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University Daily Kansan Sports
FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1950
SECTION B
By RICHARD DILSAVER
By RICHARD DILSAVER
A year ago at Relays time, Daily Kansan sportswriter Doug Jennings,
wrote:
"Most of the attention has been given to the big names coming to the Relays—names like Charlie Parker, Gehrmann, Byrll Thompson, Cooper... and a few others. This is as it should be—an extravaganza as large as the Kansas Relays needs and warrants these names.
"But a note of tribute to the little fellows, those who come in fourth or fifth or even last, should be extended somewhere along the line. They are too many to be named individually, but they, too, make the Relays what it is."
A point well taken and worth repeating.
But there is still another group of little men who usually go unheralded, yet are vital to the Relys' success. Those are the fellows from the small colleges—from Abilene Christian to Fort Hays State.
Usually they don't have the training facilities and coaching fellows from bigger schools will get. But they try just as hard and run just as far.
Long A Coach At KU Relays, Now A Referee
A man who has entered a team in every running of the 25-year-old Kansas Relays, Dr. Garfield Weede of Kansas State Teachers college of Pittsburg is referee for Saturday's silver anniversary meet
Dr. Garfield Weede
Long a molder of track and field champions, Dr. Weede has coached 19 Relays winners in four-man events and seven individual titleholders. His 1932 quartets swept every baton race in the college class from the 440 through the distance medley, and his 1933 mile relay foursome still holds the college class record of 3:17.3 for that event. Dr. Weede was a Walter Camp All-America end at Penn in 1904. On leaving Penn in 1906 he began his coaching career at Washburn university in Topeka. Since then he has coached in Kansas continuously for 45 years. He has been at Pittsburg Teachers since 1919.
BILL EASTON, KANSAS TRACK COACH
Easton Is A Holler Guy
Should something happen to the public address system at Saturday's Relays, officials won't be too worried. For all they will need to do to keep the crowd informed is hunt up Kansas Coach Bill Easton, give him the information they want relayed to the audience, and he'll let loose with a vocal demonstration matched at few hog calling contests.
Since coming to Kansas from Drake in 1947, Coach Easton set a spectacular success pattern in distance running. Under Eastern Jayhawk two-mile teams have swept three Big Seven championships. This winter K.U. took the Big Seven indoor meet at Kansas City by garnering 25 of its 40 winning points in distance events.
Coach Easton hasn't limited his track success to coaching. He is recognized as one of the shrewdest relays promoters in the land. He headed eight nifty shows at Drake and has proved in just two years that he hasn't lost his touch since coming to Mt. Oread.
His first K.U. carnival in 1948 was certainly a fine one for it produced six meet records—two of them world marks—although none had been broken since 1942. A year ago two records fell and another equalled. Both shows have drawn 10,000 fans.
Should the Saturday carnival equal the two previous under his direction, Bill Easton may soon be known as Mr. Kansas Relays.
1923 - Silver Anniversary - 1950
Track and field truly exemplifies the American way of life. One man competes directly with his rivals and all against those most formidable rivals, time and distance. The individual is on his own. He is not burdened with inferior teammates; superior teammates can not carry him. He excels according to his ability, as modified by his conditioning and will to win. Only a few, common sense rules govern him, and they exist to assure fair play for each entrant. Yet in the relays and team totals there is the reminder that there must be high standards of group achievement.
All this parallels the American way of life, which gives the individual opportunity to progress and excel to the maximum of his ability, checked only by a few rules to guarantee opportunity for all.
The University of Kansas is proud that its track and field competitors have excelled in so American a sport. The University is equally proud that through the Kansas Relays it can be host to a great festival of achievement and sportsmanship.
DEANE W. MALOTT,
25 Years Of Kansas Relays
By DOLPH SIMONS
Silver anniversary and all, the Kansas Relays will be celebrated Saturday with as great an array of track and field talent as has ever been assembled in Memorial stadium. From every part of the nation will come entries ranging from All-Americans to Kansas schoolboys, all of them seeking glory in the Mt. Oread Olympics.
From 1923 to 1949, the Kansas Relays have steadily evolved to a tremendous Middle West spectacle that draws 10,000 or more spectators annually. And each year it seems to get better.
On the afternoon of April 23, 1923, when the carnival in Lawrence was inaugurated, the dream of a Kansas alumnus came true. Dr. John Outland had envisioned a huge track and field meet on Mt. Oread while doing graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, home of the prominent Penn Relays.
Dr. Outland returned to the University and told his ideas to Dr. F. C. "Phog" Allen, then K.U. athletic director. Dr. Allen and his track coach, Karl Schlademan, now of Michigan State, started forming plans for a Kansas Relays. That was in the spring of 1920.
To promote the Relays, Dr. Allen gave radio speeches. He printed Relays stickers and a 62-page program. Coach Schlademan was general manager of the event with student representatives from each class working with him. This was the beginning of the Student Relays committee. In cooperation with the University, alumni in Lawrence formed a Kansas Relays club to help out.
rence formed a Kansas relays club to help out. At the first Relays were a score of colleges and universities. All Missouri Valley schools were there, the Big Ten was represented, several Southwest conference teams entered, and the University of Pennsylvania came all the way westward for the event. Kansas wasn't too polite a host—dominating the meet by winning the 440- and 880-yard relays, finishing second in the mile relay, third in the two-mile relay, and taking two individual titles. Almost every event was run in a steady rain.
A year later the Relays had attained national prominence with 95 schools from coast to coast entered. Little Occidental college came out of California to make one of the most wholesale sweeps in the carnival's history. The Californians slammed all four baton events held in the college class with record-breaking times and invaded the University division for a triumph in the quarter-mile relay.
With the meet insured for $4,000 against rain, the 1925 Relays was one of the most eventful on record as three world records were broken. Famous Knute Rocke of Notre Dame was referee. Another football coaching great, Fielding "Hurry-Up" Yost of Michigan, refereed the 1926 meet, also a record-breaking affair.
The meet of 1927 stands out because the Relays had a relapse with only 44 schools entered. But Dr. Allen arose to the occasion and a year later had things thriving by introducing the decathlon and a marathon from Topeka to Lawrence.
- Things ran smoothly until 1931 when officials of the still-young Big Six conference met to consider banning the Relays. But the ban was not approved and the meet that year was one of the best of all time. Grid coaches were still favored for the referee's duties. That year it was Alonzo Stagg.
Rain kept all records safe in 1932, a year in which Dr. Garfield Weede—1950 Relays referee—saw his Pittsburg State Teachers teams run off with most of the honors. In 1933 Dr. Weede's mile relay quartet set a college class record of 3:17.3 which stands to this day.
Featuring the special mile race between immortal Glenn Cunningham and Gene Venzke, the 1934 carnival drew a crowd of 10,000. Cunningham won in 4:12.7. Kansas State Teachers college of Emporia broke the world record in the distance medley.
Eight records went by the board in 1935 to make that year's Relays one of the best. In 1936, star of the meet was Glenn Morris who gave the greatest Relays decathlon performance in history.
Again in 1937 it was the special mile run which drew 10,000 fans. Archie San Romani, Emporia State's greatest distance runner ever, defeated Cunningham with a nifty 4:14.1 showing.
Despite sullen skies, the field in 1938 sent eight marks down the drain. A record Relays attendance of 12,000 saw Cunningham come back to win the special mile in 1939.
Cunningham had his last Relays special mile appearance in 1940, and it was not a glorious one. For the Jayhawker all-time great was whipped by Blaine Rideout of North Texas State. But Rideout had set the present record of 4:10.1. Now the special mile is named the Glenn Cunningham mile.
In 1941 Indiana dominated the meet. With World War II already beginning to squeeze the sports world, the 20th Relays in 1942 were almost a Big Six affair.
And the war caused cancellation of the meet in 1943, 1944, and 1945.
The first post-war Relays in 1946 got off to a steady start which saw respectable performances all along the line although every record survived. The worst rain and cold in the Relays history reduced the 1947 meet to a whisper. Six men tied for first place in the rain-drenched pole vault at 11 feet 6 inches, lowest height in the carnival's history.
Bill Easton engineered the Relays for the first time in 1948 and the records again began to fall. Harrison Dillard, Baldwin-Wallace hurdler, and Michigan's Charles Fonville (he's returning for the 1950 shot put contest) established world marks.
Don Gehrmann, Wisconsin's great miler, and Bob Walters, a virtually unknown Texas high jumper, were individual standouts a year ago. Gehrmann equaled the mile record of 4:10.1, and Walters elevated the high jump standard to 6 feet 8 3-16 inches.
Thus through the years have been the Kansas Relays. This year many records—superior as they are—can not hope to survive. For the Kansas Relays attract many of the greatest track and field stars in America.