Friday, April 21, 2000
The University Daily Kansan
Kansas Relays History
Section B·Page 7
Relays was a social soiree, now trying to recover its swagger
By Sarah Warren sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportwriter
The Kansas Relays used to be an event that people marked on their calendars.
Thrower Steve Wilhelm spins around the shot put ring during the Kansas Relays. This photo was taken during the 1970s, when the Relays were at its peak popularity.
Easter weekend was a time of great fanfare when athletes and spectators would trek from across the country to see some of the world's greatest athletes circle the track at Memorial Stadium.
"Jim Ryan returned in 1972 from retirement, and we had 32,000 people at the meet," said Bob Timmons, Kansas track and field coach from 1965-1988. "Those were exciting years."
During their heyday in the '60s and '70s, the Relays were quite the social soiree. Local bands held concerts, vendors gussied up their downtown stores, and fraternities and sororites had barbecues.
"I was in a fraternity house, Delta Tau Delta, and we had a social function around the Relays," said Gary Schwartz, current track and field coach and Kansas thrower from 1962-1965. "There used to be a parade, and there were social events. The Relays were a college happening then."
This happening began April 20, 1923, when 600 athletes suited up for the first-ever Kansas Relays. This was a dream come true for Kansas football coach John Outland, who started pestering Phog Allen, athletics director and basketball coach at the time, for a relays event after Memorial
Stadium was completed in 1921.
Sandwiched between the Texas Relays and the Drake Relays, the Kansas Relays became a part of a "Triple Crown" of track and field.
"There was much to do about those who won all three." Timmons said. "Years ago, people who went to the Texas Relays would train in at Texas for a week and then come to Kansas and train for a week and then go off to Drake and so on."
Since then, thousands of athletes have competed in the Relays, including many Olympic and World Record holders such as Harrison Dillard, world record holder, Bruce Jenner, Olympic decathlon gold medalist, and Jamaican Olympian Merlene Otte. And of course, the athletes who made Kansas a legitimate track and field power were out in full force for the Relays. They included Olympians Tom Poor, Glenn Cunningham, Jim Bausch, Wes Santee, Billy Mills, Al Oerter and Ryun.
With competitors of that caliber present at the Relays, Timmons could write volumes on the world records, agonizing losses and odd happenings he experienced at the Relays during 23 years at Kansas.
"Wilt Chamberlain won the high jump his freshman year," Timmons said. "He had to wear a freshman beenie cap like all the freshman, and he wore that cap as he jumped."
But his stories don't just include those famous names.
He remembers a marathon in which a young handicapped run-
Throw Steve Winkler.
Photo contributed by University Archives.
ner came down Mount Oread ready to finish the race, only to find that he had taken too long and the event staff had locked the gates in the Stadium where the marathon runners did a lap to finish the race.
"He was not going to accept that he couldn't finish that race, and so
he climbed that chain-link fence and finished it." Timmons said.
Some of the oldest stories that Timmons had involve mother nature.
"There are a number of experiences that stand out about the Relays, but I think the on-going
experience was that every year for the first 20 years it rained at least one day of the Relays," Timmons said. "I think the farmers loved the Kansas Relies because it meant it was going to rain."
The rain didn't have the best timing, either.
Like the time Madeline Manning, the 1968 800-meter run champion, sang the national anthem.
"We usually set off rockets during the 'bombs bursting in air' part,"
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