Penn. v. Drake

In 1893, four Princeton and four Pennsylvania trackmen found a way to make their competition more exciting--by running against each other successively by twos in a mile race instead of simultaneously at 440 yards. That was the origin of modern relay racing, since become the most popular form of intercollegiate track competition, and the beginning of the

Pennsylvania Relay Carnival which started two years later in Philadelphia.

The Drake Relays, inaugurated 15 years later and held at Des Moines on the same week-end each spring, have recently become a serious rival to Penn's. Last week, because neither had a superabundance of individual celebrities, the two carnivals could have been considered together as a sort of telegraphic meet between East & West, to see which could produce the best races, the most records. When they were over, a consensus of track experts might have given Penn first place for broken meet records, Drake for an individual performer.

At Philadelphia, on two bright summery April afternoons, some 2,000 schoolboys, whose presence makes the Penn Relays the biggest, as well as the oldest, meet of its kind in the country, capered around the track dropping their batons, falling on their faces, skinning their knees. When the two days were over, 17 meet records had been broken. Manhattan had won the mile relay, Columbia and Michigan State two other relay titles each. Four men had distinguished themselves as heroes of the meet. University of Michigan's famed Negro Willis Ward, star footballer and his college's most versatile track athlete, won the 110-metre high hurdles, pulled a muscle in his heat of the 100-metre dash, which forced him to withdraw from that event and merely tie for third place in the high jump. Jack Torrance, gigantic (311-lb.) alumnus of Huey Long's university (L. S. U.), shot-putter by day and Baton Rouge policeman by night, posed for the Press and languidly tossed a 12-lb. shot 62 ft. 1/2 in. to break the world's record of 60 ft. 5 1/2 in. His famed former teammate, Quarter-Miler Glenn Hardin, won the 400-metre hurdles, then ran anchor on the Louisiana State two-mile relay team that nosed out Army. Temple's spry little Negro Eulace Peacock took the 100-metre dash and the broad jump.

At Des Moines, in addition to hordes of schoolboys, the Drake carnival had a Queen: Nona Kenneaster, brunette senior at Fresno State College, selected from 28 nominees of competing colleges by the editors of the Drake year book, for her "poise, personality, beauty and intelligence." Queen Kenneaster toured the campus, presided over a Queen's Ball, received a crown from Drake President Daniel Webster Morehouse, was guest of honor at a "D" Club dance and accepted an invitation from Huey Long to have breakfast in his hotel suite. That afternoon, when he turned up at the field, Huey Long was roundly booed (see p. 19).

Like the Penn Relays, Drake's were distinguished by the performance of Negro sprinters. Ohio State's long, limber Jesse Owens placed a scrap of white paper 26 ft. from the broad-jump takeoff board, just 2 1/8 inches short of the world's record made in Japan four years ago by Chuhei Namb. His legs twinkled down the takeoff. He shot into the air like a brown bullet. When he landed he was f of an inch short of Nambu's mark but his 26 ft. if in. was a new U. S. record. Next day Owens won the 100-yd. dash in 9.5 sec., tying the meet record made in 1926. After two days of running, jumping and throwing, six meet records had been broken, the University of California at Los Angeles had defended its mile-relay championship and famed Glenn Cunningham had won a special three-quarter mile race against Glen Dawson of Tulsa. At Santa Barbara, competing in the invitation Track & Field Championships, Pole-Vaulter Bill Graber, onetime star at the University of Southern California, broke his own world's record (14 ft. 4 1/8 in.) with a vault of 14 ft. 5 3/8 in.

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