Cromwell's Crop

Oldest collegiate track meet in the U. S. is the Intercollegiate A.A.A.A. championships. Last week representatives of 31 colleges met in New York City's vast Municipal Stadium at Randall's Island for the 62nd annual meet, climax of the season.

In spite of a disheartening downpour of rain, three meet records were broken:

P:Edgar Howard Borck, captain of the Manhattan College team, ran the mile in 4 min., 13.9 sec., breaking by a half-second the classic record set by Cornell's John Paul Jones in 1913.

P:. Joseph Moclair, a third-string Manhattan entry, defeated two champion distance runners in the two-mile race, in record-breaking time of 9 min., 21.2 sec., the most startling upset of the meet.

P: Delos Thurber of Southern California broke the high jump record when he nipped over the bar at 6 ft., 6 5/8in., erasing the five-year mark of 6.6 1/8.

When the two-day totals were tallied, the University of Southern California, absent from I.C. 4-A meets since 1935, had spreadeagled the field, won the team championship for the eighth time since it first competed 14 years ago. Although its 17-man team won only two events and tied for a third, it placed in the ten events in which it was entered, amassed a total of 4?i points, almost twice as many as the runner-up, Michigan State (24).

This was no surprise to track experts. Southern California's coach. Dean Bartlett Cromwell, an old track & fielder himself, has trained more world-record holders and Olympic winners than anyone else in the U. S. In 1912 he was famed for Hurdler Fred Kelly. After the War it was Charlie Paddock, fastest sprinter of his time; and more recently it was Frank Wykoff. Since 1928 he has been renowned for his record-breaking pole vaulters, most sensational of whom were the "Trojan Twins," Bill Sefton and Earle Meadows, who wound up their college careers last year by breaking the world record with identical vaults three times, once at the unheard of height of 14 ft., 11 in.

Coach Cromwell's 1938 crop of runners & jumpers who came East last week have been undefeated this season. Outstanding sprinter is Adrian Talley, who lived up to expectations by winning the 100-yd. dash last week. Outstanding pole vaulters, curiously enough, are another pair of "Trojan Twins," Loring Day and Kenneth Dills. Both soar 14 ft., 3 in. with ease, and Day's recent vault of 14 ft., 7 in. is the top pole-vaulting performance of the year. Although Day & Dills kept in trim during the transcontinental trip by chinning on a bar stretched across the Pullman aisle, they could not break a record last week, tied with two others for first place at 13 ft., 6 in.

Coach Cromwell brings his teams along slowly, often makes his pupils lay off training in March if he thinks they are getting in top form too soon. He permits his jumpers to jump only once a week, spend the rest of their time doing gymnastics to develop muscles and low hurdles to perfect their stride. But modest Dean Cromwell insists his success is due to the Grade A material he gets from Southern California high schools, where 6-ft. high jumps and 9.8 hundreds are the rule rather than the exception.

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