Sport: Negro Miler

• Share

Negroes have long led the U.S. field in sprinting and jumping. But until last week no Negro boy had ever won a U.S. championship for the mile. Now the Negroes have broken in there too, thanks to New York University's Frank T. Dixon 3rd, 20-year-old son of a onetime Butler University track star.

At the National A.A.U. meet in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden, young Dixon ran a tactically perfect race, showing the stamina gained in years of crosscountry running. He kept well behind Defending Champion Gilbert Dodds, the Boston divinity student who invariably sets an exhausting pace from gun to gun. At least 12 yards behind as they went into the final lap, Dixon came through with a finishing kick that beat Dodds by a full yard. Time: 4 min. 9.6 sec.—only 2.2 seconds behind the world's indoor record. If Frank Dixon was not a Jesse Owens of the Mile, he was decidedly impressive.

Two other A.A.U. performers, old hands at their specialties, shared the crowd's cheers:

> Pole Vaulter Cornelius Warmerdam, making his last Eastern appearance of the season (he is too serious about his school-teaching at Piedmont, Calif., to ask for more than two leaves during the school year), left all opponents behind at the 14-ft. level, cleared the bar at 15 ft. 3 ⅞ in. It was his 28th vault above 15 ft.

> Gregory Rice lapped the field three times in winning the three-mile championship for the fourth year in a row. Time: 13 min. 53.7 sec. It was the first time Rice had failed to set a new world's record at the A.A.U. meet. Probable reason: during the last mile and a half one spike worked up through his shoe.