Remembering Norristown’s national record 50 years later
Four Eagles set USA sophomore mile relay record at 1970 Penn Relays
Fifty years ago, the Norristown Area High School track & field team made history.
At the Penn Relays on April 25, 1970, Mike Creciun, Mike Spearman, Stanley Settle and Vance McGhee set the USA sophomore record in the mile relay. The four 10th graders completed the race in 3:24.2.
“I expected them to be representative of Norristown High School and run a decent time,” coach Bob Shoudt said. “I never expected to break a sophomore national record, especially coming from the state of Pennsylvania. Teams in Texas and Florida and California usually have some pretty quick people.
“I remember having four really good 10th graders who competed that day. This is probably the last thing they ever imagined was going to happen to them in 10th grade.”
Creciun ran the first leg of the race. He had never run track until high school and it was his first year running outdoor track. He was a baseball player who used winter track as a way to stay in shape for the upcoming spring
season. Shoudt and some friends convinced him to run track instead of playing baseball that spring.
“It was such a special day,” Creciun recalled. “I was so naïve I did not realize the importance of it … I had no idea. I had only been running track since January. It was a special day. It still is. We still talk.”
Spearman followed in the second leg. He had run at the Penn Relays before in junior high, but never in front of the Franklin Field crowds that showed up for high school events.
“It was extremely overwhelming,” Spearman said, “but for those 50 seconds it was all about me. I was actually relaxing at the same time running with all this emotion and adrenaline. After it was over I actually said to myself, ‘I’ll never run one of these again in my life.’ I thought it almost killed me.
“I always considered it an honor any time I put the blue and white on to honor my high school and the town that I lived in.”
Settle ran the third leg. Shoudt remembers the size of the crowd getting to Settle.
“Stanley Settle said he was scared to death,” Shoudt said. “He couldn’t believe he was out in front of all those people at Franklin Field in the Penn Relays.”
McGhee closed the race as the anchor.
Despite the nerves, they finished in 3:24.2, which Shoudt believes is still a
USA sophomore record since the mile relay was changed to the 4x400 in the 1980s.
Shoudt and the four runners planned to go out to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their record-setting performance, but the COVID-19 pandemic put their plans on hold.
“We all want to go out to dinner sometime when you can go out to dinner,” Shoudt said. “Even on that day — the Saturday of the Penn Relays — I talked to them all on the telephone and we had some really good conversations.”
“I’m still friends with that team,” Spearman said. “That’s one of the things that drew us together.”
“We’re 66,” Creciun added. “We don’t see each other often but we’re still brothers.”