MSU Cross Country Study
Supported by
University of Waterloo
MSU Track and Field Alumni Association, The Finish Line Club
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
We are searching for video archives, both amateur and professionally shot, related to MSU Cross Country. Five videos have been uploaded below -- two from the 1940s, one from the 1970s and two from the 1990s. All videos are set to play when the page is accessed. You should be able to start and stop individual videos at your leisure.
Over time, we plan to add links to this page. Please contact Mark Havitz at mhavitz@uwaterloo.ca with questions, additional information about the videos, or to submit video footage.
1941 NCAA Cross Country Championship
Source: Robyn Eastman, daughter of Edward "Bud" Mills
This three and a half minute black and white video of the Fourth NCAA Cross Country Championship was filmed on November 24, 1941 -- just two weeks before Pearl Harbor -- by Bud Mills, recently graduated captain of Michigan State's 1940 team. Bud makes a brief cameo walking toward the camera just seconds into the video.
| The video was filmed by alumnus Ed "Bud" Mills, captain of MSC’s 1940 team. It features footage of some entered teams at the start line (present day IM fields between Breslin Center and south campus dorms). Featured teams include Cornell, Indiana, Rhode Island (who would win the race), Michigan Normal (now EMU) and Michigan State. The large horse barn visible behind the start line sat on the site of present day Wonders Hall. All seven MSU athletes were captured pre-race including, in order of appearance, Walter Beardslee (staring straight on at the camera), Ralph Monroe, Maurice Horski, Walter Mack, Robert Colby Thompson (scratching his head), Bill Scott (unwrapping towel around his neck), George Byelich (jogging in place with towel tucked around his neck), and then Beardslee again waving to the camera and Monroe who reappears and jogs in place with Byelich. Reacting to the gun, runners sprint northwest toward the future site of the Breslin Center. Notice the recently demolished (2012) Michigan State Police post on Harrison Road as they run by. There is brief mid-race footage as the field runs past pine trees behind Dem Hall on the present day site of Munn Arena. Ralph Young makes a cameo appearance. Other mid-race action is not shown, but athletes ran a loop on the track before heading east along the south bank of the Red Cedar to Pinetum (Hagadorn Road) looping back through what is now Sanford Natural Area, angling south on Farm Lane, then west on what is now Shaw Lane where they finished on the track . It was a four-mile course. The video shows some top finishers entering the finish chute including winner Fred Wilt (Indiana), second-place Oliver Hunter (Notre Dame) and third-place Charles Robbins (Connecticut). Ralph Monroe was sixth overall (last of the group of three sprinting in together, and later Walt Mack who took fourteenth. Standing in the finish chute, Michigan State's Bob Scott, Walter Beardslee and Maurice Horski model 1940s-era cold weather gear (cotton t-shirts and dress shirts under their uniforms). That’s Beardslee’s hand trying to get the exhausted Horski to look at the camera. Also included are shots of individual medalist Fred Wilt shaking hands with runner-up Oliver Hunter. Michigan State coach Lauren Brown (NCAA Cross Country Championship founder) congratulates Wilt. The final scene shows research staff putting blood vials in a tub of ice as runners were subjected (without prior knowledge) to a Harvard University experiment related to blood-oxygen capacity. Hence the post-race bandages on some runners' arms! MSC finished fifth among the 14 full teams entered in the race. |
1946 NCAA Cross Country Championship
Source: MSU Department of Intercollegiate Athletics -- Athletic Communications
This six and a half minute color video of the Eighth NCAA Cross Country Championship was filmed on November 25, 1946. The video was shot from a stationary camera, set up on the MSU track at the finish-line of the course.
| Initially the video shows runners heading north between the track and what is currently the large parking lot south of Spartan Stadium. Note that the south end-zone of what was then called Macklin Field is still relatively open. The stadium was not fully enclosed until 1949. You'll see a brief glimpse of 18-year old Beaumont Tower above the stadium in the background. Also note the fans who climbed the stadium stands to get a better view of the cross country runners. The runners are approaching the one-mile mark of the four-mile course at this point. The start line was in a field (now a paved parking lot) north of the stadium near the Sparty statue. Men first ran east then south then west --looping an area now occupied by Wells Hall, Erickson Hall and the International Center. After passing the stadium they turned east and did the loop through Sanford Natural Area as described in the 1941 video before finishing with 3/4 loop on the track. Runners are headed due south as they approach the camera at the finish line. This course was designed by MSU cross country coach Lauren Brown and was one of several modifications that he developed between 1938 and 1946, each motivated by rapid campus development in the years around WWII. | |
| Race winner (#236) Quentin Brelsford of Ohio Wesleyan, was a Michigan native. He edged out runner-up Curtis Stone (#159) of Penn State. Notice a coach placing sweats on the shoulder of third-place Jerald Thompson (#172) of Texas immediately as he finished. Fourth place finisher Bill Mack (#34) of Drake transferred to Michigan State the following year and ran on our 1948 and 1949 NCAA champion teams. Drake place four men in the top twelve to easily win this 1946 meet. Freshman Jack Dianetti (#105), the “Rochester Rocket” was Michigan State’s top man in this meet. He sprints past a New York University runner to cop 14th place overall. Next MSC man was #104 Ed Kiczenski who finished 39th. Third man for MSC is #106 Jim Gibbard, then a freshman who out-dueled an Oklahoma runner with furious kick to finish 50th. Gibb was an MSU assistant coach from 1958-1967 and head men's cross country coach from 1968-1983. The finish chute was too short during this race and the practice of having course marshals accompany each runner exacerbated the problem. Runners begin piling up at the finish line in rather comical fashion until the marshals, led by MSU track coach Karl Schlademan (beige coat and fedora), improvised, forming two and then three, parallel lines. Fourth man for MSC is #103, Captain Walter Mack who was still recovering from a WWII foot wound. The man finishing immediately ahead of Mack is Oklahoma's William Dennis Weaver, who used his middle name during his acting career which included a regular part in the 1960s TV series "Gunsmoke." Two more Spartans, #109 Bob Sewell and #108 Kevin Higgins finish close together in 63rd and 65th respectively. Seventh man, #107 Herb Kebschull, finished 86th. Michigan State finished in sixth out of 20 teams, behind Drake, NYU, Penn State, Miami (OH) and Wisconsin. | |
1962-64 Miscellaneous Michigan State Cross Country and Track and Field Competitions
Source: Richard (Dick) Sharkey and Eric Zemper
This footage was shot over several years, most of it by Robert V. Sharkey. Robert ran cross country as a Michigan State College sophomore in 1929. He left school after that year to work full time. Robert's son Dick, a smooth-striding freshman in fall 1962, emerged as Michigan State's top distance man for several years in the 1960s. His classmate Eric Zemper, an strong runner in his own right, edited this video. Eric's detailed self-explanatory notes are included in the clip, so only a brief table of contents is included here: 1) 1962 Canadian Junior Cross Country Championships in Hamilton, Ontario. As freshmen weren't eligible for varsity competition, Michigan State generally brought a frosh team to this meet. 2) 1962 NCAA cross country championship at Forest Akers West. San Jose State won this meet with Villanova second. MSU finished fifth. 3) 1963 Michigan Open track and field competition in Ann Arbor. 4) 1963 triangular meet with Ohio University and Ohio State at Forest Akers. 5) 1963 dual cross country meet with Wisconsin at the Arboretum in Madison. 6) 1963 USTF Michigan cross country championships in Kalamazoo, hosted by WMU. 7) 1963 Big Ten cross country championship in Champaign, Illinois. MSU won. 8) 1963 NCAA cross country championship at Forest Akers West. San Jose State defended their title, with Oregon second. MSU repeated in fifth. 9) 1964 Michigan State vs. Ohio State track and field meet. MSU won. |
1972 Michigan State vs. Notre Dame dual meet
Source: MSU Department of Intercollegiate Athletics -- Athletic Communications
This dual meet features the 1972 team facing Notre Dame at Forest Akers. There was no east course at the time so all action was on what is now the 18-hole west course. After 50 years of running on campus courses along the Red Cedar River, MSU cross country events were moved to Forest Akers when it opened in 1958. Michigan State was still host of the NCAA Championship at that time (1938-1964 inclusive) and won the event eight times, including the first two years at Forest Akers. The video opens with cameo appearances by assistant track and field (later head) coach Jim Bibbs, former cross country coach (and still MSU track and field coach) Fran Dittrich (wearing the white ball hat), and then-MSU cross country coach Jim Gibbard (dark MSU ball hat). The 1972 team was strong and led by team captain and All-American Ken Popejoy #265 who is shown warming up. He was not top man on this day however. That honor went to Randy Kilpatrick wearing long hair and a headband #266 and seen jockeying for position both as runners depart onto the course at the start of the race and then trying to pass the Notre Dame front-runner at the end of the race. The video captures well some of the sweeping vistas and broad fairways that characterized this course. The video has no footage from the back side of the course which is very hilly compared with most terrain in mid-Michigan and the East Lansing area. Though Notre Dame took first spot, MSU had the last laugh, placing the next five finishers including Kilpatrick, Rob Cool, Fred Teddy, Ron Cool (Rob's twin brother), and Popejoy (who was battling shin splints and a stress fracture). It was MSU's fifth straight dual meet win over the Irish. |
1991 Spartan Invitational -- Women
Source: MSU Department of Intercollegiate Athletics -- Athletic Communications
1991 Spartan Invitational -- Men
Source: MSU Department of Intercollegiate Athletics -- Athletic Communications