Walt Murphy is one of the finest track geeks that I know. Walt does #ThisDayinTrack&FieldHistory, an excellent daily service that provides true geek stories about our sport. You can check out the service for FREE with a free one-month trial subscription! (email: WaltMurphy44@gmail.com ) for the entire daily service. We will post a few historic moments each day, beginning February 1, 2024.
This Day in Track & Field–March 6
by Walt Murphy’s News and Results Service (wmurphy25@aol.com), used with permission
1964—A crowd of 18,307, the largest of the season, watched local hero Tom O’Hara run 3:56.4 at the Daily News Relays in Chicago to break his own World Indoor Record in the Mile by .2s. Pressed by Jim Grelle (3:58.9) for most of the race, the senior at Loyola University, frequently tugging at his shorts (as was his custom), waited until the last lap before pulling away to register his 2nd record of the season.
The redhead had previously smashed Jim Beatty’s previous standard of 3:58.6 by a full two seconds at the NYAC meet in New York on February 13. Some observers felt that he might have lowered the record by another two seconds on this night had he not been too concerned about losing to Grelle.
Along with his 3:58.5 at the Knights of Columbus meet in NY on February 27, O’Hara recorded the three fastest indoor times in history in the space of 23 days.
Sports Illustrated Vault:
http://www.si.com/vault/1964/03/16/608429/now-if-ohara-really-tries
1971–The event’s not contested much anymore, but Tom Ulan of Rutgers set the long-standing Eastern Collegiate Record of 1:08.5 for 600 yards at the IC4A Championships at Princeton.
1976—Kate (The Great) Schmidt threw 215-6 (65.68) in Long Beach, California, to set the 8th of her 10 American Javelin records.
Hall of Fame Bio(1994): https://www.usatf.org/athlete-bios/kate-the-great-schmidt
1987–It was only fitting that the inaugural IAAF World Indoor Championships (March 6-8) would be held in the U.S., where the undercover version of the sport had flourished for decades. (The World Indoor Games, a dry-run for the WIC, were held in the Bercy section of Paris in 1985).
The site was the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, and Larry Myricks won the gold medal in the Men’s Long Jump on the first day of competition with…
CLICK HERE to Read the Full Original Article at runblogrun…