Michigan

Three microsplit watches, devised to record the flight of time to 1/100th of a second, ticked stolidly away one broiling afternoon last week in Columbus, Ohio. Developed during the War to time projectiles, these precise recorders of significant brevities were being used for the first time to measure the speed of athletic events. While they ticked, the colleges of the Western Conference competed for the annual track and field championships. A pair of great black legs--flying ebony which provided locomotion for DeHart Hubbard, famed Negro athlete of the University of Michigan--pumped down a narrow aisle 100 yd. long. The watches had ticked 9 and 74/100 sec. Hubbard had previously won the running broad-jump with a leap of 25 ft. 3 1/2 in. He scored 10 points, which surpassed the score of any other man, black or white, in the meet. With a pillar of wind at his back, one Frederick Alderman of the Michigan Agricultural School broke a Conference record for the 220-yd. dash. James Cusack of Chicago stepped cannily along behind a pack of runners for almost a mile, but when the distance became precisely a mile, James Cusack was in front. Shimek, a son of Marquette (Milwaukee), with pits under his eyes and his teeth straining out of his face, ran two miles in heat like the glare from a furnace door and won in the time it took the three impersonal chronometres to count 9 min. 32 61/100 sec. Huge, hairy Herbert Schwarze from Wisconsin twirled a 16-lb. shot around his head as if it had been a handball on a rubber band, cast it 48 ft. 1 1/4 in. to break a Conference record which had stood for 21 years. Justin Russell of Chicago jumped 6 ft. 6 in. over a bar, though there was nothing on the other side but sand. Northrup, teammate of Hubbard, won the javelin throw. When points were counted, it was found that Michigan had won the championship, with Wisconsin second, Ohio State third. Comparison of this meet with the Intercollegiates held in the East two weeks ago (TIME, June 8) shows that, in 8 of the 15 events which appeared on both programs, the Conference athletes performed best.