Great Field Here for 29th Relays
PETE MAYEAUX OF TEXAS A&M
WES SANTEE
Beerline Holds Record Threat
With defending champion Glenn Beerline, formerly of the University of Nebraska, returning in the hop, step, and jump, the record of 47 feet 2 inches set by Jim Gerhardt in 1952 is in danger.
Beerline jumped 48 feet 3/4 inches last year, but he record didn't stand because of the wind. Beerline is now in the Army, but was granted permission to compete in the Relays.
The other men entered in this race are Quanah Cox and Neville Price of Oklahoma, Wally Krone of Morningside, Bob McLurken of Compton, Mickey Wilborn of Oklahoma A&M, Jim Kent of Iowa State, and Hank Philman of Iowa State.
Wilborn has jumped 45 feet one inch in practice this year, and McLurken jumped 45 feet in winning the Southern Pacific AAU championship last year.
Price is the Big Seven indoor broad jump champion. Cox is a consistent 23 feet broad jumper, and Kent was third in the Big Seven indoor broad jump with a leap of 22 feet 11 inches. Philman finished third here last year.
Krone has jumped 44 feet 6 inches in practice this spring.
Last year Veryl Switzer of Kansas State took second place in the event jumping 44 feet $10 \frac{1}{2}$ inches
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
Daily hansan
Friday, April 16, 1954
51st Year, No. 126
Mile Run in 1878 Won 'Great' 6:41
No matter how slow the mile is run in the Kansas Relays tomorrow, it will be run considerably more than two minutes faster than it was run in an impromptu track and field meet held here in 1878.
One Saturday afternoon in 1878, several men at the then young University of Kansas, held a track meet, in which the mile was won by W. G. Raymond in the "sensational" time of 6:41. The second place finisher, C. L. Davidson, ran the distance in 7:13.
The winner was a junior in civil engineering, but didn't receive his degree. He died a few years ago at Iowa City, Iowa.
JOE SPRINGER
Mr. Davidson was a student in the college and was later a contributor to the Memorial Union stadium fund.
MU Has 31 Men in Relays
Even though the University of Kansas is the host school to the Kansas Relays, it doesn't have the largest number of men competing in the university class of he Relays. That honor goes to the Missouri Tigers of Coach Tom Botts who have entered 31 men.
Annual Event Expected to Draw 15.000
One of the finest fields of performers in the history of the Kansas Relays is expected to attract a crowd of more than 15,000 persons, if the weather is good, to the 29th running of the annual spring classic.
The feature attraction of the day wil be the Glenn Cunningham mile to be run off at 3:05 p. m. with Wes Santee, KU's great distance ace, competing for the first time. This race, will see Santee make another bid to break the famous four minute field which includes the defending Relays Champion, Bruce Drummond of Oklahoma, furnishing the opposition, Santee is expected to turn in one of his best performances.
Twenty-two universities have entered 311 men, the 28 colleges have 292 men entered, and the 11 Junior colleges have 70 men competing.
The more than 2,000 high school athletes got a 24 hour head start on the college and university track men. The high school enterants started at 9 a.m. today when the preliminaries were run off, and the Interscolastic finals are being run off this afternoon. Ten individual champions and co-champions are attempting to defend their titles in the 50th anniversary of the event today.
The weather is the key to the performances which can be expected tomorrow. The past two years the weather has been poor so the law of averages figures to supply a fairly good day tomorrow.
Seven Relays records are in danger of being broken. Between them Kansas and Texas ran below four existing records at the Texas Relays two weeks ago. The Texas quartet ran the 880-yard relay in 1.248, while Kansas won the sprint medley in 17.15.6, the four mile relay in 17.15.6 and the two mile relay in 7.34.1. These Kansas quartets were all anchored by Santee, and at least one of them will have a slower time tomorrow since Santee will only run in two of them.
John Bennett of Marquette will go after one of the oldest records in the books, Ed Gordon's 25 feet 4/4 inches leap in the broad jump. Bennett went 25 feet 8 1/4 inches in the Texas Relays. Five high jumpers, Jack Razzuto, and Joe Pace of San Diego State, Bernie Allard of Notre Dame, Bill Bobillings of Texas, and John Whatley of Hardin-Simmons, all jumping in the 6 feet 6 inches to 6 feet 8 inches bracket will endanger the high jump record of 6 feet 8 3/16 inches set by Bobby Walters of Texas in 1949.
The decathlon men get a jump on the rest of the college class when they run off five events, the 100-meter run, broad jump, shot put, high jump, and 400-meter run, to-day.
Host of National Champions Entered in Events
Nine national champions of various denominations will go to the blocks here tomorrow when athletes from the Big Ten, Midwest, and Southwest unwind the 29th Kansas Relays at Memorial stadium.
The role call includes:
Wes Santee, Kansas—1953 NCAA and National AAU mile champion; 1852 1,500-meter champion, 1952 5,000 meter champion; 1953 NCAA cross-country champion.
Rich Ferguson, Iowa—1953 NCAA two-mile champion.
John Bennett, Marquette-1953 NCAA broad jump champion.
J. W. Mashburn, Oklahoma A&M—1853 National AAU 440-room champion, then running for Oklahoma.
Dean Smith, Texas-1952 National A ATT 100 meter champion.
Neville Price, Oklahoma — 1954 National AAU indoor broad jump champion.
George Adrian, Abilene-Christian
—1953 and 1952 NAIA 440 champion.
Al Feist, Fort Hays State—1953 NAIA two-mile champion.
Santee, Mashburn and Smith are undergraduate holdovers from the 1952 United States Olympic team. Mashburn ran fourth in the final Olympic 440 meter trials. Smith tied for third in the 100 meter finals. Both, thereby, qualified for duty with American relay teams. However, neither was used at Helsinki although they took part in post-Olympic tours. Santee did not qualify in the 5,000 meters, hitting too fast an early pace and finishing thirteenth in the second heat, the only time on record he failed to rise to a supreme challenge.
Each has gained considerable luster since the Finnish games. Santee is a five-time national champion and holder of no less than four American records from two-thirds of a mile through one mile. Including relay carries he now has dipped below 4:10 no less than 18 times in the latter race, his latest effort a 4:06.0 in anchoring the Jayhawkers to the four-mile championship at Texas.
By installing their feather-footed flyer as cleanup man here the Kansas will become automatic favorites in any haul they care to enter from the sprint medley through the distance medley, two mile and four-mile. The Mt, Oread affair being a one-day meet, the Jayhawkers, of course, will be forced to forego at least one of these events.
Mashburn has proved several times American Olympic brass erred in not wiring him into its 1,600-meter relay team at Helsinki. Among other things, he whipped both George Rhoden, Jamaica's Olympic 400-meter king and world record holder, and Jim Lean, USC's NCAA 440 champion last year at the Coliseum Relays and Compton Invitational, respectively. He blazed 46.8 at Los Angeles, 47.1 at Compton.
He won the AAU title at Dayton in 471, again beating Lean. He is defending champion in the decathlon here, but will by-pass that for the 400-meter hurdles. The cotton-tatched Oklahoma Cityan was a state 180-yard low hurdles champion in high school. It is notable
that he ran the 110-meter highs in :15.4 here last year in decathlon competition.
Smith ran :10.5 as a sophomore to bag his AAU title. He won the Southwest and Texas Relays century crowns that spring and finished fourth in the NCAA. Scholastically ineligible last year, he has notched his first major title of the spring by winning the 100 at Texas. He also is leadoff mar for those record-breaking Longhorn sprint relay quartets, which will jeopardize both the 440 and 880 baton marks here.
Bennett unrebelled the nation's best
Ferguson was unable to compete in the Big Ten indoor this winter, but won the Eastern Canadian two-mile title two weeks ago in 9:09.0, his second best performance of the season. He is a two-time Big Ten two-mile king and won the 1953 NCAA flag at Lincoln. He upset Georgetown's Charlie Capozzoli for the latter crown with a nifty 9:02.7. He won the 3,000-meter steeplechase here last year and ran second in the Glenn Cunningham mile. He will go after one, or both, titles, this year,
collegiate jump last year, 25 feet $ \frac{3}{4} $ in winning his NCAA flag at Lincoln. He already has exceeded that leap with a jump of 25-8 $ \frac{4}{4} $ at Austin. He bounded 25 feet 4 inches with a tailwind to win the Relays crown last year.
Price went 24 feet 61 inches to win his indoor flag at New York in February, then reached 25 feet 2 inches behind Bennett at Texas. This would have been good enough to have won all but two previous Longhorn championships.
Adrian ran on four winning relay combines at Austin as ACC slammed the college division. He anchored the 440 and 880 units, led off for the sprint medley champions, and ran No. 3 for the mile kings.
Feist ran 9:47.6 in winning his title at Abilene, Texas last year. He is expected to anchor Tiger bids in some combination of the distance medley, sprint medley, and two-mile.
Nash ran 4:23.7 to bug his title,
also finishing third in the two-mile.
He'll anchor State in the distance
and sprint medleys.