page_title: Michigan Wolverines men's track and field
section_title: Fitzpatrick era (1901–10)
hierarchical_section_title: Michigan Wolverines men's track and field / History / Fitzpatrick era (1901–10)
caption_attribution_description: English: Ralph Craig, (1889-1972), a University of Michigan graduate who won two gold medals as a sprinter in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm. (Source: Flickr commons project) (extract from an original text)
context_page_description: The Michigan Wolverines men's track and field team is the intercollegiate track and field program representing the University of Michigan. The school competes in the Big Ten Conference in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
  Michigan men's track and field athletes have won 43 NCAA individual event championships, 14 Olympic gold medals, 57 Big Ten Conference team championships, and one NCAA team championship.
  The team has had 11 coaches in 109 years from 1901 to 2009. The team is currently coached by head coach Fred LaPlante and associate head coach Ron Warhurst.
context_section_description: Michigan's first track coach was the famous trainer Keene Fitzpatrick (1864 - 1944). Fitzpatrick was a track coach, athletic trainer, professor of physical training and gymnasium director for 42 years at Yale (1890-1891, 1896-1898), Michigan (1894-1895, 1898-1910), and Princeton (1910-1932). He was considered "one of the pioneers of intercollegiate sport." Fitzpatrick was first hired by Michigan in 1894 as the trainer for the school's football team. He continued to be the trainer of Michigan's football teams through 1910, and was credited by many with the success of Fielding H. Yost's "Point-a-Minute" football teams of the early 1900s.
  Fitzpatrick became Michigan's first track coach in 1900 and continued to serve in that role through 1910. During those years, Fitzpatrick's teams compiled a 24-2-1 record in dual meets and won Western Conference track championships in 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, and 1906. In 1907, Michigan sent its track team east to compete for their inaugural Inter-Collegiate Association of Amateur Athletics of America ("IC4A") meet, and Fitzpatrick's team came away with 29 points and a second-place finish.
  Fitzpatrick's athletes excelled in four Olympiads during his tenure as track coach, bringing home 7 gold medals out of 15.
  In 1900, funds were solicited from faculty, students, alumni and Ann Arbor businessmen to send Fitzpatrick and four Michigan track athletes to the 1900 Paris Summer Olympics. John McLean won a silver medal in the high hurdles. Michigan's champion pole-vaulter, Charles Dvorak and other Americans faced a quandary: finals of some events were scheduled on Sunday, including the pole vault. Several American university teams agreed they could not violate the Sabbath. Dvorak was reportedly told that the final had been rescheduled, but Dvorak and another American left. Several special competitions were conducted later to accommodate the Americans, when Dvorak win a silver medal.
  One of the highlights for Michigan athletics during the Fitzpatrick years came at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, which have sometimes been referred to as the "Michigan Olympics." Five University of Michigan track and field athletes won nine medals: six gold, two silver, and one bronze. The Michigan medal winners at the 1904 Olympics were:
  Archie Hahn - gold medals in the 60 meters, 100 meters, and 200 meters;
  Ralph Rose - gold medal in the shot put, silver medal in the discus, and bronze medal in the hammer throw;
  Charles Dvorak - gold medal in the pole vault;
  Fred Schule - gold medal in the 110-meter hurdles; and
  Wesley Coe - silver medal in the shot put.
  
  Archie Hahn became a major star, and Fitzpatrick was credited with developing his unusual running style. Shortly before the 1904 Olympics, a Wisconsin sports writer described the style this way:
  "Hahn has a new style of running. Nobody at Michigan understands the style, except that Keene Fitzpatrick invented it, and that Hahn steps differently than ever before. Even to see Hahn's new stride is not to analyze how he manages to lift his feet so high in front. The new stride suggests that he is trying to climb a hill. The little man has toughened every muscle in his body and trained it to be a spring."
  With three medals, Ralph Rose also became a star. In December 1904, the New York Evening Sun wrote that Rose was "the first perfect physique ever seen at the University of Michigan" as measured by Fitzpatrick's anthropometric charts. At 6 foot, 3 inches, 246 pounds, a 29.9 inche right thigh, and a 47.6 inch expanded chest, he was the school's first "perfect physique."
  At the 1906 Summer Olympics in Athens, Archie Hahn successfully defended his gold gold medal standing in the 100-meter, adding it to his three others. And at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, Michigan athlete Ralph Rose repeated as the gold medalist in the shot put, and John Garrels won a silver medal in the 110-meter hurdles and a bronze in the shot put.
  Fitzpatrick also coached Ralph Craig. Following Fitzpatrick's departure from Michigan, Craig went on to win gold medals in the 1
caption: Fitzpatrick said Ralph Craig was the best sprinter he ever turned out.
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