V 13 N. 55 When Dual Meets Generated Enthusiasm, Crowds, and Competition At Its Highest

 My good friend Bill Schnier, more than 30 years head coach at U. of Cincinnati, has written a magnificent piece on a dual meet between the Hoosiers of Indiana and the Ducks of Oregon back in 1980.   Could any modern coach or athlete even conceive of such an event occurring in today's track world?   Do nations have dual meets anymore?  Perhaps there are a few on the schedules, but they are not the highlights of the season, the one you've got to win to say the season was successful.  They were the events you might find yourself doubling or tripling in.   The coach might come up to you after your second event and tell you "We just need a third place out of you to pull this off,  can you do it kid?"   "Sure, coach." would be your response.  A half miler might find himself recruited to triple jump.  A pole vaulter might throw the javelin.  The kid who never placed all year might come through in a rare for him event.  When I ran for Oklahoma, it was the Oklahoma State dual meet that meant everything.  And it went down to the mile relay more than once.   One year we upset Arizona on our spring trip, and the coach was so happy he rented us three convertibles next day to go down to Nogales, Mexico.  Not a good idea, and not something you could get away with today.   In Bill's story, the reward after the meet was a trip down to the coast to see the ocean, even though the Hoosiers didn't win.  Ooops, I gave away some of the story.   Here is Bill's masterpiece of reporting and memoir.  When I queried him about it yesterday it just leapt out of him when we were on the phone, and he was kind enough to put it down on paper (or electronic screens) for all of us to enjoy.   I was able to find the box score and a short account of the meet.   If I can eventually find the Eugene Register Guard account I will post it as well.  

George

                                              IU   Big Ten vs.  UO Pac 10  1980

                                                            by Bill Schnier

This 1980 encounter pitted the Big Ten champion Hoosiers against the PAC 10 champion Ducks.  Both teams took pride in having complete all-around teams which led to an equal pride in their dual meet records.  Coaches Sam Bell and Bill Dellinger scheduled this dual as a natural continuation of the famed Oregon/Oregon State duals in previous years.  While serving as the head coach at Oregon State just a few years before, Coach Bell's Beavers topped Bill Bowerman's Ducks in three of his final four meets in that storied series.  The 1980 Oregon/Indiana dual shaped up as a Midwest/West Coast classic with both teams anticipating the dual, or  should I say "duel?"  Coach Bell had suffered a severe cardiac arrest five weeks before so his two assistants, Dennis Adama and I, served as co-head coaches for the first half of the season.  Sam just couldn't stay home so he allowed himself to attend the meet but did not accompany the team to the Pacific Ocean  afterwards.

   The meet was straight out of a storybook, ending like all dual meets should with the winner of the mile relay winning the meet.  Leading up to that final event were two perfectly balanced teams competing with Olympic-style efforts.  Each team scored points in all individual events except for the pole vault and shot put where Oregon swept and the long jump where Indiana swept.  Despite facing the team with the best distance-running tradition in America, IU outscored UO 15-12 in the three distance events with future Olympian, Jim Spivey, recording a 1,500/5,000 double.  Numerous athletes won two events, typical of the duals of old.  

   All of us from Indiana were extremely excited about competing at Oregon's historic Hayward Field.  My only worry was that all the hype about Tracktown USA would prove to be overstated, but once we got there we discovered it might have been understated.  I met Bill Bowerman, and spoke with a true track fan at the gas station next to our hotel while he changed a flat tire, bought a javelin at a hardware store, was introduced in front of an enthusiastic and appreciative crowd before the meet, and stood on the track next to Sam Bell during the mile relay.   I was worried about the race but also about Sam's heart.  Neither of us could hear each other yell due to the roar of 5,206 rabid fans who came out on a cool and rainy Oregon day.

   Back to the mile relay.  With the meet on the line, both teams lined the track to root their foursome to victory.  When the Oregon quintet was introduced, they were met by a huge ovation which actually motivated both teams.  With good sprinters on both teams, the race went back and forth for all legs.  Oregon held a slight lead when 800 meter All-American, David Mack, got the baton for the Ducks, three meters ahead of 400 hurdle All-American, Nate Lundy, of the Hoosiers.  Both held their positions until Lundy passed Mack on the backstretch, right in front of Sam and me.  I thought the race was ours as he held that lead onto the home stretch.  Mack closed the gap ever so slightly and lunged ahead by a meter at the finish.  Afterwards he flung the baton high into the air as his green-and-yellow teammates mobbed him and the 5,206 fans sounded like 25,206.  Afterwards, while we changed at Mack Court, many people invited us back but to the best of my knowledge that never happened.  Gradually dual meets disappeared from college schedules and were replaced by massive invitationals where teams split up each week, chasing NCAA marks.  Those marks have indeed improved for a variety of reasons, but gone are the days when a runner throws his baton high into the air in sheer glee.  But it did happen in years past and I am happy to have been part of those thrills so many times, including the Oregon/Indiana dual of 1980.

                                                                                 David Mack

Note in this clipping that the Ducks had 7 dual meets that year.  And comparisons were made as to who had the

best dual meet team in the nation.  GB

George,

If you don’t mind me shilling my own stuff here, I have all the USC/UCLA dual meet results posted if anyone might be interested: http://trojanforcestats.us/USCvsUCLA.html

Cool deal, thanks George. One can’t say ‘dual meets’ and not include SC-Ucla.

Russ Reabold

https://usctrojanforce.com/

http://trackattic.xyz/

Russ Reabold

Wilmington College at Bluffton College  Year 1967

Dick Weidner (W) won the 100, 220, and 440
Terry Moon (W) won PV, LJ, and HJ
Jay Birmingham won mile, 880, 3-mile plus placed third in both the Javelin and Discus

Sadly, we lost the dual meet by three points

But it was fun!  Jay Birmingham

Jay, is this  why you went to ultras?  Coach couldn't make you run more than one event same day?  George

Dear George:

Good posting!

I forwarded it to the WMU (Western Michigan University)  Athletic Director and the Head Coach of the Women's Track Team since Western no longer  has a men's team.

The duals created fan interest; let the athletes who sat next to you in class show another side of their life and made track and field real for the spectator.

That carried over to the televised indoor and outdoor meets.

Take care,

Tom Coyne

George

Sadly today's college runners don't know the excitement of a yearly schedule of dual meets. I loved the fact that there were always a couple of contests that we knew would be critical in our quest for the conference title. In less stressful duals we could try different distances, different strategies and test each other in different ways. There was nothing quite as exciting as having the team line-up around the track in the final event to root their team to victory.  With today's invitational only schedule, the 4th-5th-6th best could not experience a chance to win a race with the top runners chose different events. Everything changes but I would vote for bringing back the duals. USC vs UCLA? A sell-out guaranteed.

Great stuff here as usual!

Darryl Taylor

George,

The story on the dual meets was interesting. Growing up in Socal and going to the sc and ucla dual meets in the LA coliseum were great events. The LA Times would actually dope the meets. Big crowds especially for the ucla-sc meet.

With title 9 and the ncaa cutting track scholarships you can't even think of having a dual today.

At KU we never had a dual....Timmons liked to have a tri meet indoors and favored Southern Illinois and Oklahoma St. come to Allen Field House.

I told the new Kansas Relays director to have the Jayhawks have a dual meet during the relays against the Chinese or Russian junior teams and it went of deaf ears. Even having the top Kanas high schoolers compete against the Canadian or Jamaican juniors would be a fun event to watch.

Yeah, duals between countries would be great but with the shoe companies involved you have to wonder how many of the U.S. team would actually participate.

 I wasn’t yet in El Paso when the  UTEP coach, Wayne Vandenberg, scheduled a tri meet with SC and BYU. Packed stadium at Kidd Field. When Ted Banks took over at UTEP he rarely scheduled any dual meets. One I remember  was when we went  to Tempe and Baldy  Castello’s ASU team won. ASU had Herman Frazier but UTEP was loaded. UTEP later  won the NCAA outdoor in Provo.  Mike

Mike Solomon  Las Vegas NV

George: 2 other tie in's for me with this story 

 

- in high school and college ( OCE  Oregon college of education)  I too was a "point getter"  I wasn't good enough in one event to win, but I could score points for our team. Especially during the era of dual meets

 

- When I was at OCE we ran an invitational meet at Bell Field ( of course name after Sam Bell)   it was in the middle of campus where Dixon rec center ( OSU's fitness center and indoor pool is)       cinder track     Not as big of course as that place down the road  

 Mike Waters   Corvallis, OR

Somewhere in a past issue we mentioned that a dual meet between Abilene Christian and U. of New Mexico drew a crowd of 12,000 in Albequerque.  Must not have been an Elizabeth Taylor movie showing that weekend.   The late Pete Brown wrote about Adolph Plummer at that dual meet.

"His junior year of 1962 featured great duels with Earl Young of Abilene Christian. Adolph started showing world class speed that season, although it took him at least 60-70 yards to get rolling. At Abilene Christian on April 14th he ran a wind-aided 20.0 and four days later beat the great Henry Carr in Tempe in 20.3. On May 11^th in Albuquerque , in front of what most onlookers estimated to be a crowd of at least 12,000, Adolph defeated Young, both running 46.6, but lost the 220 by a step to Dennis Richardson in 21.0. His most memorable performance of the season was at the Skyline Conference meet in Denver on May 26^th where he won the 440 in 46.2 and anchored the mile relay to second place, making up 35-40 yards in a split of 44.4. Coach Hugh Hackett had a reputation of being very precise with the stopwatch and was miffed when T&F News chose not to print that mark---unable to get their heads around a carry that fast. Adolph went on to get 5^th in the AAU meet in Walnut on June 23rd in 46.4, won by the then unbeatable Ulis Williams in 45.8."

 George  

This brings back another dual meet story.   In 1965 a young Billy Calhoun, 2 time NCAA 440 indoor champ ran his first outdoor meet for Oklahoma at Arizona St.  He pushed Ron Freeman to a very fast 440 that night.  Freeman may have won, but after the race he came up to the young upstart and said, "Don't ever waste a 46 second 440 in a dual meet."  That's how Billy told me the story.    George

Another dual meet story.

Back in the day Oklahoma and Kansas had an annual dual meet indoors at KU.   In 1964 the meet was highlighted by a 60 yard race between two of the best football players in the country,  Gayle Sayers for the Jayhawks and Joe Don Looney for the Sooners.  There was a big crowd that night for the meet.  As I was warming up for the mile,  third race of the night, my teammates and I were thinking that this would be a rare occasion for us to run in front of a big crowd.   The 60 was regularly the first race of the night.   That scheduling remained intact.  Sayers beat Looney quite easily to the thrill of all the Jayhawk fans.   Then they left.  Almost no one was in the stands for the rest of the meet.    George

It is my experience that the demise of the dual meet was the result of the limit of track scholarship when all aid was cut back.  Many programs decided that with the limited aid  (12.6) they would focus their effort of a limited number of events  (ie. sprints -jumps)    (Throws/ Distance)  (Jumps/sprints)  etc.   to be competitive in the large meets, big invitationals, and NCAA.  By focusing on the smaller number events, schools felt that they could coach more effectively in those type of meets rather that try to have a total team and spread your coaching efforts over 17 to 19 events.  The type of institution could effect effect those decisions as well.  The result was that the great dual meets went away.  (USC-UCLA)   (Michigan-OHio State)  (Alabama-Tennessee)   and many others.  One of the greatest benefits at the military academies was the Army-Navy was such a huge deal in ALL sports.  The dual meet became  a great event.

Coaches were evaluated on how they performed in the end of season championships rather than dual meet records.  

All of these factors contributed.

Joe Rogers 

My brain cells are slowly becoming activated in Edina, Minnesota. Coach Timmons always scheduled a dual at UCLA a week after the NCAA Indoor in Detroit. Always a disadvantage to us getting used to an actual outdoor event. My freshman year KU totally  demolished the bruins in Westwood causing the UCLA head coach, Jim Bush, to say his team quit and embarrassed him. Was the headline in the LA Times!  We also easily defeated UCLA my soph and junior year. Timmons scheduled the meet to help recruit a lot of California guys to sign with KU. One year we went to Indiana when Sam Bell was coaching the Hoosiers. There were more fans across campus watching something called the mini Indy race between the fraternities and sororities! And of course the drive to Carbondale, Illinois for the dual against Southern Illinois. Your readers would enjoy reading an old Runner’s World article by Ben Painter on Timmons. Not the most flattering. I’ll try to find the article in SI by Frank Deford on the KU throwers (  Karl Salb,  Steve Wilhelm and Doug Knop) which was a good read. Mike Solomon  To understand the phenomenon of the Mini Indy 500 on the Bloomington campus, you have to see the movie  "Breaking Away"  one of Dennis Quaid's first films. ed.  

                                                            And Just For Fun

While searching for the above newspaper accounts, on that same day the Senate was passing a new budget bill.  First without a deficit in 12 years.   This was 1980.   Where have we heard this recently?