Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Track Athletics in the Colleges 285 giate track contests, but desultory "field days" had been held at the larger colleges all through the seventies and eighties. At Ann Arbor, long before intercollegiate contests were started, open games and interclass games were held; and dur– ing the eighties, crack athletes from the Detroit Athletic Club used to come out and run the un– dergraduates off their feet. The races of those days were run on the clay track at the Ann Arbor fair grounds. It was not until 1890 that the University of Michigan had an athletic field of her own; and it was several years later before she had a really good cinder path. Michi– gan was the first Western college to enter the Intercollegiate Association, and in 1885 Bonine, the Michigan sprinter, won the hundred at Mott Haven. Dean Worcester, later to become a mem– ber of the Philippine Commi. sion and Secretary of the Interior for the Philippine Government, had done fast time in the mile walk on the old dirt track at Ann Arbor, and he was sent down East with Bonine. He was disqualified by the judge of walking, however. Con iderable heart– burning was aroused at Michigan, and it was not until 1895 that Ann Arbor cared to send any more men down to Mott Haven. Bonine's suc– cess acted, however, as a decided stimulus to track athletics, and the Ann Arbor open field days became more and more interesting and