Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

The Weights and Weight- Throwers 383 feet, in 1887, when Coxe of Yale won the inter– collegiate championship with a put of 40 feet 9} inches. Since then Hickock, Sheldon, Garrett of Princeton, McCracken of Pennsylvania, Schoenfus of Harvard, Beck, the intercollegiate champion, and various other heavyweights have all put with– out difficulty farther than 40 feet. F. S. Beck of Yale, the intercollegiate champion, first won in 1900 with a shot-put three inches better that 44 feet. Two years later Beck added st inches to this distance, and in 1903 he again broke his own intercollegiate record and set the distance at 46 feet. It is a far cry from the days of '76, when " Father Bill" Curtis, throwing from a stand without run or -follow, hurled the old-fashioned hammer 76 feet 4 inches, to John Flanagan's throw, in 1901, of r 7 r feet 9 inches with the regulation sixteen-pound hammer, sent from the regulation seven-foot circle. Anywhere from 80 to 90 feet was considered an exceedingly good throw in the early days of track athletics, and it was not until the hammer handle was lengthened from 3 feet 6 inches to 4 feet, the whole hammer - head and handle - made to weigh sixteen pounds, and the throw from a stand changed to a throw within a seven-foot circle with unlim– ited run, although no follow, that the distances began to creep up above one hundred feet.