“Moon” Rose To Occasion In High Jump

By the time Irving Mondschein returned to NYU from Army service during World War II, it’s likely few could believe their eyes.

Mondschein had left in 1943 as a 19-year-old with a 5-foot-9, 160-pound build but when he returned in 1946, he stood 6-foot-2 and weighed 200 pounds.

Not only that, but Mondschein – who gained the nickname “Moon” because his last name means “moonlight” in German – had won two AAU national titles.

Irv “Moon” Mondschein, shown here competing in the pole vault, was an accomplished decathlete as well. He won three AAU national titles (Photo: NYU Special Collections)

If there was a problem with any of this, it’s that his titles came in the decathlon, an event that wouldn’t be part of the NCAA Track & Field Championships until 1970. And his popularity on campus as a great athlete led him to starting positions on Violets’ football and basketball teams.

Mondschein made his debut at the NCAA Track & Field Championships in 1947, winning the high jump at 6-6¾ (2.00m) and placing fourth in the long jump with a PR 23-11¾ (7.31m).

Later that summer he won a third AAU decathlon title.

Mondschein tied for first in the 1948 NCAA high jump at 6-7 (2.01m), then later made the Olympic team in the decathlon, taking eighth in the London Games.

In 1949, Moon was second in the NCAA high jump, losing to Brown’s Dick Phillips, who jumped 6-7 to Moon’s 6-6 (1.98m). Three weeks earlier, Moon and Phillips tied for the IC4A title at 6-7⅞ (2.02m) – an NYU outdoor school record for Moon that remains until this day (It was tied in 2017).

That was the end of Moon’s competitive days as an athlete. Even before graduating, he took a coaching job at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, leading the track & field, basketball and football teams in a long mentoring career that saw him with several track & field stops – the longest at Penn (1965-87, the last eight as head coach) – before entering the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame in 2007.

Moon’s son, Brian, also competed in the NCAA meet (taking seventh in the 1977 decathlon for Washington), as did his grandson, also named Brian, who finished second and fourth for Virginia Tech in the 2005 and 2006 pole vault.