URI’s Black Rolled To NCAA’s 1st 10K Title

The NCAA’s first 10,000-meter race was held in 1948 at the Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis.

It was by far the longest distance in meet history – previously the longest event was the 2-mile, with the exception of a 5000 meters being held once in 1936. The race was even longer than the 4-mile that the NCAA used for its cross country championships.

However, the distance wasn’t new to Robert Black of Rhode Island – two years earlier as a freshman he won the AAU national cross country title at 10K in 1946 after serving more than three years in the Army’s Air Forces in World War II.

And just a week before the NCAA 10K race Black set the American record for the similar 6 miles in 30:28.2.

In that inaugural NCAA 10K, Black proved himself the class of the field as he easily won in 32:13.5, finishing some 300 yards ahead of runner-up Vic Twomey of Illinois (33:01.6). The race was the only final held on Friday of the two-day meet and became a regular event on the NCAA schedule in 1963.

Later in the fall of 1948, Black won the first of his two NCAA cross country crowns, both over Wisconsin’s Don Gehrmann, who was the first winner of three-straight NCAA 1500/mile titles (1948-50).

Black is remembered as one of Rhode Island’s greatest distance runners. Though he graduated from Rhode Island State (now University of Rhode Island), the track & field facility at Rhode Island College is named Robert J. “Bob” Black Track for him, following a gift to RIC from Bob’s wife Sarah in his name after his death in 1998.