Penn Relays

In a cold, windy drizzle, in front of an uncomfortable crowd in raincoats with newspapers spread over their knees, athletes from 500 schools and colleges, goose-fleshed in their shorts, competed in the annual Penn Relays carnival at Philadelphia.

Decathlon, Weather has more effect on this than any other event, for all ten efforts of the decathlon must be made in one day. To perform ten feats of strength, speed and agility in one day is hard even with the sun shining. Weary, disheveled, muscle-sore were the seven contestants at the day's end, but for one man up went great cheers which he, wrapped in a blanket, acknowledged with a tired lift of his hand--cheers for Bernard ("Barney") Berlinger, Penn's "one-man track team." He had won the decathlon two years in succession and he won it again, hands down, as everyone knew he would, beating his own carnival record in spite of bad conditions.

Bernard Berlinger, 21, 6 ft. i in., 193 lb., captain of the Penn team, a student in the Wharton School of Finance, is a fair runner, a good jumper, a fine discus thrower, indoor intercollegiate shot-put champion, and a pole vaulter so proficient that only a few specialists, shooters for world's records, can beat him over the high bar. This year he wanted to break the world's decathlon record and make sure of a place on the Olympic team. He felt he could do it if he got better at the 1,500-metre run, his nightmare. Hundreds of points he has lost in the past by not being able to score in this event and in spite of all his practicing he only got 348 out of it, bringing his total score to 7753.-6135.*

This year he will be graduated from Penn, probably among the first ten in his class. He will go into his father's ice business. He has not carried ice, as footballer Red Grange used to, to keep training. Instead, he goes to the woods, fishes for trout, hunts deer and bear. When he was small his mother received a Carnegie Medal for saving the life of a hunter bitten by a rattlesnake in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. One-mile Relay, The Penn team (Carr, Edwards, Steele, Healey) whirled away from all rivals, equaled in the muscle-stiffening air the 3 min. 18 sec. record made by Ted Meredith's team in 1915.

Javelin-throw, Rope-sinewed George Williams of Hampton College, hitherto not famed, tossed 197 ft. 1 1/2 in., a new carnival record.

Shot-put, Clarence Munn of Minnesota broke one of the oldest records of the meet when he sent the shot flying 48 ft. 7 5/8 in.

480-yard Hurdle, The Yale team (Brereton, Tritle, Lockwood, Devoe) made a new meet time of 1 min. 3 5/10 sec., barely nosing out the fighting finish of Jack Keller of Ohio State.

Point Standing, Penn and Ohio State tied, winning three major events apiece.

*Decathlon scoring is based on the Olympic decathlon record for each event, valued at 1000 points. Victory goes to the entrant who has the highest point total in all ten events. Present Olympic record holder: P. Yrjola of Finland with 8053.29.

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