The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
State title team in ’29 long forgotten
The lineage of a sport’s success can occasionally commence in one’s mind with the greatness of a certain athlete.
For high school track and field in Lake County, that lineage would easily be assumed to begin with the legendary Mentor sprinter Harley Howells and his exploits in the early 1930s. Not so.
In 2017, it was fun to tell the tale of Lake County’s first individual-event state champion, Harvey high jumper Wallace Persons, who in 1926 was Class B state champion … by coin flip.
As the postseason looms next week, it’s time to tell the tale of the first track and field relay state champion from the heart of our coverage area. That first came when Howells was still in middle school.
In 1929, the Mentor boys mile relay quartet of Alex Orvis, Leonard Booth, Dwight Boyer and Wendell Mellon won the Class B state championship.
What might be as fascinating as that win is how little is known about it because there was so little fanfare at the time.
First, a refresher: Mentor was nowhere near the Mentor we know today, with hustle and bustle seemingly at every street corner. It was a rural community, to the extent it was a comfortable Class B (small-division) school.
Howells used to recount how he could leave his home and chase rabbits in the snow in wide-open fields, symbolism in a way of how rural Mentor was then.
The Painesville Telegraph spotlighted the Cardinals’ dual with Harvey in its April 20, 1929 edition, as Mentor emerged with a 51-44 victory. The dual came down to mile relay.
“The Mentor boys relay team was faced with the problem of copping the event or losing the meet,” the Telegraph wrote. “They won the race when Boyer, the Mentor leadoff man, gave the west end school the lead and the remaining members of the team, Vellman, Van Horn and Mellon, outdistanced the Painesville runners.”
April 29, it was announced Mentor had sent 15 invitations for its Mentor Relays. Only six attended that year, with the Cardinals reigning again.
“The superior Mentor High School relay teams showed their heels to the best runners of the six schools competing in the Mentor Relays Wednesday afternoon at the Mentor oval,” the Telegraph reported.
“The first event on the program was the 880yard relay, won by Mentor. … The Mentor team, with Boyer, Van Horn, Mellon and Orvis carrying the baton, broke the tape in 1 minute, 39 4/5 seconds.”
Tape? Four-fifths? Yeah, that’s definitely a different era.
“The third event found the Painesville harriers taking the limelight a brief moment when they scored a victory in the mile relay. … Hackola, running a beautiful 440 for Fairport, gave the harbor town team the lead. But Hess of Painesville overtook the lake port team in the second lap of the race and Mentor’s runner nosed out the Fairport speedster at the finish.”
The Cardinals were also second in mile relay at the Lakewood Relays on May 11 before returning to Lakewood for district and being a favorite to claim the annual Lake County meet.
“Mentor includes some of the fastest runners in the county among her track team members,” the Telegraph stated. “For years, this school has specialized in turning out runners of better than average ability, and her class in those events has been sufficient to carry the Mentor colors to the fore in many a track and field meet.”
Apparently, though, word didn’t travel all that well.
In its May 20, 1929 edition, the Telegraph reported Mentor was headed to the state track and field meet that weekend in mile and half-mile relays.
The mile relay had placed third at the Lakewood
District.
“Coach E.C. Tischendorf announced today that he would take a party of six boys to the Ohio scholastic meet at Columbus on Friday evening,” they wrote.
“The boys will participate in the finals of the Class B schools on Saturday.”
May 25, the Telegraph raved over the Cardinals claiming the Lake County meet at the Fairgrounds, including what was believed to be a Class B state record in half-mile relay (1:36.3) before they headed to Columbus.
Here’s where it gets strange.
Mentor won the Class B mile relay crown on that Saturday in Columbus with a 3:39.4, besting Rocky River, Dayton Oakwood, Port Clinton and Milan, according to OHSAA records. That we know for sure.
But there wasn’t a word about it in the Telegraph in the days that followed. Imagine if that happened today, and insert jokes here.
There it came and went, the first track and field relay state championship by a Lake County high school.
The 1929 edition of the “Scarlet and Gray” yearbook had gone to publication well before the track and field season concluded. So the yearbook generalized:
“Boys track, at press time, is not very far advanced, but prospects are for another bright season. During the last four years of county track competition, the Scarlet of Mentor has taken three championships. Last year, the boys made a good county record and practically the same team is back, with some valuable new members.”
Team members were named, along with a dual schedule.
That’s it.
There was a chance to fondly recall the accomplishment in the 1930 yearbook. Not really, and not accurately.
On the boys track page, it reads: “Looking back on Mentor’s success last year in winning the state 880yard relay, we feel sure that our standard will be equaled this year.”
Only Mentor didn’t win 880 relay — Rocky River did with a 1:37.2. The Cardinals won mile relay. Strange indeed.
But the yearbook staff did get it right on one facet, foreshadowing the future in a way.
It was about to begin with Howells, then ascend higher through time, the Mentor boys with 44 state top-four finishes since 1912 and 130 state qualifiers in individual events and relays since 1945.
That trend began with a mile relay long forgotten by time — and apparently in their day — but remembered here and now.
“Ever since Mentor High School has been established,” the 1930 yearbook staff wrote, “athletic games and contests have been considered a wholly essential element in the school curriculum.
“The Mentor Board of Education has not confined or bounded athletic activities in any way to hinder their progress, which has been surprisingly rapid. At the disposal of every student is a campus unexcelled by any in the county. This campus has a football field, baseball diamond and track, which explains the answer to why Mentor High School puts forth as many recognized athletic teams as it does.”