Celebrated group joins Carnival Wall

Track athletes live and die by the stop clock -- the speed, the time, the millisecond. So it seems fitting that the 2002 Penn Relays' Wall of Fame inductees have proven themselves to be masters of the watch -- both in time and in metaphor.

In total, the four new individual members -- Dave Patrick (Kenwood '64, Villanova '68), Larry Black (North Carolina Central '74), John Trautmann (Monroe-Woodbury '86, Georgetown '91, Team Adidas '95), and Diane Guthrie-Gresham (St. Elizabeth Tech '90, George Mason '95) -- have collected an astounding 26 championship watches for their Relays' heroics.

In fact, Guthrie-Gresham a winner of 12 championship watches, holds the lifetime record for timepieces won at the Penn Relays.

But the accolades of the Class of 2002 do not stop there. Each new member was named Outstanding Performer of the Carnival at least once, with Guthrie-Gresham again the leader with two top prizes.

Each also has his or her share of individual crowning moments.

From 1966-1968, Patrick -- a winner of seven watches -- ran the anchor leg on Villanova's distance medley which set three straight Relays' records.

Black, besides being the anchor leg runner on three record setting relay teams, also set the record in 1972 for the fastest leg on the mile relay in Carnival history.

Trautmann -- a standout in both the high school and college levels in the Relays -- set a national record when he won his second high school 3000m title for Monroe-Woodbury in 1986. He followed this up by running the first leg on Georgetown's world-record DMR in 1987.

And then there's Guthrie-Gresham. While the prowess of one of the most decorated athletes in Relays' history extends beyond the track -- Guthrie-Gresham was a champion jumper and heptathlete -- she nonetheless resides in exclusive Relays' company. She won her two events four times each and collected the honor of Outstanding female College Athlete in 1991 and 1995.

"What I've seen of the Wall of Fame inductees is that they were all dominant in their events," Director of the Penn Relays Dave Johnson said. "Of the relay runners, they were always a great runner. Once they got the baton, there was always a sense that the race was over."

Besides bringing in a collection of individual superstars, the Relays has also inducted an impressive quartet of track teams -- including two from the 1983 High School distance medley relays.

Never before in the seven-year history of the Wall of Fame had two track squads from the same race been inducted. That was before a pair of New Jersey DMR teams -- Willingboro High School and Bernards-- came up for nomination.

While it was Willingboro's four -- Jeff Bradford, Eric Moore, Herb Gordon and Vance Watson -- who took home first-place in the 1983 DMR, Bernards did not come up short in the eyes of the panel of Penn Relays' experts.

"Willingboro had the lead going into the last leg and the Bernards team took the lead," Johnson said. "Willingboro had to come out in the home stretch and finally pulled through."

"It was just a real great race."

The two other relays teams joining the 1983 DMR duo on the Wall of Fame are the 1991 Vere Tech (Hayes, Jamaica) girls' 4x400m relay and the 1902 Harvard one-mile relay.

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