Track Star At West Point
Shea was an All-American in track and was said to have been the greatest track star to attend West Point. He ran his first competitive race at VPI. One of the West Point Black Knights' most celebrated distance runners, Dick Shea captured Heptagonal and IC4A individual cross country titles in three successive years (1949–51), helping Army to three straight team "Heps" titles during that time. The top performer on Army's dominant cross country team, Shea led the Black Knights to a 19-2 record during his West Point career, a mark that included three straight "shutouts" of arch-rival Navy. He set seven Academy records in indoor and outdoor track and field and established a meet record in the two-mile run at the prestigious Penn Relays in 1951. Shea repeated as the two-mile champ at both the Penn Relays and Heptagonal Championships in 1951 and 1952. His standards in the indoor mile run (4:10) and two-mile run (9:05.8) remained on Army's record books for more than a decade. Since 1952, only eight Army runners have achieved a better time in the mile, either indoors or outdoors. Today, Army's outdoor track and field complex bears his name.
Turning down the opportunity to attend the Olympic Games, after graduating in 1952, he joined his classmates in the Korean War.
Read more about this topic: Richard Thomas Shea
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