Archie Harris (discus thrower)
Archie Haggie Harris Jr. (July 3, 1918 – October 29, 1965) was an American world-record-setting discus thrower and football player.
Raised in Ocean City, New Jersey, Harris graduated in 1937 from Ocean City High School.[1]
As an Indiana University student-athlete, Harris won the 1940 NCAA Track and Field Championships,[2] defending his title 1941 with the world record of 53.26 m. In 1941 he also became US champion. At, Indiana, Harris also played football, lettering on the Indiana Hoosiers football team in 1938, and 1939, and 1940. He was a second-team selection on the 1940 All-Big Ten Conference football team as an end.[3]
During World War II Harris joined the United States Army Air Forces, reaching the rank of second lieutenant and serving as a bomber pilot in the 332d Fighter Group, known as the Tuskegee Airmen.[4] An African American, he was unable to find a job as a commercial pilot after the war. He became physical education teacher at the YMCA in Harlem.[5]
In 2001 he was inducted into the Indiana University Athletics Hall of Fame.[6]
Harris died on October 29, 1965, at Veterans Administration Hospital in New York City.[7]
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ Miller, Fred. "Beach History: World Record Holder Worked the Beach Patrol; Ocean City High School graduate Archie Harris set a 1941 world record in discus.", Ocean City, NJ, Patch, June 14, 2011. Accessed November 9, 2020. "Archie Harris, a 1937 graduate of Ocean City High School, was a senior at Indiana University when he broke the world record at the NCAA track and field championships in Palo Alto, CA."
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- ^ Fred Miller: Ocean City: America's Greatest Family Resort. Arcadia Publishing, 2003, Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)., pp. 126–128
- ^ Indiana University Athletics: Hall of Fame - Archie Harris Archived 2019-09-15 at the Wayback Machine
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External links
[edit | edit source]- Archie Harris at World AthleticsLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
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- 1918 births
- 1965 deaths
- American football ends
- American men discus throwers
- Indiana Hoosiers football players
- Indiana Hoosiers men's track and field athletes
- People from Ocean City, New Jersey
- Tuskegee Airmen
- United States Army Air Forces officers
- Players of American football from Cape May County, New Jersey
- Track and field athletes from New Jersey
- African-American track and field athletes
- Military personnel from Cape May County, New Jersey
- 20th-century African-American sportsmen
- 20th-century American sportsmen
- NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners
- American discus thrower stubs