Web Exclusives:
Under the Ivy
a column by Jane Martin paw@princeton.edu
May
14, 2003:
The late, great Palmer Stadium
In its heyday, 18,000
would throng to track invitational
The late Palmer Stadium was remembered chiefly for football, for
the national champion teams to which it was home, for the throngs
of raccoon-coat clad spectators that filled its stands. But it had
another reputation for glory too: that of a fast track, one of the
fastest in the world. In the early 1930s, in fact, when the four-minute-mile
was still being pursued like a hare by a pack of greyhounds, Palmer
Stadium was the site of eight of 13 outdoor miles of 4:09 or faster.
Two of those races were run in July of 1933, when Oxford's Jack
Lovelock and Princeton's legendary Bill Bonthron '34 both broke
the then world record of 4:09.2, Lovelock slightly ahead of his
American rival.
The excitement generated by that race led to the creation of the
Princeton "Invitation Meet" the following year. According
to an article by Bob Wohlforth '47 in the May 26, 1961 issue of
PAW, proposing a revival of the competition, Asa Bushnell '21 founded
the Invitation Meet to raise funds for an Oxford-Cambridge/Princeton-Cornell
track meet and to provide a stage for the great mile races of the
day. Run on the Saturday afternoon of Reunions, the first meet in
1934 drew 18,000 fans to watch Bonthron, Glenn Cunningham of Kansas,
and Gene Venzke from Penn pound it out, with Cunningham setting
another world record at 4:06.7. A second world record was set in
the half-mile that year.
That fast start for the meet guaranteed its success. Lovelock
returned the following year, and though Wohlforth does not say whether
any new records were set, the meet did pull in more than $18,000
in pure profits a number so impressive that the organizers
were charged with commercialism and dropped the admission price
from $1.10 to .15 in 1936. The "free" event served as
an Eastern regional trial for the 1936 Olympics, and despite rain,
attracted huge crowds to see the milers, two-milers, and high-jumpers.
The fervor over the four-minute-mile mark and the presence of
Olympic athletes and qualifiers propelled the success of the meet
through 1940. But that year, with the threat of war and a weaker
field, the Invitation lost nearly $2,000. World War II sealed its
fate, and the meet faded away.
By 1961 Bushnell was commissioner of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic
Association, and along with Stan Medina '37, a one-time participant,
tried to revive interest in the meet at Princeton. "There is
scarcely a week that passes without people asking me why the Princeton
Invitation meet isn't held anymore. I'd like a plausible answer
for those people," Bushnell told Wohlforth, who himself had
attended many of the meets as a boy growing up in Princeton. But
athletic director Ken Fairman '34 and President Goheen poured cool
water on their hopes. Explained Fairman: "We would have to
look outside the United States for a miler or two and we would have
to import a Russian to make the high jump appealing enough to gain
press support, which would be vital. ...A resumption of the Invitation
Meet doesn't get by financial scrutiny, in my book."
Like the cheering crowds of football fans, the image of the world's
great runners tearing around Palmer Stadium's track would remain
a memory.
Jane Martin 89 is PAW's former editor-in-chief. You can
reach her at paw@princeton.edu
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