Hurdling History For Forrest “Spec” Towns

Forrest Towns didn’t seem like a record-breaking hurdler when he entered Georgia.

He fell down in his first attempt at the event.

But, two years later, the man known as “Spec” for his freckled face won every hurdles race in sight, including the 1936 NCAA Championships and Berlin Olympics 110-meter hurdles.

His whirlwind year in 1936 saw him run faster than the world record of 14.2 an amazing 10 times. Nine of those were in 14.1, but the fastest came in a post-Olympic race in which he lowered the WR to 13.7 – an improvement by four tenths of a second that remains the largest improvement in event history.

The race was in Oslo, Norway, and Per Avatsmark described the race in Sportsmanden: “From stride one his speed was so great that he virtually flew over the first hurdle. The rest of the race was as perfect as the beginning.”

Towns recalled, “I got off to an unusually good start that day. When I broke the tape I turned around and looked back. The nearest guy was just then clearing the last hurdle. One of the hurdlers came over and banged me on the back and told me I had run a new world record. I asked him, ‘What did I do – run it in 14-flat?’ He said, ‘No, you ran 13.7.’ All I said was, ‘Aw, hell.’”

Towns was well into a winning streak that reached 60 races and lasted through a repeat win at the 1937 NCAA Championships, becoming the event’s first two-time winner.

A month before the NCAA meet Towns was the Bulldogs’ leading scorer at the SEC Outdoor Championships as Georgia won the team title for the first time (It remains the program’s only men’s team title, including indoors). Towns won the 120-yard and 220-yard hurdles and added thirds in the 100 yards and high jump.

Coincidentally, it was high jumping of sorts that got Towns an athletic scholarship. Augusta Chronicle sportswriter Tom Wall witnessed his neighbor’s high school boy jumping over a fishing pole that was placed on the top of the heads of his dad and uncle. It was Towns, and Wall wrote a story about the raw talent that found its way to Weems Baskin, then an assistant coach at Georgia.

Baskin – the 1927 NCAA 120H champ for Auburn – had him try the hurdles. Towns’ wife, Martha, related in a UGA DogBytes story in 2004: “The first time he ran the hurdles on a cinder track he fell and had cinders from his shoulders to his ankles. He got up and asked coach Baskin if he could try it again and coach Baskin said at that moment I knew I had a hurdler.”

Baskin eventually was head coach at Georgia for a year before leaving for longer stints at Ole Miss and South Carolina. His replacement at Georgia in 1939 was Towns, who continued through 1974 – a 36-year period believed to be the longest in SEC track & field history. Towns and Baskin were inducted as part of the 2001 class to the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame.

Georgia began the Spec Towns Invitational in 1977 and named its outdoor facility Forrest Towns Track in 1990.