The First Championship

The first NCAA track & field championship was also the first championship conducted in any sport by the NCAA, and the significance of the event started at the top. Amos Alonzo Stagg chaired the committee which oversaw that first contest, whose referee was none other than Gen. Palmer E. Pierce, the first president of the NCAA.

Some newspapers even dubbed the event the “American Olympics” as entries came from all regions of the country and included notable stars from the 1920 Olympics.

That first meet took place on June 18, 1921, at Amos Alonzo Stagg Field on the campus of the University of Chicago. The site was primarily used for football, but had also staged some AAU national track & field championships, including the 1893 meet in its inaugural year of use (It was known then as Marshall Field).

A light rain fell before the meet started on Saturday at 2 p.m. with field events, followed by heats of the 120-yard hurdles 15 minutes later. The longest race was the 2-mile, there were no relays, and all of the current field events were held except the triple jump. There were 113 competitors from 62 institutions, half of which scored by placing individuals in the top-5 and given points on a 5-3-2-1-½ basis.

Illinois (20¼ points) won the meet without having a single event champion, but saw nine athletes score in 10 of the 15 events. One of the Illini’s top athletes was Harold Osborn, who scored in the high jump and long jump (Osborn would win Olympic gold medals in the long jump and decathlon three years later and remains the only athlete to ever win Olympic golds in both the decathlon and an individual event).

Notre Dame – one of just two programs to win two events – was runner-up with 16¾ points. The Irish had Gus Desch win the 220-yard hurdles and Johnny Murphy claim the high jump. The previous year, Desch was a bronze medalist in the 400-meter hurdles at the Olympics, while Murphy was fifth in the high jump.

Washington was the other program to win two events, courtesy of Gus Pope, who swept the shot put and discus. He became the meet’s first double winner (Pope was bronze medalist in the 1920 Olympic discus).

The biggest individual star was 1920 Olympic gold medalist Earl Thomson of Dartmouth, who equaled his own world record in the 120-yard hurdles of 14 2/5 (Watches were only accurate to a fifth of a second back then). His world record would not be bettered until 1931.

The meet was a homecoming for Earl Eby of Penn. The native of Aurora, Ill., went to high school in Chicago and won the 880 yards in his final collegiate competition. He was silver medalist in the 1920 Olympics and helped Penn win the team title at the 1920 IC4A Championships.