The Tie Goes To The Buckeye

Ties – and sometimes breaking them – were common for Dave Albritton of Ohio State.

But there was no breaking any of the ties in Albritton’s three-straight NCAA high jump victories, and his first in 1936 was historic as he and Buckeye teammate Mel Walker became the first Black athletes to win the event.

That duo was part of an amazing Ohio State team in 1936: They contributed two of the record seven NCAA titles the Buckeyes won that year, joined by Jesse Owens with four (100, 200, 220 hurdles and long jump), along with Charlie Beetham in the 800 meters. No program has matched that number of champions in one NCAA meet.

However, the 1936 NCAA Championships was bittersweet for the Buckeyes, whose 73 points made them the highest-scoring runner-up team in meet history (6-place scoring system). The winning squad was powerful Southern California with 103⅓ points. The bittersweet part was that just a week earlier, Ohio State tied the Trojans in a dual meet when only wins counted, 7½-7½ – the fraction coming in the high jump, where Albritton tied USC’s Delos Thurber.

Albritton’s level of tying made a major leap a month later. A week after finishing third at the AAU Championships (on a tiebreaker), Albritton clinched a spot on the Olympic team in a brand-new stadium at Randalls Island, New York, by – you guessed it – tying Cornelius Johnson of Compton Junior College – who had won the AAU meet – as both cleared a world-record 6-9¾ (2.08m). That tie was not broken.

At the Berlin Olympics, Johnson led a 1-2-3 U.S. sweep, with Albritton earning the silver medal over Thurber’s bronze on a jump-off. Johnson and Albritton thus became the first Black athletes to medal in the Olympic high jump.

In the 1937 NCAA Championships, another Buckeye was favored – but this time it was Walker after sweeping the indoor and outdoor Big Ten titles over Albritton (and setting a world indoor best of 6-9¾ as well). Albritton came through, though, tying Colorado’s Gil Cruter for the win – Thurber was third on a tiebreaker as all three cleared 6-6¼ (1.99m). Walker, a senior, finished fourth but later in the summer raised the world record to 6-10¼ (2.09m).

Albritton and Cruter returned in 1938 as the meet record – 6-7¼ (2.01m) from 1926, then the oldest on the books – was battered like never before or since. In all, six men equaled the old standard as two – Albritton and Cruter – broke it with 6-8¾ (2.05m) clearances and tied yet again as neither succeeded at attempts at a possible WR of 6-10⅜ (2.09m).

Post-collegiate success followed for Albritton, as he won five AAU national titles – the last in 1950 at age 37. Ten years after that, Albritton was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, serving six terms and becoming the first Black person to chair a House committee in 1969.