Conneff, the future American mile champion, came over from Ireland the next spring and joined the Manhattan Athletic Club. He was an old rival of Carter's and in that year's cross-country championship the two men fought it out neck and neck at the finish. A few hundred yards from the finish Conneff fell, exhausted, and Carter won handily. Carter did not compete in 1888, and the race was won by W. D. Day, a boy of nineteen, who weighed barely one hundred pounds. Day proved himself in the next few years to be the best long-distance runner in the country. He and Carter soon held almost all the records from a mile and three-quarters up to ten miles records which at this writing are still unbeaten. Sidney Thomas, the English cross-country run ner, visited the country in 1889 and established several records for distances between ten and fifteen miles. He competed on March 16, 189o, in a handicap steeplechase over an eight-mile course at Morris Park, but even with his handi cap of 3o seconds was beaten by young Day, who ran from scratch through a field of over one hundred handicap men and won easily, although the field was ankle deep with mud.
In spite of the great interest which distance runners themselves took in the sport the general public had never, for obvious reasons, supported it with any enthusiasm, and as the prestige of club athletics declined the condition of cross-country running became rather precarious. The growing strength of the Young Men's Christian Associa tion organizations presently helped it along, how ever and then the colleges began to develop the sport just as they had stepped in and carried on track and field athletics when the clubs began to expire. Harvard was the first of them to take up paper chasing with any enthusiasm, and as early as 1881 what was then looked upon with curiosity as " that Rugby sport " was introduced at Cam bridge. Pennsylvania, Cornell, the College of the City of New York, and finally Yale and Brown began to hold hare-and-hound runs, generally as a preliminary training for the track men. In 1890 Pennsylvania won from Cornell in the first inter college cross-country race, and in the same year the College of the City of New York held its first championship over the Fort George course.
Finally, in 1899, at Cornell's suggestion, repre sentatives from that university and from Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Columbia met and organized the Intercollegiate Cross-Country As sociation of Amateur Athletics of America — a name, as Mr. Baynes—from whose valuable re
searches many of these facts are borrowed remarks, " almost long enough to cover the cham pionship course." The first intercollegiate cham pionship was held at Morris Park on Saturday, November 18, 1899. Cornell won, Yale was second, University of Pennsylvania third, Colum bia fourth, and Princeton fifth. The individual honors went, however, to Cregan, Princeton's crack distance runner, who covered the course of slightly over six miles in 34 minutes 5* sec onds. Cornell won again in 1900, Yale in 1901, Cornell again in 1902 and 1903. W. E. Schutt of Cornell won the individual championship in 1903, and broke Cregan's record for the course, covering it in 33 minutes 15 seconds. At Mott Haven, the preceding spring, Schutt also made an intercollegiate record in the two-mile run of 9 minutes 40 seconds.
Such records as these are not made without a hard fight and without straining one's endurance to the utmost. A six-mile race over meadow-land and hedges is a glorious contest, but it is a formi dable one, too, and not to be lightly gone into by boys, or men who are not strong and well-trained. But to enjoy the best of cross-country running one does not need to go in at all for cross-coun try racing. Racing over a measured course, even though that course is laid out in the open, lacks the charm of following the trail ; there is no loiter ing to pick up the scent, no call of " Lo-o-ost Trail !" and cheering echoes of " Ta-a-ally Ho ! " — it's too much work to be much fun. But even the duffer can run with the hounds. As the pack strings out, leisurely trotting along the trail, there is a place somewhere for the slowest of us. When you get to the " break " you can have all the racing you want by fighting it out with the real racers from the line of paper laid across the road to the finish and home. And if you're not a fighter nor a racer you can jog home with the rest of the duffers conscious of a couple of hours well spent, with your lungs full of good air, the coursing blood warming your very finger-tips, and many a pleasant picture to remember.