Global Running Day, the Golden State, and the Golden Boys of Princeton Track

 Today, Wednesday, June 7, 2023, is Global Running Day, a day to promote the exhilarations and benefits of the sport and to inspire folks to get moving. It also comes at a time when American track and field proponents, especially under the organization of USA Track & Field, are working to increase excitement around the sport in the United States. Track and field is the number-one participatory sport in American high schools, but, according to a Nielsen study from 2019, it was the eighth most-followed U.S. sport. In anticipation of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, there is a special focus on reviving interest in the sport and filling stadiums in Southern California.  

Global Running Day and the push to generate excitement for U.S. and California track and field events is also a good time to re-visit the speedy duo from Princeton, Bossier Parish, Robert and Webster Johnson. By the time they were in college at Southern University, Baton Rouge, they were named among the fastest brother-duos in the world by “Track and Field News” and the fastest in the U.S. When track enthusiasts in Southern California lament the loss of the golden age of SoCal track meets in the 1960’s, these Louisiana brothers know what’s at stake.  They and their Southern University teammates were the ones generating much of the excitement in the Golden State, not only winning events and breaking world records.   

Today’s equivalent of a track and field epicenter is Eugene, Oregon, but in the 1960’s, it was Los Angeles. If a runner’s or track team or club name was all over mid-century southern California sports pages, you knew they were in running’s elite, and the Johnson and Southern University names were there. For example, the “Modesto Bee” in Modesto, CA, on Sunday, May 30, 1965, ran the headline, “Southern TC (Track Club) Ties Mile Relay Mark.” The team scored three victories in that meet called “The California Relays,” tying the world record in the mile relay of 3 minutes, 4. 5 seconds. 

At that meet, the freshmen brothers were metaphorically burning up the track not just with speed but by blazing a trail. The question of whether the team would be there or not had kept track officials and enthusiasts guessing. Until 1968 (1972 for football and basketball), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) that regulates the rules of college sport, did not allow freshmen to compete. Southern U. was only affiliated with the NCAA, however. Its full membership was with the NAIA, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, which controlled athletics for smaller colleges.  There was still concern the NCAA would step in. But Southern’s young team (led by a very young coach, Dick Hill) arrived and won three events, including the 440-yard baton event where they tied the world record (40.4 seconds).  

A year later, the team broke the 440-yard relay world record, this time with the glory all to themselves. A headline in the “Modesto Bee” exclaimed, “Elated was the only word to describe the feeling of the fine Southern University of Louisiana relay team’s feelings when the quartet of speedsters heard the world record breaking time announced,” which was one minute, 39.6 seconds. The team of Harvey Nairn, Grundy Harris, Webster Johnson and George Anderson made an animated victory trip around the track.  

In early 1967, Webster stayed in California, running with the 49’er Track Club, a private running club in the L.A. area, and was mentioned under the “Los Angeles Times” February 4th headline, “Six Relay Races to Spice Times [LA Times] Indoor Games Action.” The article that followed described the excitement of attending the 8th annual games in the L.A. Sports Arena, “Cheering for a record individual performance is a thrill in track and field, but for sheer sustained enthusiasm, there is nothing like a relay race on the indoor boards.” Each of the six races was expected to “stimulate the packed arena with their close quarters baton-passing, steady pounding of the boards and wild finishes.” That, of course, is exactly the excitement that USA Track & Field is looking for again today, to harken back to a time when the Johnson brothers, and other runners of the mid-1960’s, knew how to generate it.  

Robert Lee graduated from Southern University in May of 1969, and Webster graduated in January of 1970. Robert Lee joined the army, where he also competed as a runner. Webster tried out for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Robert Lee tried out for the 1972 Olympic team. Neither of them made it onto the teams, though they continued to hold multiple national and international records. Webster moved to California in 1969 and taught and coached. Robert Lee came back to north Louisiana. 

For more Bossier Parish sports history or school history, stop by the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center at 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA. We are open M-Th 10-8, Fri 10-6, and Sat 10-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org 

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, 

Image: Southern University sets world record for 440-yard relay in Modesto, California, May 28, 1966. Pictured from left to right are Harvey Nairn, Grundy Harris, Webster Johnson, George Anderson (AP Wirephoto)

Article by: Pam Carlisle

Robert and Webster Johnson: Running at Rabbit-Speed on a World Stage

 By the time they were in college, “Track and Field News” called Webster and Robert Lee Johnson the fastest brother-duo in the world. The magazine actually noticed them while they were still in High School – “tiny” Princeton High School, the journal noted, an African-American school in the Haughton area of Bossier Parish where the brothers were in the class of 1964.

Robert and Webster Johnson

Small-town and small-school life had some advantages for the speedy brothers and Princeton “Dragons”. The brothers said they got so fast by chasing the rabbits running in their uncle’s cotton fields off-season. And John Crockett, Princeton’s coach-of-all-sports, track, football and basketball, was all business. He worked hard to push them because he got the initial impression they could have run faster but didn’t because they had no competition --- except for the rabbits, who can move at speeds of 35-45 mph. According to Robert Lee, the cottontails would stop and let them catch up.

A “Shreveport Journal” article about coach Crockett’s training for Robert Lee and Webster Johnson described an intensive regimen. When they could practice inside, they’d work on baton passing, their starting form, coordinating their arms and legs, jumping rope, isometric contractions, weight lifting, and running up the bleachers and walking down them to condition their legs. Outside, he’d have them do the “fox trot”, a running exercise to get them to bring their legs up higher, and have them alternate running both shorter and longer distances.

Some cross-training in football probably didn’t hurt either. In a small school like Princeton, it was “all hands on deck” for all sports. Princeton was famous for its multi-sport wonders. There were only about 140 boys in grades 9-12, so the Johnson brothers were members of the football team too, where Coach Crockett put their running skills to good use in the game, and made sure they got plenty of running practice for track while at football practice.

A major disadvantage that Coach Crockett managed to turn into a positive was that Princeton, nor any of the African-American schools in Bossier Parish had an outdoor track (and none in the region had an indoor track). Crockett, as the basketball coach, would take the track team along in his own car to basketball games at Shreveport’s Booker T. Washington High so the runners could use the urban school’s outdoor track in preparation for track competitions. He also frequently took them to Grambling State University when he refereed the basketball games at the historically black university about 60 miles away from Princeton. There, not only would the Princeton boys get to run on a track, but they would get to run with an Olympian! One of the members of the Grambling team, Stone Johnson (no relation to Robert Lee and Webster) had competed in the 1960 Olympics in Rome, and was known as one of the best sprinters in the world. He practiced right alongside the talented high-schoolers.

In their senior year of high school, Robert Lee Johnson brought the state record for a quarter mile down to 48 seconds flat. Webster had a state record of 21. 5 seconds for the 220-yard sprint. (U.S. sports associations didn’t switch to metric standards until the 1970s). The brothers also set a record for high school mile relays on their relay team of four at 3:21.2. These times are especially outstanding if you keep in mind they were achieved on cinder block or dirt tracks, not the all-weather rubberized ones of today.

Where the brothers really hit the big time was when they chose to become “Jaguars” at Coach Crockett’s alma mater, historically black Southern University in Baton Rouge. At Southern, Robert Lee and Webster ran for coach Dr. Richard Hill. Coach Hill ultimately became legendary, but 1965 was his first full year as coach of the team, and what a year it was. In 1965, the Jaguars gained international attention as a team at the Millrose games in the famed Madison Square Garden in New York City, where the mile relay team of Webster and Robert Lee, Grundy Harris, and 1968 Olympian Theron “T-Bird” Lewis made the mile in 3:16.8, tying for a world record with Villanova University. Also in New York, at the Knights of Columbus meet, they won the mile relay in 3:16 followed by getting the top times in Boston, Baltimore, and Detroit.

Southern’s one mile and 880-yard relay teams were ranked first in the world by “Track and Field News” and Robert Lee was featured on the cover of “Track and Field News” in July of 1966. “Ebony” magazine did a five-page article and photo essay on the team, “Southern U. - New Kings of Track.”

Robert Lee graduated from Southern in May of 1969 and Webster graduated in January of 1970. Robert Lee joined the army, where he also competed as a runner. Webster tried out for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Robert Lee tried out for the 1972 Olympic team. Neither of them made it, though they continued to hold multiple national and international records. For more Bossier Parish sports history or school history, stop by the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center at 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA. We are open M-Th 10-8, Fri 10-6, and Sat 10-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok

Article by: Pam Carlisle

Princeton High School and Its Only Principal

Principal Walter H. Martin

In the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center, we have oral histories of Bossier Parish residents who share their memories of how things were back in the olden days. Among those in the collection is the oral history of Walter H. Martin and his wife Johnnye Scott Martin, life-long educators in Bossier Parish. They were students during segregation and educators during integration.

Martin was born in Benton, Louisiana, in 1912 and grew up during the days of segregation. In reminiscing about his school days, we learn that his elementary school was Benton Colored School. A two-room schoolhouse that taught grades one through seven. He recalls having Charlotte Mitchell as his teacher there.

Mitchell championed quality education for the black community throughout the first half of the 20th century. She spent 30 years as a teacher and 13 as a superintendent of the Bossier Parish black school system. In 1954 the Bossier City Colored School was renamed Charlotte Mitchell High School in her honor.

The Bossier Parish Training School opened in Benton in 1928 offering black students a post-elementary education through the eleventh grade, which was as far as they went back then. Before then, black students in high school had to take a train to Central Colored High School in Shreveport. Martin was in the Training School’s first graduating class in 1932. Martin had Oliver Mitchell, Charlotte’s husband, as his teacher in high school.

Martin graduated high school with a one-year teaching certificate allowing him to teach elementary school. With a one-year teaching certificate, you could teach for one year, and during the summer, they could go to college and recertify and teach another year. Martin knew he wanted to teach and enrolled full-time at Southern University. Upon receiving his degree in 1940, he began his teaching career at Princeton Elementary School.

Principal Walter H. Martin with
Princeton High School's 1st graduating class 1954

In 1951, Principal Martin circulated petitions to prove that the people would support a bond issue for Princeton to have a black high school. All but one person signed the petitions. Princeton High School became the third black high school in the parish and celebrated its first graduating class in 1954. The other two were the Bossier Parish Training School and Bossier City Colored High.

From 1940 through 1970, under Principal Martin's leadership, the school grew from a four-teacher elementary school to a thirty-teacher school plant comprising two modern brick classroom buildings for grades one through twelfth, a vocational agriculture building, a canning center, a music center, a visual aid room, two teachers' cottages, a one-thousand seating capacity gymnasium-auditorium, a well-lighted athletic field, and a 5,000-gallon water supply tower.

In 1968 and 1969, students at Princeton High School were offered the Freedom of Choice System. Students who wanted to integrate could. Approximately 50 students during this time volunteered to attend Haughton High School. On February 2, 1970, Princeton High School was closed because of court-ordered integration.

Princeton students in grades one through six went to Platt School. Students in grades seven through twelve went to Haughton High School. The Princeton teachers also moved along with their students. However, students at Haughton maintained separate classrooms until later that fall. The senior class held their graduation ceremony at Princeton High School in May 1970. They were the last graduating class of Princeton High School.

When Princeton High School was closed, it was repainted and fixed up. They replaced the gymnasium floor, added dressing rooms, and demolished the old band building. The office area was located facing the area that is the teachers' parking lot today. Princeton School reopened in September of 1970 to grades four through seven.

Mr. Martin later became an administrator in the Bossier Parish School Board Central Office. During his years with Bossier Parish Schools, he received the Outstanding Educator of the Year Award, was cited for his contribution to education as Supervisor of Social Studies for Junior and Senior Schools, and served as Coordinator of the Drug Abuse Education Program. Mr. Martin was also a Coordinator of the Close-Up Program and accompanied a group of teachers and students to Washington, D.C. in March of 1979. Later that year, he retired from the Bossier Parish School system.

There are three exhibits of the Bossier Parish black high schools known as the ‘Big Five’ on display. The exhibits are at the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center, Benton, and East 80 branches. Please stop by anytime Monday-Thursday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visit our Facebook page, @BPLHistory, for a video about Princeton High history and to hear the stories of alumni that were in the last graduating class.

By: Amy Robertson

This Month in Bossier Parish History

November: Through the years

Nov. 3, 1921: Oil wells soon to be in Plain Dealing.

Bossier Banner: Nov. 3, 1921

Oil tanks and derricks owned by W.E. Hall Unknown location

2014.040.010

Lynn Lasiter Collection

Oil Field workers.It is believed that Will and Frank Hall were the boys in the photo, and that W.E. Hall is the gentlemen the youngest boy is sitting with him.

Unknown location

2014.040.009 

Lynn Lasiter Collection

"Pete's Mule Team". Pete Shaver was Charlcye Shaver Skov's father. He lived in Bossier City and worked in Oil City.

2014.049.005

Alice  Watts Collection

Nov. 7, 1878: Robert Emmet Wyche was elected Sheriff

Bossier Banner: Nov. 7, 1878

Robert Emmet Wyche1870-1880  

1997.062.053-2

Bryce Turnley Collection

Nov. 16, 1948:  J. Hill Fullilove ( 01 Aug 1876—16 Nov 1948)

He was the father of the “Pecan Industry”  in North Louisiana. He planted  is first orchard on his 1,400 acre plantation in Bossier Parish. He was recognized throughout the United States as an authority on pecan growing and was president of the National Pecan Growers Association. 

The Shreveport Builders Pg. 45-46

1998.068.005   

Melba F. Manio  Collection

Pecan Tree

1999.053.085 

Scott Brandt Collection

Nov. 25, 1929: Texas Street Bridge was approved free of cost to the communities. 

Shreveport Times: Nov. 25, 1929

Work on the bridge was set to start on July1, 1931

C. 1931 Texas Street Bridge under construction

2006.034.010

Neil Yarborobough collection

Nov. 28, 1929: Children write in their "Dear Santa" letters

The Plain Dealing Progress: Nov. 28, 1929

Princeton High School's first grade class learning how to write "Dear Santa Letters". 

Mr. Walter H. Martin is Principal. Picture as the date of: December 15, 1967.

2004.003.009

Walter H. Martin Collection