SPORTS
Daily Hansan
60th Year, No.124
SECTION B
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
SPORTS
Friday, April 19, 1963
Relays History Thrill-Packed
LAST RELAYS—Running in his last Kansas Relays as a Jayhawker is senior Kirk Hagan. Much of KU's hopes will be riding on the lanky middle-distance ace. He is a three-time Big Eight indoor 1,000 yard run champion and won the 1961 conference outdoor title in 1961.
Student's 'Dream' Leads To One Of Nation's Top Track Carnivals
Merely a "dream" some 40 years ago, the Kansas Relays has grown until today only the Drake and Texas Relays equal the annual University of Kansas outdoor track carnival.
Dr. John Outland, the "dreamer" and a former KU student, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania where he became an avid fan of the Penn Relays, held annually since the early 20's.
DR. OUTLAND dreamed of a comparable carnival at KU and persuaded the then director of athletics. Dr. Forrest C. (Phog) Allen to allow his dream to come true.
The only track at KU in 1920 circled McCook Field, located north of the present Memorial Stadium, site of the 38th annual Kansas Relays.
Plans for a replacement for the inadequate McCook Field were underway in 1920 and Dr. Allen made sure the replacement, Memorial Stadium, had a track suitable for the staging of a gigantic track carnival.
WHEN FINISHED in 1923, the Memorial Stadium track boasted one of the four longest straight-aways in the country exceeded only by Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
KU dominated action in the inaugural of the Kansas Relays in 1923. Competing in a 20-school field, KU won the 440-and 880 yard relays events, placed second in the mile relay and nabbed third place in the two-mile relay. Participants in the first Relays included schools of the Missouri Valley, Big 10, Southwest Conference and Dr. Outland's University of Pennsylvania.
KU's 440 and Illinois' 880-yard relay crews set world records during the 1925 Relays. Knute Rockne, the famed Notre Dame football coach, officiated the third annual Relays which were insured for $5,000 from rain. No rain fell.
SIX RELAYS RECORDS fell in 1931 as KU's Jim Bausch equalled the American record in the decathlon. A 480-yard shuttle relay team from Kansas State shattered the world's best in that event in 1934.
Glenn Morris, of the Denver Athletic Club, established an American record in the decathlon before 10,000 spectators in 1935. Emporia State's distance medley relay foursome set a new world record at the same Relays.
In 1948, 10.000 fans watched the establishment of world records in the shotput and 120-yard high hurdles.
A national collegiate mark posted in the 1951 Relays lasted only two hours. Nebraska's Don Cooper went 15-1$ _{18}$ in the Relays' pole vault event for a new collegiate record. Then, two hours later, Illinois' Don Laz leaped $ 15-1_{34} $ in a triangular meet at Los Angeles after he learned of Cooper's record performance.
A TEXAS QUARTER-MILE relay team clipped the existing mark in the 1954 relays. Another Texas quartet bettered the world mark in the 440-yard relay in 1956 and set a record which was lowered by two-tenths of a second by still another Texas crew in the Relays the following year.
Oklahoma won one of the most exciting spring medley relay races in track history in the 1958 Kansas Relays. The three teams that finished behind the Sooners in that race all finished faster than the intercollegiate record.
Only one Relays record fell in 1960. East Texas State's Jim Baird went $25-5^{1/2}$ in the broad jump to break the oldest Relays record, $25-4^{1/4}$ set 29 years earlier. Also in the 1960 Relays, former KU miler Bill Dotson nudged his high school rival Archie San Romani in the 1500 meter race with a 4:00.4 clocking in one of the Relay's most exciting races.
Baylor dominated the 1961 Relays by cleanly winning six titles and tying for the seventh before a crowd of 13,500.
NATIONAL INTEREST in the Kansas Relays over the years has remained high largely because of KU's own track standouts.
Glenn Cunningham was the first in the long line of great KU Relays performers. Cunningham captured the Relays' first 1500-meter title in 1932, repeated in the same event in 1933 and won the mile in 1934 with a 4:12.7 effort. In 1935, 1937 and 1938 Cunningham was beaten in the mile but came back to win in 1939 before 12,000 persons.
Another crowd of 12,000 looked on in 1940 as the by then famous Cunningham ran his last Relays mile race. He lost the race. Cunningham placed fourth in the 1932 Olympic 1500-meter run and second in the 1935 Olympics in the same event.
Wes Santee's attempt at the four-mile barrier places him as one of the all-time KU greats.
SANTEE POSTED the second fastest clocking in the mile event up to that time in the 1954 Relays. Santee raced to a 4:03.1 effort before a record crowd of 16,000. Santee turned in a 4:11.4 clocking
(Continued on page 5)
Bill Easton's Accomplishments Are Many
Latest honor to befall Bill Easton, now in his 16th year as KU track and field coach, was his selection to the Helms Foundation Hall of Fame last year.
This followed his designation as the nation's top collegiate coach in 1960 by the U.S. Track Coaches' Association, for which he became that body's first awarded of its gold track shoe trophy.
LITTLE WONDER Easton has been so honored. Few, if any, coaches in the land have been more successful. For one coach he is only the second coach in history to guide the same school to NCAA championships in both cross-country and track. His 1953 harriers, led by Wes Santee, captured the hill-and-dale flag . . . he previously guided three Drake units to this title . . . and his 1959 and 60 ensembles bagged the cinder crown. Easton's college coach, the late Billy Hayes of Indiana, is the only other tutor to forge this rare double.
Only two other schools, USC (several times) and Illinois (1946 and 47) ever have put together back to
back NCAA track and field championships.
NO BIG EIGHT team ever has risen so high for so long on the national scene. Nor has one dominated the conference so thoroughly. The Jayhawkers have won 11 of the last 14 league indoor championships; nine of the last 11 outdoor crowns, and 14 of the last 16 cross-country derbies. Furthermore, they have finished out of the first division only once in these combined fronts.
Easton's squads also have managed finishes of two seconds, a third and a fourth, ahead of their two titles years. His cross-country clubs have picked off three runner-up spots and two fourths in addition to the '53 championship.
Easton-coached performers have broken three world records . . . Bill Nieder in the Shot Put twice and Al Certer in the Discus throw . . . 14 American records and tied three; 14 Intercollegiate records; seven NCAA meet records and tied one; three Olympic records, and two national
Here is the log on further Easton accomplishments;
Bill Easton
freshman marks.
His Kansas clubs have harvested 74 baton championships and 61 individual gold medals on the Midlands' Grand Circuit of Texas, Kansas and Drake Relays, while breaking 16 (and tying one); 12 and 11 records in those respective meets. This surge moved the Jayhawkers past Texas last year as the winningest team of all-time in these three combined carnivals.
His 1957 four-in-nie relay team was the first collegiate unit to crack 17.00 with a 16:57.8 canter at the Kansas Relays. Nieder was the first collegian to break past 60-feet in the Shot in 1956.
He has developed 30 all-Americans and six Olympians, two of which, Oerter and Nieder, were two-time selections, the former a double champion, the latter 1960 king.
His cross-country teams finished the 1962 season with a streak of 39 consecutive dual wins over conference opposition, another skein of 17 over all opposition and a 16-year dual record of 63-3. His indoor ensembles own an unbeaten string
(marred by one tie) of 19duals and triangulars. His outdoor squads put together a chain of 24 consecutive dual-triangular wins beginning in 1951, which was fractured by San Jose State last April in a triangular also involving Stanford. A companion streak of 22 over conference foes was hailed by Oklahoma. 59-77, at Norman last May.
His teams wrought unprecededed streaks of six straight Central Collegeate conference outdoor championships (1536-'61) and five straight ACC Invittional titles (1958-'62).
The former Hoosier quartermiler began his winning ways at Hammond, Ind., high school before moving up to Drake, where he served an eight-year stint. He served a four-year term as secretary-treasurer of the National Track Coaches Association, and is past-president of the CCC and NCAA cross-country associations. He is married to the former Adamarie Scharbach of Hammond, They have a son, Dick, 23, a '62 graduate of the University of Kansas medical school, and a daughter, Lindsey, 20, a senior in music education at Kansas.