When Did High School Track Begin in Chatham-Kent?: Part 1

The following is a three part series from local sports historian Larry Lahey, focusing on track and field in Chatham-Kent. The selections are excepts from Lahey’s book, ‘The History of Kent County High School Sports’, which is available at two locations in Chatham, Lenover Quality Meats on Park Ave. East, and the Instant Print Shoppe on Richmond Street.

When did high school track and field start? There is evidence that Chatham Collegiate Institute conducted field meets as early as 1885 and did so until the first county-wide track meet which was held in 1927. CCI held track meets on an annual basis and they were called ‘Field Days of Sport’. Girls were not permitted to take part in the early years and when they were finally allowed to participate were only permitted to enter a few ‘novelty’ events such as a nail-driving contest, chariot races, three-legged races and sack races.

In the 1920s Blenheim District High School held intramural field meets and at times invited Ridgetown District High School, Merlin District High School, and Wheatley Continuation School.

The first county-wide track meet was held in 1927 with all Kent country schools invited. This has been an annual event with only a few exceptions: 1930-31 cancelled due to wet grounds, 1937-38 cancelled because all schools were closed for the first two weeks of September due to a polio epidemic and the principals did not wish to lose any more class time, 1942-44 cancelled due to WWII and finally in 1956-57 the ‘A’ (larger enrolment) meet was cancelled because the CCI track was unavailable due to construction at the Victoria Park Nursing Home.

The first Kent track meet of 1927 was held at the Chatham Fair Grounds located in south Chatham. The Fairgrounds had large grandstands and served as a horse race track, hosted fairs and exhibitions and was also used by the Grey Dort automobile company to test drive their cars. High schools continued to use horse tracks for their track meets up to and including the 1960s and used horse tracks in Dresden, Wallaceburg and Ridgetown with athletes sometimes changing clothes in horse stables.

There has been an interesting evolution of events at high school track meets. For example the first high jump event was ‘standing’ high jump. This evolved into ‘running’ high jump. From the 1930s to the 1950s this took the form of a ‘scissors’ jump landing on one’s feet. In the 1960s the Western Roll became the accepted technique. When in 1968 American Dick Fosbury won Olympic high jump using a ‘backwards’ method this changed technique again and since the early 1970s almost all local high jumpers have been using the Fosbury Flop method of clearing the bar. The invention of foam landing pits enabled jumpers to now land on their back.

From 1947 to 1961 the cinder track at Kiwanis Stadium on Tweedsmuir Avenue in Chatham was the site of the Kent County high school track meet. Between 1965 and 1978 nine meets were held on the Chatham Kent Secondary School cinder track. In other years different schools took turns hosting. When the county’s first all-weather track was built at Ursuline College in 1978 meets were held there until 2002 when the Chatham Kent Community Athletic Complex was opened. The CKCAC is the site used today.

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