Penn Relays Wall of Fame Class of 2016 Announced

 

04/12/2016 - The Penn Relays Office

PHILADELPHIA -- The Penn Relay Carnival adds to the Wall of Fame begun in 1994 at the time of the 100th running. The class of 2016, the 23rd group of inductees, brings the number of individuals selected to 107, with 97 relay teams having been chosen. Four individuals and four relay teams were selected by a panel of Penn Relays experts. The sole restriction in the nomination process is that only retired athletes (or those now  competing as masters) may be nominated, and inductees are honored solely for their accomplishments at the Penn Relays; achievements in any other meets are not considered. Any relay team may be nominated, and nominations of relay teams and individuals will be accepted by the Penn Relays office at any time and from any interested party.
Each of this year’s four individual inductees set either individual event records or anchored record-setting relays. Charles Foster and Laura Gerraughty each set Carnival collegiate records. John Overton and Alan Webb both starred as distance medley anchors, Overton on the college medley in 1915, and Webb on the first high school team to break 10 minutes at the Relays.
This year’s relay team honorees includes two teams from 1966, the last year of Franklin Field’s cinder track. The 1966 Villanova Distance Medley team of Alan McCafferty, Bill Heidelberger, Ian Hamilton and Dave Patrick ran a Carnival record time of 9:46.4. Although the time was bettered the next year, the slowness of the old cinder track made the value of this time much greater, the equivalent of a mark which might have lasted as a meet record until 1975.
The 1966 White Plains High School Mile Relay missed a Penn Relays record by only four-tenths of a second. But as one of the last races in the mud of the 1966 Relays, the team of Carl Reed, Dave Jackson, Larry James and Otis Hill ran a remarkable 3:17.9, more than seven seconds slower than what the team ran that year. Only the weather denied this great team a record that was inconceivable without the benefit of an all-weather track.
The 2004 Florida 4x400-meter relay team of Sekou Clarke, Reggie Witherspoon, Stefan Pastor and Kerron Clement set a Relays record of 3:01.10. Pressed to the limit, Florida won the race by less than two meters. As the still-standing Carnival record, it has lasted at least 12 years, the fourth-longest record span in this, the oldest of Penn Relays events.
The 2009 Tennessee women’s 4x1500-meter relay team of Chanelle Price, Phoebe Wright, Rolanda Bell and Sarah Bowman hit the jackpot. Running 17:08.34, the team broke the existing Penn Relays, national collegiate, American and world records. Their Carnival and collegiate records still stand, while the latter two marks have been bettered only by national teams from the United States and Kenya.
Running at the Relays in his sophomore and junior years at Yale, Overton anchored record-setting relays both years. In 1915, running the first distance medley in world history, he closed out the school’s 10:20.0 distance medley team, a mark so ahead of its time that it lasted as a meet record for 13 years. In 1916 he anchored a Relays and national collegiate record-setting Two-Mile Relay team to time of 7:53.0, a mark which lasted four years.
A three-time Olympic Development winner in the mile and 5000-meters, Webb will always be remembered for his high school exploits. As a junior in 2000, he brought South Lakes High to a second-place finish in the distance medley, running his 1600-meter leg in 3:59.9, still the only sub-4 high school leg at the Relays. The next year, Webb anchored the team with a 4:04.7, which set the still-standing Carnival record of 9:59.66.
One of only four women to win a pair of throws in the same year, Gerraughty won both the shot put and discus throw in 2006. In the process she became only the second woman to win four shot put titles. As a junior in 2004, she set the still-standing meet record in the shot with the only 60-foot throw in Relays history at 60-6. Only one other thrower has won as many as Gerraughty’s five championships in her career.
A three-time champion on the 120-yard hurdles, Foster tied the Carnival record of 13.4 in 1973. In 1974, his winning time of 13.3 was run with an over-the-allowable wind, but was the best ever run at the Relays regardless of conditions. The same year, he anchored the North Carolina Central shuttle hurdles team with an amazing 13.0 leg, the foursome’s time of 57.2 missing the meet record by just three-tenths of a second.