National High School Records Through the Years

Boys Indoor Record – 600 yards

Tom Murphy (St. Augustine’s HS, Brooklyn, New York)

Performance  – 1:14.0

Date – January 30, 1954

Place – New York City (102nd Engineers Armory)

Meet – NYU Spike Shoe Games

Previous Record - 1:14.7 by Rudy Solomon (Boys High, Brooklyn) January 31, 1953, at the 102nd Engineers Armory in Manhattan, followed by Murphy’s 1:14.1 January 16, 1954

Murphy broke the indoor record twice in the winter of 1954, the second time 72 years ago this week at the 168th Street Armory -- called at the time the 102nd Engineers Armory -- in Upper Manhattan. The previous spring he had anchored St. Augustine’s to victory in the 1953 Penn Relays mile relay. Murphy went on to run for Manhattan College, finishing 2nd to Villanova’s Ron Delany in the 1958 NCAA 880, and then made the U.S. Olympic 800 team that went to Rome in 1960. After those Games, in a race in Europe, he was a member of a U.S. team that broke the world record in the 2-mile relay. 

National High School Records Through the Years appears once a week, compiled and written by a track historian, Jack Pfeifer (Lake Oswego, Oregon). Inquiries may be directed to him by email (jack.pfeifer@gmail.com).     

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