Jim Brown's deca in 1955

[dbirds]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

A friend of mine from another website emailed me this:
Brown - you give VERY doubtable breakdown - it scores 5989 (depending how we do rounding maybe point more or less)
I have a bit different one: 11.5/6.08/13.31/1.84/54.7/16.9/43.70/3.25/49.70/5.26.2, where some events fit, some not.

[dj]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

On a warm May day in 1957 he wore his track suit, won the high jump and javelin, placed second in the discus, and helped Syracuse beat Colgate in a dual meet.
http://www.orangehoops.org/jbrown.htm

From the story cited: "Brown didn't play baseball at Syracuse, but he could have. He threw two no-hitters in high school, and the Yankees offered him $150,000 to play for them. Fortunately for Syracuse fans he turned them down."

This looks very suspect. By the time Brown graduated from Manhasset HS in 1953,the most money paid a baseball bonus baby was $100,000, with pitcher Paul Pettit being the first in 1950. The first to reach $150,000 was third baseman Bob Bailey in 1961 at $175,000.

Also, during the bonus baby era when a player receving an amount over a certain limit had to spend two years on the major league roster before he could go the minor leagues, not a single player of color reached the bonus baby level. I doubt Brown would have been the first when the sport was only his third or fourth best.

[DecFan]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

729 points for a 16.3 hurdles sounds a bit high.

Yes, my mistake. Should be 699. Good observation.

[dbirds]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

On a warm May day in 1957 he wore his track suit, won the high jump and javelin, placed second in the discus, and helped Syracuse beat Colgate in a dual meet.
http://www.orangehoops.org/jbrown.htm

Wonder is he improved these marks from 1955 to 57?

[Marlow]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

Jim Brown [100m] 11.5

Am I the only one thinking that's way too slow for the Jim Brown I used to watch on Sundays as a kid?

[oldtimer2]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

729 points for a 16.3 hurdles sounds a bit high.

[DecFan]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

Thanks so much for the research, DJ. This is great information to have.

Interesting that his best event by far relative to his competitors was the discus. Ahead of time, I would have guessed LJ - but that event was relatively weak.

With present scoring tables, after adding .24 to the 100 for hand to automatic, his scores in the events for which we know his results are as follows (metric equivalents given):

100 11.74 703
SP 13.31 686
HJ 1.84 661
DT 43.7 740
JT 49.69 584
1500 5.26.1 419

These 6 events sum to 3793 on present scoring tables. Note that the DT was his highest-scoring event (using present tables), not only his best event relative to the other decathletes.

His points in other events were less than: LJ 648, 400 678, hurdles 699, PV 562.

(edited to correct an error on the hurdles score which oldtimer2 caught)

[dj]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

I've listed the marks for Brown (along with his place in that event) that I can find, as the newspapers gave only the first ten finishers in each event. The meet was held at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Ind., on July 1-2. The temperature on the second day reached 93 degrees.

Jim Brown (Syracuse, 5, 5579 [official but incorrect, should be 5563], [6th after 5 events])
11.5 (8=), <20-7 1/2, 43-8 1/4 (6), 6-0 3/4 (6=), >53.9, >16.3, 143-4 1/2 (1), <12-6 1/2, 163-0 1/2 (5), 5:26.1 (8)

[Marlow]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

So is there a T&FN or TN summary of individual marks?

[gh]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/tfn/ar ... Id=25&id=1

[dbirds]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

I emailed the guy asking if he had it but got no response. Wouldnt mind paying if I knew marks were listed. Anyone out there know for sure??

[rreabold]

Re: Jim Brown's deca in 1955

give this site a try (it's not bad)

http://trackfield.brinkster.net/USAMain.asp?Action=A

[dbirds]

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/tfn/ar ... Id=25&id=1

anyone know where I can find events results for this competition?