Track and Field
Johnny Gibson, a 1928 graduate of Fordham, broke the 440 yd (400 m) Hurdles World Record while at the school and made the 1928 Olympic team in the same event. Gibson is known as a great contributor to the world of track and field as a founding member of the New Jersey Track and Field Officials Association and head coach of men's track and field at Seton Hall University from 1945 to 1972. Sam Perry set the World Record for the 60 yard dash indoors at the Milrose Games in 1965.
Tom Courtney won Olympic Gold in the 800 m run at the 1956 Games. While at Fordham Courtney had anchored the 2 Mile Relay that broke the world record in 1954.
Fordham track has had a resurgence in the past two decades with an All-Americans and numerous conference champions. Barry Cantrell earned all-American honors in the high jump in 1998. There have been several Atlantic 10 Conference champions including the jumping events, hammer throw. and the intermediate hurdles.
In 2008, the men's Track and Field team won the Outdoor Metropolitan Championship. The title was the first ever Metropolitan Athletic Conference team title captured by the Rams in the school's history. In the 2009 Outdoor Season the Rams defended their title, while the Women's squad captured second in the team scoring.
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Famous quotes containing the words track and/or field:
“It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I see a girl dragged by the wrists
Across a dazzling field of snow,
And there is nothing in me that resists.
Once it would not be so....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)