Douglas daily dispatch., 1926-05-19
TED MEREDITH
WAS FAST MAN
IN The DASHES

PHILADELPHIA, May IS. 1.-TWO
weeks before Ted Meredith set the
present 440 yard record of Al 2-5 Sec
onds for theS I. c. A. A. A. A. meet he
ran the 100 yards in ten seconds, the
220 in 21 As and the 440 in 40, win
ming all three events. That afternoons 5
work, turned in against Dartmouth in
1916, assured me that Pennsylvania's
greatest runner was fit and ready for
record-smashing." SO declared Law
son Robertson, Pennsylvania track
coach. in recalling that notable event.
"The ninth assault on Meredith's
quarter-mile mark will be made on
May 2S and 20 at the Harvard Stadium
and that golden anniversary meet will
round out just half hundred I. G.
A A. A. 44o yard races" Robertson
continued. "I have been asked wheth-
er I think Meredith's record can be
broken. MY reply is Yes, but And
the but is that the man to break the
record must be a sound 1O-second
sprinter.
''The May afternoon in 1915 when
Meredith came racing down the long
straightaway on his record '440' he
was trailing at the 220-yard stage.
But he was following orders. His
most respected rival in that race was
Westmore Wilcox of Harvard. Will
cox had done 48 seconds on two oc-
casions mad this was his last college
race Meredith had an $50 final to run
an hour later, so l told him to hang
close to Wilcox's shoulder for the first
half of the 440.'
o1o with Mara6ifb
Willcox had hung back and attempted
the arduous assignment of beating
Ted with a driving finish. In this
race he elected to go out from the
gun and it was this fact which made
the record a possibility Meredith was
at the Harvard mans shoulder as they
whisked past the fur1ong post in FL
4-5 and Ted forged ahead entering
the homestretch. Wilcox was so spent
by his early efforts that he finished
fourth. E
"The one-mile relay race never has
been included in the intercollegiate
outdoor championships, but if had
an opportunity to choose an all-time
one-mile relay team, picking the men
on the basis of speed. experience and
reliability, I. would choose the four
men in this order: J. r. Meredith of
Pennsylvania, Maxey w. Lang of CO.
lumbia, Fran J. Shea Of Pittsburgh
and Charles D. Reidpath of Syracuse.
All of these men have won l. G. A. A,
A. A. titles and to my way of think
ing they would be from seven to ten
yards faster than any combination of
runners in the past 25 years.
I'm spite of the fact that Maxey
Long is the accredited holder of the
worlds record for the quarter mile,
in which he was timed in AZ seconds
flat, in my opinion a better perform
ance was made in 1915 by James E.
Meredith at the National Champion
ships in San Francisco in the senior
440 yards, in which he equalled Long, S
: mark, but the record was ont allowed.
THE mark of AZ seconds by Long
was in. the nature of a paced race in
which two. runners, p. ]. Walsh of
New York Athletic club, and w. c.
Edwards of Knickerbocker Athletic
club, paced him for half of the dis
tance on specially prepared course
on the old Gutenberg race track some
25 years ago. Long was marvellous
runner and his record of Al S-5 around
a handicap field at Travers Island
subsequently proved, to my way of
thinking, that Meredith's AZ 2-5 at
Cambridge in 1916 was run under
about similar conditions.
.''Meredith's record of AZ seconds,
made in San Francisco, was not Of
ficially allowed because it was alleged
that the wind aided the runner.
Strange as it may seem, during the
course of the afternoon the straight
away runners Were helped by the
wind, but at the particular moment
and during a short period after the
start of the race, the starter, John
McHugh, and others officiating made
the usual test determining the
strength of the wind and remarked
that there was absolutely no wind
helping the runners at that time.
GAS proof of Merediths meritorious
performance it may be noted that in
winning the race he defeated Binga
DESMOND of Chicago university by
over eight yards. DESMOND, who was
second in the race, subsequently ran
a quarter mile in AZ 2-5 seconds.
'Of the two performances, Longs
annd Merediths--I would suggest that
Longs be classified as noteworthy
performance and paced race, the
same as that in which Norman Taber
created a new mile record, and Mere
dith's AZ second should be placed on
the record books
The distri button of 44O-yard win
ners by colleges Harvard, Is; Penn
sylvania, 8; Syracuse. 3; Columbia, 8;
Amherst, 2; California; Q; Princeton,
2; Georgetown, 2 Cornell, 2; Boston
university 2: Boston college, Will
1iams.. Hale Michigan, Penn state,
Pittsburgh, Dartmouth and Holy Cross.
one each. ahs