As a senior at Wayne State University, I sprinted successfully on the United States. track team that competed in Europe. Also winning races there for America that summer was a freshman hurdler and sprinter from Eastern Michigan University named Hayes W. Jones who later became an Olympic champion. Now 59 years later on Friday, June 24, at 6:00 in the evening, in Barth Hall in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, 4800 Woodward at Warren Avenue, the Detroit Track Old-Timers will be giving the great Hayes Jones a long-overdue award, and I will be making the presentation to my old teammate. Tickets are $25 ($45 for two), available by sending checks to ‘Detroit Track Old-Timers, 5764 Woodward #2, Detroit 48202.’ They will also be available at the door.
Hayes Jones won five state high school titles for old Pontiac High School in the hurdles and long jump and anchored the winning sprint relay. His state long-jump mark stood for more than two decades. At EMU, Hayes became a multi-NCAA All- American, won 55 consecutive indoor hurdles races, set a lengthy string of world indoor hurdling records, won a record five indoor NAAU hurdles titles and a Pan-Amerian Games title, and took the 110-meter hurdles bronze medal in the 1960 Olympics. Upon graduation, Hayes continued competing for the old Detroit Varsity Club and won yet a sixth NAAU title. He topped his fabulous career by winning the 110-meter hurdles at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo and running on the world-record-breaking 400-meter relay team. His towering teammate Henry Carr, the legendary “Gray Ghost” out of Detroit Northwestern High School, shattered the Olympic record in the 200 meters and ran the fastest split on the record-breaking 1,600-meter relay. Carr, who passed last year, was honored by the Old-Timers in 2009.
In addition to current high school champions, this year’s other honorees include the Western Michigan University All-American high jumper Alonzo Littlejohn, who cleared seven feet; coaching legends Charles Lewis of the Detroit PSL and Robert Bridges of Dearborn; and Grand Valley State University All-American distance runner Courtney Brewis, who won the Women’s Division of the 2014 Detroit Free Press International Marathon. In cooperation with the Old-Tmers, the Motor City Striders will award two Ramsey Memorial Scholarships to DPS male and female graduating seniors who maintained a 3.0 grade-pont-average for seven semesters and competed successfully in the Detroit PSL cross-country championships.
The philanthropic Detroit Track Old-Timers, Inc., a 501 (c) (3) organization, was co-founded in 1992 by old Miller High School city champion and University of Michigan world-record relayist Aaron Gordon, me, and my WSU teammate Mark H. Smith, an NCAA All-American high jumper. Throughout the past quarter-century, DTOT has contributed thousands of dollars to PSL track teams and age-group track clubs to purchase shoes and uniforms, and to individual athletes for college expenses–as well as toward the restoration of WSU’s historically predominant men’s track team, which was phased out in 1987. DTOT president and Kentucky State All-Amerian hurdler Randy Williams, past president Keith Williams, Olympian Darnell Hall, Mayoral representative Lisa Howze, State Senator Coleman Young, and this writer are among those serving on the WSU committee that is planning to raise funds to construct a track field house and reinstate the men’s team. Detroit is the only city its size east of the Mississippi that doesn’t have such a facility. Mayor Michael Duggan and recent Mayor Dave Bing have spoken out in support of this proposed field house, as has Skillman president Tonya Allen. Get your tickets early for the DTOT dinner and celebrate with some of our finest athletes, past and present.
Dr. John Telford is a Detroit educator, author and poet. Hear the John Telford Show Sunday afternoons at 3:00 on WCHB NewsTalk1200, and contact him at DrJohnTelfordEdD@aol.com or (313) 460-8272.
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