New High School Record In The Boys Mile!

This report filed by former T&FN statistician—and current Penn Relays Director—Dave Johnson, one of the sport's great historians.

©Dave Johnson & Track & Field News, 2007

by Dave Johnson
No, Alan Webb still has the High School Record. It's just that I've uncovered a mark that had gone unnoticed all these years.

Rudy Simms, 4:18.2 in ’43. He broke Chesley Unruh's 4:20.2 from ’25, and didn't lose the record until Deacon Jones ran 4:17.8 in ’54. The Simms mark bumps Carl Joyce's ’47 4:20.0 out of the High School Record progression.

Here's the news story as I've written it:

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New York City, June 5, 1943--Rudy Simms, a recent graduate of DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, today broke Chesley Unruh's 18-year-old national high school record for the mile with a 4:18.2 clocking. Simms, who three days earlier had run 4:25.8, finished third in the Met AAU mile behind NYU alumnus Bill Hulse and Fred Wilt, who was competing for the Columbia University Midshipman's School. Hulse's winning time was 4:15.9, with no time given for Wilt. Hulse and Simms were competing for the New York Pioneer Club.

The 18-year-old Simms, who was born Feb. 9, 1925, little more than three months before Unruh set the old national record, had shown steady progress during his years at Clinton. As a sophomore, he anchored Clinton's mile relay to a win in the Public Schools Athletic League. He moved up to the 880 as a junior, getting down to 1:59.8. But it was in the past two months that he blossomed.

At the Penn Relays, Simms ran the anchor mile for Clinton's winning distance medley (1 7/8 miles) relay team, with Tom Clayton, Maurice Callender and Bud Taylor handling the 880, 440 and 220 legs. Clinton's time was 7:49.0, nine seconds faster than runner-up Mount St. Michael.

On May 22, Simms won the PSAL mile in 4:31.1, good enough to put him on the national top-ten list for the year. Then, on June 2, Simms won the mile at an invitational meet sponsored by Brooklyn Automotive High School, running 4:25.8 [ed: another previously unknown mark] for third on the national list behind Roland Sink (South Pasadena, Cal.) at 4:21.4 and Corrigan (Wiley H.S., Terre Haute, Ind.) at 4:24.4.

Today's race was run at Triborough Stadium on Randall's Island as last year's venue, Travers Island, had been turned over to the Navy Department. Wilt led the better part of the race, which had seven runners in the field. Hulse kicked away at the end for the win, his 4:15.9 being his second-fastest mile ever behind his IC4A third-place 4:13.6 of a year ago. Wilt, last year's AAU runner-up at 10,000 meters, was stepping down in distance.

The outstanding mark of today's meet was an American Record throw of 174-10 1/8 in the discus for Ensign Hugh Cannon, the former Brigham Young thrower now representing the U.S. Navy Section Base on Staten Island. The former record of 174-8 3/4 was set in 1941 by Archie Harris of Indiana University. Cannon's throw also bettered the listed WR of 174-2 1/2 by Willi Schroder of Germany, in ’35. However, Italy's Adolfo Consolini has a throw of 175-0 from ’41 which will likely be ratified at the next meeting of the IAAF.>>

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Now for the backstory. I came across the Simms mark while checking on Hugh Cannon's discus throw. The 4:18.2 jumped off the page, as it was more than a decade earlier than the first sub-4:20 known to have been run by a high school boy. And while the mark was a stunner, it wasn't out of the question, as Simms ran 4:01.4 to finish 2nd in the AAU Junior 1500m two weeks later.

But then came the tracking down of the missing data, particularly his birthdate. Rudolph Gordon Simms ran for NYU in ’44 & '45, then appears to have disappeared, at least from the pages of the New York Times.

From ’45 until ’71, the Times had no mention of a Rudy Simms. Nor did the Amsterdam News mention Simms, except for a brief mention of a post-War comeback attempt.

But in May of '71 came a series of stories about a racial incident in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a section of Brooklyn, that left a Rudy Simms, age "45 to 50," dead at the hands of a white police officer's bullet.

Neither NYU nor DeWitt Clinton H.S. could confirm that the two Simmses were one and the same. Simms had passed from everyone's memory except that of long-time track writer Elliott Denman, who knew of Simms because, while not contemporaries, they had both competed for NYU and the New York Pioneers. But Denman knew only of Simms the athlete.

Privacy laws require the permission of the person in question, or proof of that person's death, to allow release of personal information of the person's birthdate. And it was the birthdate that remained the missing link in claiming a national record.

Longstanding rules require that the athlete not have turned 20 by the time of the performance. I was afraid that what I had uncovered was merely a mark that had long ago been consigned to the dust bin simply because Simms had already turned 20.

I checked the ATFS listings, and there found Simms in the mile for ’45, but with a birth year of 1920. That was very disappointing, but also very peculiar, as he would have been 22 or 23 at the time of his 4:18.2.

But even with potentially odd circumstances surrounding school attendance and ages during World War II, it seemed unlikely that Simms would have been ruled eligible for the PSAL championships.

The most likely source for a ’20 birthyear was the New York Times notation, that he was 45-50 when he, or another Rudy Simms, was slain in May ’71. That would have given a worst case scenario of his being born in ’20, sometime after May. And that left alive hope that the ATFS listing was erroneous, and that a confirmed birthdate might still find Simms eligible for the record.

Earlier today came confirmation from Sports Information Director Jeffrey Bernstein of the birthdate, February 9, 1925, making NYU's Rudy Simms 18 years old in 1943, and a new if unknown-at-the-time national high school record holder in the mile.

The remainder of the story is unknown, and filled with question marks. Apart from the post-war comeback attempt, little is known of Simms after he left NYU following a win in the ’45 IC4A mile. Did he leave to join the war effort? Was he just not a good student? Had he fallen onto hard times? And is he the same person who died in a ’71 racial incident?

If I ever find out the answers to these questions, it may make for a still more interesting story, but for now, I'm satisfied with knowing that Rudy Simms once held the national high school record for the mile. Even if it is 64 years after the fact.