Calhoun High Hurdled Into The Record Book

Lee Calhoun was virtually unknown before 1956, but Dr. LeRoy Walker knew him well.

A young Calhoun was NAIA high hurdles runner-up in 1953 for Dr. Walker’s North Carolina Central track team before leaving to serve two years in the U.S. Army.

It is possible that even Dr. Walker was surprised by Calhoun’s progress, as the native of Gary, Indiana, opened up the 1956 season beating some of the best in the world when he claimed the AAU national indoor hurdles title.

Outdoors that year, Calhoun set meet records in becoming his school’s first champion in any event at the NAIA or NCAA meets, sweeping the 110 Hurdles with meet records of 14.0 and 13.7, respectively.

While that was impressive for someone who entered the year with a best of 14.5, the best was still yet to come. Calhoun culminated his 1956 season with an Olympic gold medal in Melbourne, edging fellow American Jack Davis as both ran 13.5 – only Davis had ever run faster (a then-world record 13.4).

Calhoun caught no one by surprise in 1957.

At the slightly shorter 120-yard distance, he again swept NAIA and NCAA titles with meet records, both at 13.6 as he became the first – and still only – man to break NCAA meet records in different years in the high hurdles.

Calhoun continued making history after college, becoming the first man to win multiple Olympic high hurdle golds after his 1960 victory in Rome. A month earlier he equaled the 110H world record of 13.2 – a time that would not be bettered until 1973.

Dr. Walker, who eventually became chancellor of North Carolina Central as well as the first Black president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, saw his protégé also become an Olympic coach as well as leading programs at Grambling, Yale and Western Illinois. The latter’s campus – Calhoun’s final stop before his death in 1989 – displays a life-sized bronze sculpture of his likeness entitled “Excellence on Winged Feet” inside the stadium at Hanson Field.