1969: A last-lap collision likely prevents Marty Liquori from being the first to run a sub-4 minute Wanamaker Mile. He finishes in 4:00.8. Liquori, now a TV broadcaster, would win three straight, coming closest to breaking the magical 4-minute barrier with a 4:00.6 in 1971.
1970: Dick Railsback and Bob Seagren both vault 17 feet, 1.25 inches, but Railsback beats the Olympic Champion based on fewer misses.
1971: Last out of the blocks because he is still learning the sport, crowd favorite Dr. Delano Meriwether, a 28-year-old Baltimore hematologist, almost catches winner Jim Green in the 60-Yard Dash. Meriwether – who was the first black student at Duke Medical School – sought an emotional release from treating leukemia patients at the Baltimore Cancer Research Center, so took to scaling the fence of a nearby track and running sprints at night after having never set foot on a track. Self-taught, he would win the 1971 AAU national title and become a symbol for dreamers everywhere before a bum knee sent him back to medicine full-time.
Dick Railsback, left, and Bob Seagren in 1970.
Credit: Manning Solon
1972: 1968 Olympic Champion Lee Evans beats Martin McGrady, considered perhaps the best indoor 600 runner ever, by three yards to win the 600-Yard Run in 1:09.9, in yet another fiercely-competitive meeting between them on the indoor circuit. It was the sixth-consecutive year that either Evans or McGrady won the Mel Sheppard 600.
1973: Steve Smith easily soars 18 feet, 0.25 inches to become the first pole vaulter to clear 18 feet indoors, making Millrose the scene of the first 15-, 16- and 18-foot vaults indoors. It almost didn’t happen, however. When Smith didn’t check in for the competition, his Pacific Coast Club manager, Tom Jennings (who now does the timing for the meet), went back to the hotel to find him. Smith said he was not feeling well and wouldn’t compete. Jennings finally talked him into it; he arrived at the Garden just in time to take a single jump before unleashing his World Record vault on the next try.
1974: Passing Marty Liquori on the last lap, unheralded Tony Waldrop of the University of North Carolina wins the Wanamaker Mile in 3:59.7, thus going down in history as the first man to run the Wanamaker in under 4 minutes.
1975: After joking for years that he would retire as Meet Director when someone finally broke 4 minutes for his beloved Wanamaker Mile, Fred Schmertz falls and breaks his hip just a month after Waldrop’s feat. His son, Howard, takes over as Meet Director.
1976: Fred Schmertz, who never saw the Garden again after his fall, dies at the age of 87.
1977: In the first running of the women’s 1500 meters, Jan Merrill upsets Francie Larrieu, already a two-time Olympian. Later Francie Larrieu-Smith, her career would last into the 1990s, when she ran the marathon in the 1992 Olympics.
