|
This
year represents a milestone in Ohio high school
athletics, marking as it does the 100th Ohio
Boys Track and Field Meet, making this the oldest of the
Ohio high school state tournaments. The state track
meet was first run at Denison University in 1908 with
just 12 schools participating, moving to Ohio Wesleyan
University the next year. The meet then relocated to
the campus of Ohio State University in 1910. Except for
the years 1999-2003, when the meet was held at Dayton
Welcome Stadium, the state boys track meet has taken
place on the OSU campus ever since.
All
schools competed in the state track meet as one class
until 1921, when they were divided into Class A and
Class B. The schools remained divided into two
classifications until 1970, but the classifications were
renamed AA and A in 1957. In 1971 Class AAA was added,
and in 1990 the three classifications were renamed
Division I-II-III, which is how they are divided today.
The
first state championship in 1908 was won by Columbus
North High School, which repeated as state title holder
in 1911, for the school’s only two track championships.
Toledo Central High School won the other four
championships during the state meet’s first six years.
Beginning in 1915, when East Cleveland Shaw won the
first of two consecutive Ohio track championships, the
boys state meet would see the emergence and domination
of the schools from the Greater Cleveland area, a
phenomenon that continues to this very day. These
schools have combined to win a total of 62 boys state
track championships, far and away more than any other
metropolitan area in the state.
Leading
the way for the Cleveland area have been two high
schools whose names have become synonymous with track
and field excellence. The first of these is East
Technical High School, more commonly referred to as
simply East Tech. From 1920 to 1955, the Scarabs won 13
boys track championships, including a record six in a
row from 1939-1944. (Tech shared the state title in
1941 with Cleveland Heights High.) The Scarabs have also
finished as the runner-up on seven other occasions.
Tech’s success in track helped the school earn the
unofficial title of “Champion of Champions” during the
OHSAA’s first 50 years, the school having won a combined
total of 19 state titles in all sports, one more than
runner-up Lakewood High School.
When
one talks about East Tech track, two names invariably
come up: Jesse Owens and Harrison Dillard.
Just
about everyone knows the story of Jesse Owens and the
1936 Olympics, where Owens won four gold medals (100m.,
200m., 4x100 relay, long jump) to put a huge crimp in
Adolph Hitler’s plans to showcase his supposedly
racially superior athletes. (Dave Albritton, another
East Tech and OSU product, also competed at the ’36
Olympics, winning a silver medal in the high jump after
setting the world record at 2.08m in July, 1936.
Albritton would win the NCAA title in this event in
1935-36-37, and the AAU championship eight times between
1936 and 1950.) Much less is usually known about Owens’
high school and college track career.
Jesse
Owens, who was born in Oakville, Alabama, came to
Cleveland when his family moved there when he was nine
years old. His name is actually James Cleveland Owens.
When he was in grade school in Cleveland, his teacher
could not understand his southern accent when Owens
tried to tell her that his name was “J.C.”. She thought
that he was saying “Jesse,” and it stuck.
Owens
got his start in track in junior high, but he really
started to make his mark in the sport at East Tech. As
a sophomore at the state championships in 1931, he won
the broad jump, finished second in the 200-yard dash and
fourth in the 100 as East Tech finished eighth.
The
next year Jesse Owens led East Tech to the state
championship when he won four events at the state meet.
He won the 100-yard (91m) dash in 9.9 seconds, tying the
meet record; won the 200-yard dash; won the broad jump
with a leap of 22’11 �”, setting a new state record; and
helped to set another new state record of 1:30.8 as a
member of the winning 880-yard (4x220) relay team.
In
1933, Owens led the Scarabs to a second consecutive
state championship by again winning four events, the
only boy to ever win four events at the state meet two
times. In the 100-yard dash he set a new state record
of 9.6 seconds. In the 200-yard dash he also set a
state record, winning with a time of 20.8 seconds. He
set a third state record in the broad jump with a leap
of 24’3�”. As a member of the 880-yard relay team,
Owens helped to set yet another state record with a time
of 1:30.3. Four state records in four events. While
his state records have all since been broken, no one
else has ever set four state records in a single state
track meet.
With
his reputation already well established around Ohio,
Jesse Owens burst onto the national and world stage at
the National High School Championships later that year
when he tied the world record in the 100-yard dash with
a time of 9.4 seconds – the second time that year that
he had done so. That same year, 1933, he set the
national high school record in the broad jump with a
leap of 24’11�”, a record that stood for 22 years.
Following his graduation from East Tech, Jesse Owens
attended Ohio State University. In 1935 and 1936, at
the NCAA championships, the “Buckeye Bullet” won eight
individual gold medals, four each year, the only person
to ever accomplish this feat.
However, the greatest accomplishment of his entire track
career – some would say in the history of sports - came
in the spring of 1935. On May 25, 1935, at a Big Ten
meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Owens tied one world record
and set three more - in a span of just 45 minutes. He
tied the world record in the 100-yard (91m) dash with a
time of 9.4 seconds. He then set world records in the
long jump, 26’8 �” (8.13m), the 220-yard (201m) low
hurdles, 22.6 seconds (becoming the first person to
crack the 23 second barrier), and the 220-yard (201m)
dash, 20.3 seconds. And Jesse Owens did all of this
while recovering from a fall down a flight of stairs
suffered earlier in the week.
In
2005, this incredible accomplishment was hailed as the
greatest athletic achievement since 1850.
Then
came Jesse Owens’ great victories in the 1936 Olympics,
making him the first American to ever win four gold
medals in a single Olympics. Two months before his
great accomplishments at the Olympics, Owens set a world
record in the 100m dash with a time of 10.20 seconds.
There
have been many great track athletes since the days when
Jesse Owens was racing down the cinder paths, but none
has yet reached the heights that his former Ohio high
schooler did.
Unlike Jesse Owens, Harrison Dillard is a
native Clevelander. “Bones” as he was nicknamed because
of his thin build, got inspired to run track when, at
the age of 13, he watched a parade in Cleveland honoring
Jesse Owens upon his return from the 1936 Olympics.
Dillard participated in the 1940 state track meet,
helping East Tech to another state championship by
finishing second in the 120-yard high hurdles, and third
in the 220-yard low hurdles. In 1941, Dillard returned
to the state meet and won both events, leading the
Scarabs to a share of the state title.
Dillard’s senior year in high school was just the
beginning of a great track career in his specialty, the
hurdles. Attending Baldwin-Wallace College in nearby
Berea, Ohio (instead of following his idol Owens to
OSU), Dillard won four national collegiate titles in the
low and high hurdles, as well as 14 AAU outdoor hurdling
titles before a stint in the U.S Army, brought about by
the outbreak of World War II, put his track career on
hold.
Following the war, Dillard went back to Baldwin-Wallace
and track. In 1946 and 1947 he won the NCAA title in
both the 120 and 220-yard hurdles, tying the world
record in both events in 1946. Undoubtedly the best
hurdler of his time, and one of the best ever, Dillard
won 82 consecutive races from May 31, 1947 to June 26,
1948, setting a world record in the 120-yard hurdles in
April of 1948.
Surprisingly, he failed to qualify for that event at the
1948 Olympic trials when he was slowed by knocking down
some of the hurdles, but he did secure the third and
final spot for the 100-meter dash. Lucky for the USA
that he did, as Dillard won the gold in the 100m (with
an Olympic record time of 10.30 seconds) and was a
member of the USA’s gold medal 4x100m relay team.
Dillard returned to the Olympics in 1952 and won two
more golds, one in his specialty, the 110m hurdles, and
the other as a member of the 4x100m relay team.
Harrison Dillard is still the only male Olympian to win
gold in both sprinting and hurdling events.
In part
because of his outstanding starting technique, Harrison
Dillard was virtually unbeatable indoors in the 60-yard
hurdles. He won that event at the AAU indoor
championships seven consecutive years, 1947-1953, and
again in 1955.
East
Tech won its last state championship in 1955, but almost
immediately Glenville began its run of success that
continues to today. The Tarblooders won their first
state championship in 1959, and would win a total of 10
state titles over the next 17 years. They also finished
as runners-up in both 1963 and 1943, missing out on two
more state titles by a combined total of just 2�
points. Glenville then went 27 years without a state
championship, but since 2003 they have regained the form
of old and have been unbeatable, winning the last four
Division I boys Ohio track championships to eclipse East
Tech’s total of 13 titles with 14 of their own.
Glenville’s specialty over those last four years has
been the speed events, both individual and relay. Their
success has earned for the Tarblooders a total of 15
spots on the state’s all-time Top 10 listings in seven
different events. Leading the way for Glenville has
been speedster Ted Ginn Jr., who occupies six of these
spots, including the state meet record in the 110m
hurdles at 13.40 seconds, a time that is currently tied
for fifth best in the country. The Tarblooders also
hold the four fastest times in the 4x200m relay,
including the state record at 1:25.09.
100
years of championship history cannot be adequately
covered in just the few pages allowed us here, but a few
high lights deserve be mentioned.
Chris
Nelloms led Dayton Dunbar to three consecutive Division
I championships in 1988-89-90. During his high school
career Nelloms won 11 championships in a total of five
different events. He holds the state record in three
events (200m, 400m, 110m hurdles), and his time of 13.30
sec. in the 110m hurdles is also a national high school
record.
John
Saunders led Glendale High School to its only state
championship in 1935, but as a freshman that year
Saunders was just getting started. Like Harrison
Dillard, Saunders specialty was the hurdles. From 1935
to 1938 he won 10 individual state championships, six of
which came in either the high or low hurdles. He also
won the 100-yard dash championship three times and the
broad jump title once.
Scott
Fry of Perkins High School in Sandusky won both the
1600m and 3200m races in Division II in 1985. His time
of 8:49.40 in the 3200m is the all-time best in the Ohio
boys tournament, while his time of 8:46.70, also run in
1985, is the all-time best in Ohio and fifth best in the
nation.
3200
must be a pretty lucky number for Ohioans. In the 3200m
relay (4x800), Ohio schools have run four of the 10 best
times in the nation. North Canton Hoover is #5, 7:41.74
(2003), St. Ignatius #6, 7:41.99 (2001), Wadsworth #7,
7:42.21 (2003), and Elyria High School is #9, 7:42.71
(1997).
While
it seems that some schools tend to specialize in an
event or two, it would be hard to top little Jefferson
Township High School from down Dayton way. This school,
which boasts a total student population of under 250,
specializes in relays, almost all of them, so much so
that the Broncos hold four state tournament relay
records. In 1981, while competing as a Division II
school, they set the divisional tournament record in the
4x100 at 41.79 seconds. Dropping down to Division III a
few years later, the Broncos have since set three more
tournament relay records in the 4x100 (42.31 sec. in
1986), 4x200 (1:30.37 in 2005), and 4x400 (3:21.08 in
1994).
However, Jefferson Township High has also produced one
of the state’s all-time best sprinters in Tony Lee.
From 1985 to 1988, Lee won nine gold medals at the state
tournament. He won four as a member of the 4x100 relay
team, three in the 100m dash and two in the 200m.
Finally, there is one Ohio high school alum who must be
mentioned in any article dealing with Ohio high school
track. Edwin Moses is not so famous for what he
accomplished on the track at Dayton’s Fairview High
School in the early 1970s, as for what he did after
graduating. Moses was the dominant intermediate hurdler
in the world for more than a decade, and is perhaps the
best the world has ever seen. In 1976, Moses literally
burst onto the world track scene at the Montreal
Olympics. Competing in this, his very first
international event, Moses not only took home the gold
medal in the 400m hurdles, but set a world record of
47.64 seconds in the process.
After
losing a race in August of 1977, Moses won his next race
in September 2, 1977. He would not lose again, almost.
Moses’ win streak would cover 122 consecutive races,
over a span of nine years and nine months, his next
defeat not coming until June 4, 1987. During that
period he would set another world record for the 400m
hurdles, 47.02 seconds, on his birthday in 1983. In the
final race of his career at the 1992 Olympics, Moses
finished third to bring home the bronze medal, adding
this to the gold medals he had won in 1976 and 1984.
|
Looking Back at the
OHSAA's Track & Field Championships- Girls
A centennial moment
By Timothy L. Hudak
Sports Heritage Specialty Publications
4814 Broadview Rd.
Cleveland, Ohio 44109
www.SportsHeritagePublications.net
|
|
While
the boys state track meet is the oldest of Ohio�s high
school championships, the girls� meet is one of the
youngest, being one of the nine girls sports to be given
a state tournament in the years 1975-1978. The girls
state track meet was first held in 1975, and for its
first three years this championship was held separate
from the boys, but ever since 1978 the two meets have
been held simultaneously. There have always been three
categories for the girls, named Class AAA-AA-A from
1975-1989, changing to Division I-II-III starting in
1990.
Although the girls did not get their due recognition in
the form of a state track meet until 1975, this by no
means meant that there was no track competition for the
ladies until then. As early as the dawn of the last
century, girls have been participating in some kind of
athletics in Ohio�s high schools. Usually this was of
the intramural variety, but around the 1920s the young
ladies of one school started to compete against those of
other high schools in a few sports. These included
basketball, field hockey and a limited number of track
and field events, mainly those involving running and
jumping.
Often
the track meets for the girls took the form of a single
annual meet. The girls from several schools would
gather at one location in late May or early June for the
big event. Typically, there would be foot races during
the morning session, with jumping events added after
lunch. Needless to say, coaching, such as it was, was
quite amateurish at this time, and coverage by the local
media was non-existent, but trophies, ribbons and
banners were given to the winners, and for its day this
was a truly big event.
While
it was felt that all students in our high schools needed
to have exercise as part of their overall development,
it was also a strongly held belief in those earlier days
that interscholastic sports for girls was not the way to
go. When interscholastic basketball, the premier sport
for girls back then, was discontinued in all OHSAA
schools in 1940, it sounded the death knell for all
other interscholastic athletic activity for young ladies
in the state.
Ohio�s
high school girls would have to wait almost 20 years
before organized interscholastic athletics started to
creep back into their curriculum. The attitude towards
interscholastic athletics for girls gradually changed,
and by the late �60s and early 70�s sports for girls,
including track and field, slowly became better
organized and higher quality coaching became available
for the high school girls around the state.
In
spite of the fact that the high school girls of Ohio did
not have the overall training and coaching advantages in
track and field until relatively recently that the boys
have always enjoyed, this did not prevent many of the
state�s young ladies from seriously pursuing this
activity. The most successful of these young ladies was
Madeline Manning, one of this country�s first female
middle distance runners of world class caliber.
Madeline was born in Cleveland in 1948 and attended that
city�s John Hay High School. In 1965, Ms. Manning won
her first national title in the 440-yard run at the
girls AAU championships. In 1966, while still attending
John Hay, she set the world indoor record in the
800-meter run in her very first international meet. She
would go on to set three more world indoor records for
the 800m, her best time of 2:02.0 coming in 1969.
In
1968, Madeline won the 800m race at the Olympics held in
Mexico City, in an Olympic record time of 2:00.9. Her
win was so decisive that the second place runner was a
full 10 meters behind her at the finish. Madeline
Manning is still the only American woman to ever win the
800-meter race in the Olympics.
Ms.
Manning returned to the Olympics in 1972 and 1976. She
earned a silver medal as a member of the USA�s 1600m
(4x400m) relay team in 1972. In 1976, she became the
first American woman to break the two minute barrier in
the 800-meters with a time of 1:59.8 at the U.S. Olympic
trials, but she failed to make the finals at the
Olympics. Later that same year Ms. Manning would lower
the U. S. record in the 800m to 1:57.9. Although she
qualified for the Olympic team again in 1980, Madeline
was denied the opportunity to try for a medal when the
United States boycotted the Olympics being held in
Moscow.
Among
the many accomplishments achieved throughout her stellar
track career, Madeline Manning won the 400-meter race at
the World University Games in 1966, and won the same
event at the Pan-Am games in 1975. Eleven times she has
been the national champion in the 800-meter race, six
times outdoors and five times indoors.
While
Madeline Manning�s achievements are remarkable,
especially in light of the era in which she
participated, there is another young lady who may be the
prime example of what modern training, modern coaching
and sheer determination can achieve today.
Bridget
Franek of Crestwood High School in Mantua first
qualified for the state track meet in 2003 as a
freshman. Running in the 1600-meters, she did not win,
but placed a very respectable second. It was more of
the same the next season, as Bridget again finished
second in the 1600m.
Finally, in 2005 as a junior, success finally came
Bridget�s way. She did not just win the Division I
1600-meter race, she blew away the opposition. Her time
was 4:45.68, the all-time all-division record for Ohio
girl�s track. The second place finisher was almost 13
seconds behind her. Bridget also ran the grueling
800-meter race that year, missing a second state title
by just four-tenths of a second.
By the
time last year�s girls state track meet rolled around,
people were looking for big things from Bridget Franek
in the distance events. If only they knew how big this
meet would be for Bridget Franek, Crestwood High School
and the state of Ohio.
In
2006, Crestwood High School had dropped a notch and was
now competing in Division II. On Friday, June 2, the
Crestwood 4x800m relay team came home in first place.
On that team were Bridget Franek and her teammate,
junior Cassie Schenck. The Red Devils were off and
running.
Saturday morning, June 3rd, dawned pleasantly
at the state girls track meet. However, this would
hardly be an ordinary day at the track. At 1:35 P.M.
the 1600-meter race was held. Bridget Franek won in a
time of 4 minutes, 56.17 seconds. Teammate Cassie Schenck finished second, barely a second and a half in
arrears.
As the
Cleveland Plain Dealer�s Bob Migra later wrote
about Ms. Franek, �She was just warming up.�
Barely
forty minutes after the conclusion of the 1600m race,
Bridget Franek was back on the track for the start of
800-meter race. This event is considered by many to be
the most grueling event in track, combining as it does
the dual need for flat out speed and endurance. No
luxury of pacing yourself in this race like you can in
the longer events. Bridget proved to be more than equal
to the task, finishing in a Division II record time of
2:11.22 � and adding valuable points to her team�s quest
for a state championship.
Most
people would have been willing to call it a day by now,
but Bridget Franek still had one more race to run.
Barely 15 minutes after the start of the 800m, perhaps
12 minutes after the conclusion of that grueling race,
Bridget Franek was back on the starting line for the
3200-meter event - a race of nearly two miles! Even
Bridget later admitted to having some concerns, worrying
about getting dehydrated and perhaps literally falling
off the track.
To
those watching the race, the thought of this happening
probably never entered their minds as they watched
Bridget cruise around the oval at Jesse Owens Memorial
Stadium, with teammate Cassie Schenck following her by
just a few seconds, and the rest of the racers way
behind. With more than 12,000 fans cheering her on as
she came down the home stretch, Bridget Franek crossed
the finish line in a time of 10:43.86 - another Division
II state meet record. (Earlier in the year Bridget had
run this same event in an all-division girls record time
of 10:16.5.)
It was
a truly incredible achievement. From 1:35 P.M., when
the 1600m race started, until approx. 2:51 P.M., when
she crossed the finish line in the 3200m race, Bridget
Franek had won the three longest races in the state
meet - in a span of just under an hour and 15 minutes,
and two of them in record time. Commenting on Franek�s
remarkable day, University of Akron assistant track and
cross-country coach Scott Jones put the accomplishment
in �the realm of the unbelievable.� To the best of this
writer�s knowledge, no high school athlete in the
country, boy or girl, has ever won the 800m, 1600m and
3200m races in the same meet in the same day � except
Bridget Franek of Crestwood High School.
It came
almost as an after thought to many that Franek�s four
victories, and Cassie Schenck�s two second place
finishes, had carried the Red Devils to their first ever
girls state track championship.
As was
mentioned in the previous article, the boys state track
meet has been dominated by Cleveland area schools. In
the girls competition this was not the case at first,
but since 1986 schools from the Grater
Cleveland/Northeastern Ohio area have won more than
their fair share of state titles, especially in
Divisions I and II.
Leading
the way in this regard has been Beaumont School of
Cleveland Heights, led by their great coach Jim Emery,
who has been coaching track and cross-country at the
school since 1991. Variously competing in Class
AAA/Division I and Class AA/Division II, the Blue
Streaks have won 14 state track and field championships,
including a state record, boys or girls, seven in a row
from 1986-1992.
Beaumont�s strength has been the long distance races,
which comes as no real surprise since the Blue Streaks
have also won more girls state cross country titles, 7,
than any other school. Girls from the school own a
total of six state meet records, three each in Division
I and Division II. Most of these records have come in
the middle to long distance individual and relay events,
but they have also �branched out� to hold the Division
II meet record in the 300-meter hurdles, set by Michelle
Hite in 1992 with a time of 43.10 seconds. Girls from
Beaumont also hold two all-time all-division state
records: 800-meters by Candace Nicholson,
2:08.72, 1996; and the 4x800m relay (Kristen Joyner,
Aimee Dobrowski, Nora Sennett, Maggie Infield), 9:03.86,
2002.
While
Cleveland�s Senate League has produced the state�s top
two boys track teams in East Tech and Glenville, it may
come as a surprise that the girls from both of these two
schools have yet to win their first state title.
However, the girls from one Senate school have been
coming on strong of late, and in the last 10 years have
won or shared eight Division I girls state track
championships. That school is Collinwood High School,
coached by their long time mentor, Lou Slapnik.
The
Railroaders tend to do better in the shorter distance
races and relays up to 400m, as well as in some of the
field events. They are particularly good at the 4x200m
relay, an event in which they own the all-division state
meet and the all-time girls record of 1:38.34, set in
1997 by the team of Donita Scott, Rhondalynn Crawford,
Rashida Cameron and Shonda Robinson. The Railroaders
can also claim five of the top six all-time state
tournament times in this event.
The
Railroaders have also had some notable success in the
high jump, where Christina Estrict set the state meet
record in 2000 with a jump of 6� even, after setting the
all-time girls mark of 6�1� earlier in the season.
Another
school that has piggy-backed its success in
cross-country with track and field championships is
Minster High School. The Wildcats, currently coached by
Larry Topp, are second only to Beaumont in girls state
track titles with 12, to go along with 6 cross-country
championships, also second to Beaumont. The Wildcats,
who compete in the small school category Class
A/Division III, have spread their titles over the whole
history of the girls state track meet. They won five
championships in a row from 1976-1980, and won three
more during the �80s. They were shut out of the title
picture during the 1990�s, but won four more in
2001-2002-2003-2004.
Spearheading the Wildcats� last four state title drives
was one of Ohio�s all-time best long distance runners,
Sunni Olding. A four-year runner at Minster, Ms. Olding
won state individual cross-country honors three times,
finishing the other race in second place by just a
fraction of a second. Sunni went from the fall
cross-country season to the spring track season hardly
seeming to miss a beat, and with even greater success.
In her four years at Minster, Ms. Olding won nine gold
medals at the state track meet (1600m four times, 3200m
twice, 4x800m relay three times), twice finished second
in the 3200m and once on the 4x800m relay team, and
chipped in with a fourth place finish in the 4x400m
relay (2004).
|
|
