Fast Diggers: Dean Cromwell

 Most of what you might read about Dean Cromwell focuses on his successes at a coach. This may be rightly so, after all among his nicknames was "Maker of Champions," but this should in no way detract from his own athletic prowess, participating in track and field, baseball and football as well, as you might have guessed, cycling while a student at Occidental College.

Dean Bartlett Cromwell was born in Oregon in 1879, moved to southern California in his youth, attending Occidental College, from which he graduated in 1902. His skill was widespread, playing first base in baseball, half-back in football; in track and field he ran the 50 and 100 yard dash, and the quarter mile, and competed in the pole vault, high jump, shot put and hammer throw. At the same time, he was among the most highly regarded bike racers in southern California. It was enough for him to win the Helms Athletic Foundation athlete of the year award for 1901.

You might remember reading here about the 1898 Los Angeles to Santa Monica Road Race (run that one year in the opposite direction), and how Cromwell was one of two riders to set the fastest time of the day; an unfortunate thirty minute mechanical delay at the race start prompted the judges to declare the times of the two riders to be unofficial and invalid. Whether due to discontent over his disqualification or some other reason, Cromwell would not participate in the race again. Never-the-less, he continued to compete in other road race and track events across the region.

Cromwell coached at the University of Southern California from 1909 to 1913, and again from 1916 to 1948. During that time his outdoor track and field teams won twelve NCAA championships, including nine straight (1935-1943). Cromwell's career coaching record stands at 109-48-1, but between 1939 and 1948 the recorded is nothing less than staggering; during that period USC suffered only three dual meet losses. Among the athletes he coached, 34 won individual NCAA titles, 38 AAU titles, 10 Olympic gold medals, 14 individual world records, and three relay world records. Beside the track and field successes, Cromwell led Trojans football to a 21-8-6 record over five seasons (1909-10, and 1916-18).

Surviving members of Los Angeles' early bicycle racers began to gather, in 1924, in a series of "Wheelmen of the Past" reunions which continued until at least 1953. In the photograph below (from the 1953 reunion) Cromwell is standing third from the right, and is joined by Ralph de Palma, Ralph Hamlin, Frank Pearne, Floyd Clymer, Earl Le Moyne, and Eugene W. Biscailuz. You may recognize some of the names from similar bike racing success (Hamlin), other sporting fame (de Palma), of civic calling (Biscailuz, who served as Sheriff of Los Angeles County).

Legacy aside, Cromwell held both anti-Semitic and racist beliefs; during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, he had an active hand in keeping Jewish runners from the US track team, and would have preferred prohibiting black runners from competing as well. His writings and beliefs on this matter are well documented. A successful athlete and coach he may have been, but as a conscientious human he must be deemed a failure.