 – both ahead of Sheffield’s 55.23 CR.

At the time, the only collegian to have ever run faster came in a postseason race when 1984 NCAA champion Nawal El Moutawakel of Iowa State won Los Angeles Olympic gold in 54.61. The silver medalist in the LA Games was Judi Brown (1983 NCAA champ while at Michigan State), who set the previous American record of 54.93 at the 1984 Olympic Trials.

Sheffield was inspiringly engaging in her celebration, dancing at seemingly every opportunity.

“I’m so very excited,” she told Ruth Laney for Track & Field News in noting Sheffield was “still hugging, clapping and dancing an hour after the race.”

“This is just unbelievable,” Sheffield explained. “This is a giant step for me. All the other meets I’ve run this year were building blocks for a house. Now I’ve just put the roof on it.”

As a post-collegian, Sheffield made the 1988 Olympic team and ran her PR of 54.36, then became a mother and a coach. In 2019, the native of El Cajon, California (near San Diego), became the first woman to be a head coach at Long Beach State. One of her daughters, Jaide Stepter, was a three-time Pac-12 champion for Southern California and while just missing the family record in the 400 hurdles (54.95), ran faster than mom in the 400 (50.63).

Bjorklund Led Calvary Under 6-Mile MR In 1971

For someone who never raced longer than two miles in high school, Garry Bjorklund took an immediate liking to even longer distances when he arrived at Minnesota. 

In his first year, Bjorklund was part of the first freshman 1-2 finish in any distance race in NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships history in the 1970 three-mile. Part of that historical finish of youngsters can be explained by the NCAA first allowing freshmen to compete on varsity squads, but nothing can explain how a frosh 1-2 has never happened again in meet history – in any men’s or women’s race at 1500 meters or longer. 

Bjorklund and that other freshman – Oregon’s Steve Prefontaine – enjoyed fast racing. In that 1970 NCAA three-mile, Pre won over Bjorklund as the first five broke the meet record. Some 10 days later, they ran again in the AAU national championships, Pre just ahead as they finished 5-6. 

The very next day Bjorklund – then still only 18 – jumped in the first six-mile track race of his life at the AAU meet and finished third in 27:30.8 – merely the fastest ever clocked by a collegian. 

The performance amazed even his coach, USTFCCCA Hall of Famer Roy Griak, who told Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis Tribune, “There doesn’t seem to be any limit on how good Bjorklund can be.” 

The effort put him on the U.S. team, which traveled Europe for three international dual meets. In the next four weeks he ran three more races – two at 10,000 meters in identical 28:50.4 efforts some 10 seconds off the all-time collegiate best. 

Many looked for another duel with Pre, but it would have to wait. Bjorklund withdrew from the 1970 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships (won by Pre) after an emergency appendectomy – three days after winning the Big Ten title with a “pain in his side.” 

While Pre concentrated on the three-mile in during the 1971 track season, the six-mile became Bjorklund’s domain. In April, Bjorklund set a collegiate record of 27:24.6 at the Drake Relays, then led a fast race at the NCAA, running 27:43.1 as the first eight broke the existing meet record. Bjorklund followed with the second-fastest time by a collegian at the AAU meet in 27:28.2. 

The hoped-for matchup with Pre never came on the track, but at the 1971 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships. Pre again prevailed, though his seven-second victory there was then the closest of his career in harrier races. Bjorklund almost didn’t start, hampered that fall by back pain. 

That race would end up being Bjorklund’s last national finish near the top as a collegian. A foot injury caused him to miss the 1972 NCAA meet, as well as the Olympic Trials. He missed the 1973 season recovering from corrective surgery. A knee injury hampered him further, but he came back for the 1974 NCAA 6-mile, before dropping out while in third place at the 4½-mile point due to heat exhaustion. 

At the 1976 Olympics, he was the only American finalist in the 10,000 meters, before he began a successful career in road racing. In 1977, he won the inaugural Grandma’s Marathon in his hometown of Duluth, where a half-marathon was added in 1991 and named after him.

Okagbare Mined For History In 2010

USTFCCCA Hall of Fame coach Bob Kitchens recruited Blessing Okagbare as a triple jumper.

Okagbare wrapped up her UTEP career as a four-time NCAA champion – but, surprisingly, none of those national titles came in the event in which was expected to be her best (In fact, her best NCAA finish in the triple jump came in 2008 when she was the outdoor runner-up).

Instead, Okagbare traded three-bounce success for one and proved to be a quick learner in the sprints. It all came together in 2010 when she became a finalist for The Bowerman and the only woman in the history of the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships to win both the 100 meters and long jump in a single year and just the second to complete the NCAA short sprint-long jump double indoors (Carlette Guidry, 1988).

Before Okagbare made history throughout 2010, she recorded four combined top-5 finishes at the NCAA Championships in 2008 and added an Olympic silver medal to boot. Okagbare took second and fourth in the indoor long jump and triple jump, respectively. Then she flipped the script outdoors with a runner-up finish in the triple jump and a third-place effort in the long jump. Just a few months after the NCAA meet, Okagbare earned a bronze medal in Beijing that was later advanced to silver after a positive drug test by the former silver medalist.

Fast forward to 2010 and Okagbare, who celebrates her 32nd birthday today, added sprinting to her repertoire between her junior and senior years.

At the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Okagbare competed in the 60 and the long jump. She won the 60 by the slimmest of margins (0.003 seconds over Texas A&M’s Gabby Mayo) and then dominated the long jump with a 23 centimeter (9 inch) victory thanks to her title-winning and meet record-setting leap of 6.87m (22-6½).

Not long after, Hayward Field proved truly historic with Okagbare inside its friendly confines.

Her legendary weekend started on Friday with a runaway victory in the 100. Okagbare hit her stride after 60 meters and began to pour it on, winning by 0.14 seconds over Texas A&M’s Porscha Lucas in a wind-aided 10.98, which was the third fastest all-conditions mark in meet history since 1992.

The following afternoon, in the long jump, Okagbare answered a ho-hum first attempt of 6.23m (20-5¼) with a brilliant 6.79m (22-3½) on her second to win the competition. That mark would have won the national title at all but five previous installments of the championships.

“I had my best season ever,” Okagbare told the media assembled in Eugene, Oregon. “I had never been an NCAA champion before. Now, everything is together.”

Kiss The Competition Goodbye

Balazs Kiss of Southern California didn’t waste any time in becoming just the fourth man to win an event at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in four straight years.

Kiss – whose full name is pronounced “BOWL-osh Keesh” – opened up the 1996 NCAA meet with a hammer throw of 80.86m (265-3), a meet record that gave him a victory by 11.04m (36-2) – the largest winning margin for any event in meet history.

His NCAA hammer meet record, which still stands, has only been bettered once by a collegian – by Kiss himself in 1995 at 81.94m (268-10). In fact, no collegian has come within 10 feet of Kiss’s best, and he owns the eight longest collegiate hammer throws all-time and the six longest in NCAA meet history.

After Kiss’ collegiate record in 1995, Trojan throwing coach Dan Lange noted how special Kiss was: “He doesn’t have any weaknesses,” he told Jim Dunaway for Track & Field News. “He’s big, strong, extremely athletic and he has an incredible work ethic. He has a great attitude and is extremely strong mentally.”

At the time, Lange was looking to Kiss’ summer of 1995 – “I don’t see why he can’t win a medal at the Worlds” – but in finishing fourth there his debut on a major global podium would have to wait until the 1996 Olympics, despite extending the all-dates collegiate best that summer to 82.56m (270-10).

At the Atlanta Games, Kiss showed his major-meet mettle, throwing over 260-feet (79.24m) four times with his best a gold medal-winning effort of 81.24m (266-6).

As dominant a collegiate thrower as Kiss was, he survived a scare as a sophomore in 1994, when he battled a hip injury. With two fouls at the NCAA Championships he advanced to the final with a safety effort – at least for him – of 68.82m (225-9). He then climbed out of sixth place to eventually win at 74.84m (245-6). His winning margin that year – just 2.42m (7-11) – was the only one of his NCAA victories less than 10-feet.

LSU’s Duncan Roared To 200 History

If your name wasn’t “Kimberlyn Duncan,” then you weren’t going to win the Women’s 200 Meters at the NCAA Division I Track & Field Championships between 2011 and 2013. 

Duncan made it a clean sweep right after the turn of the last decade, winning both the indoor and outdoor version of the 200-meter crown each and every year. To date, Duncan remains the only woman in NCAA DI history to win both titles in consecutive years – let alone three. 

After winning her first national title indoors in 2011, Duncan ran with confidence outdoors and entered the NCAA meet that year as the collegiate leader at 22.39. Nothing kept Duncan from her first outdoor title, as she scorched the track in 22.24, the fastest winning time at the meet since Dawn Sowell set the 22.04 CR 22 years earlier in 1989 (To wit: Duncan also became just the second sophomore to snag the half-lap crown in meet history). 

Duncan completed the sweep once again in 2012, taking the indoor crown in 22.74 and then pushing through a 2.3 meter-per-second headwind in the outdoor final to break tape in 22.86. In the previous race, the national semifinal, Duncan claimed a new low-altitude, all-time collegiate best of 22.19 – 0.05 seconds faster than she ran the previous year. 

Let’s take a moment to appreciate Duncan’s junior year, as a whole. Duncan raced 65 times – combining all events indoors and outdoors – and went undefeated against collegians over 200 meters during that span. Out of the four “losses” in finals in non-200 events she had that year, the future winner of The Bowerman finished runner-up in the 100 at the NCAA meet and helped LSU to a trio of runner-up finishes in relay events elsewhere. 

Duncan polished off the national championship triple-double as a senior, lowering her indoor PR to 22.58 and using a 3.5 m/s tailwind to clock a blistering 22.04 in the outdoor final to match Sowell’s all-time, all-conditions collegiate best. That also remained in a tie for the meet’s fastest winning time until Kyra Jefferson broke the collegiate record four years later with her time of 22.02.

Brookins Hurdled To All-Time Marks

Charles Brookins of Iowa was one of the big stars in the 1923 NCAA Championships, the meet’s third edition held at Amos Alonzo Stagg Field in Chicago.

Brookins ran the world’s two fastest times in the 220-yard low hurdles as he was one of four athletes in the meet to repeat a victory from 1922, when as a sophomore he edged Notre Dame’s Gus Desch in a world record 24.2. Desch, who won the first NCAA 220 hurdles in 1921, had also earned Olympic bronze in the 1920 400-meter hurdles.

That neither of Brookins’ marks from the 1923 NCAA Championships – 23.9 in the heats, 23.6 in the final – was ratified as a world record shows just how much has changed in the sport in nearly 100 years.

It wasn’t just the event, but how it was contested – using the curve for the first portion of the race. The IAAF only ratified straightaway 200/220s (hurdles or sprint) until 1958, and that nearly coincided with when the 220 hurdles was being phased out of the NCAA meet (It was last held in 1959).

Brookins had in fact set ratified world records in the straightaway version – just two weeks earlier at the Big Ten (then known as the Western Conference) Championships he ran 23.2, a mark that would not be surpassed as a world record until 1935, when Jesse Owens ran 22.6 in his Day of Days, also at the Big Ten meet.

Brookins, a native of Des Moines, Iowa, who grew up about 30 miles away in Oskaloosa, won a third-straight Big Ten title in 1924, a year in which there was no NCAA meet so as not to conflict with the Olympic Trials.

He now needed a new event, though, as the 220 lows had long since been replaced on the Olympic schedule by the 400-meter hurdles – not just a longer distance but with hurdles at 36” inches instead of 30”.

Iowa suddenly became a haven for long hurdlers. Iowa coach George Bresnahan – a USTFCCCA Hall of Famer – set up a 400-meter hurdles race a couple weeks before the Trials, but the winner was Hawkeye teammate Chan Coulter, a quarter-miler who shocked in this event at 53.2 when the ratified world record was 54.0. F. Morgan Taylor from nearby Grinnell College was runner-up ahead of Brookins.

Those three made the U.S. team at the Olympic Trials, Brookins also bettering the world record in the heats and semis before losing in the final to Taylor at 52.6, with Brookins (an estimated 52.8) and Coulter following.

A month later at the Paris Olympics, Taylor earned gold while Brookins finished second but was not awarded any medal as he was disqualified for running out of his lane. Taylor’s time of 52.6 was not acceptable as a world record because he had knocked over a hurdle – a rule no longer in force.

Brookins retired from track after winning the 220 hurdles at the 1925 AAU nationals, but Taylor won the 1925 NCAA 220 hurdles and earned two more Olympic 400-meter hurdle berths, including 1932 when he was U.S. flag bearer for the opening ceremony.

Flo Knows Winning Triple Jump Titles

Edrick Floréal was known as a big-meet performer and it showed in his final competition for Arkansas in the 1990 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships. 

Floréal was aiming to be the meet’s first athlete to win three consecutive triple jump titles, but in round five he got a wakeup call – Festus Igbinoghene of Mississippi State came within 1 cm (less than half an inch) of the lead. 

That was too close for comfort for Floréal, who had won his previous four NCAA titles (two outdoor, two indoor) by more than a foot. Floréal responded with a two-foot improvement and recorded the year’s best collegiate jump at 17.23m (56-6½). 

“I’m pleased with my jump,” Floréal said afterward. “I’m a little disappointed because of losing the team title.” Arkansas, one of the pre-meet favorites, finished second.

It was the second time Floréal (pronounced “flo-ree-AL”) contributed 18 points for the Razorbacks in a national championship (He also finished runner-up in the long jump). The first time came indoors in 1989 when he accounted for more than half of the team points as Arkansas won its closest team battle in all of its 30 track & field national titles. 

At the 1989 NCAA Indoor Championships, Floréal was in the midst of the triple jump as Joe Falcon – favored for a third-straight 3000-meter title – uncharacteristically began to falter. 

“When I watched Joe in the 3000, I panicked,” Floréal told Dick Denny of the Indianapolis News. “I knew I had to win the triple jump. When I have pressure on my back, I usually perform well.” 

Sure enough, Floréal – who was second earlier in the long jump with a PR 7.98m (26-2¼) – added a then-PR 17.14m (56-2¾) to win his first indoor title and seal the team crown. 

Floréal was inducted to the Athletics Canada Hall of Fame in 2019 and still owns Canadian records outdoors and indoors in the triple jump, as well as the outdoor long jump. 

After retiring as an athlete, Floréal became one of the nation’s most prominent coaches. He currently leads the Texas programs after successful stints at Kentucky and Stanford.