By Robert Marchetti
Mercer County Track & Field Hall of Fame

There were five Mercer County Spring Track & Field Championship Meets held in the 1930s, followed by a nine-year hiatus from 1939 to 1947. The inaugural version of the championship was held in the spring of 1934.

1934: PHS Takes the First

The inaugural county track meet was held on Moore Street at Princeton High School on May 19, 1934. The championship was won by Princeton High.

*Princeton Herald, Volume 11, Number 30, May 25, 1934.*

There were only six total teams in the meet. The team scores were the following:

Mercer hall of famer and team captain Jim Mitchell was a double winner for the Little Tigers who were coached by fellow hall of famer Irwin Weiss. A third hall of famer Mose Walker took the 440 title. The PHS victory was especially impressive in that one of their vanquished opponents Trenton Cathedral were Parochial State Champions in 1934.

*Photo of the first ever Mercer County Outdoor T&F Champions: PHS 1934. Jim Mitchell sitting center of front row with trophy, Coach Irwin Weiss standing at far left.*

1935: The Little Tigers Defend Title

*The Trenton Times, Sunday, May 19, 1935, page 21.*

As can be seen again, it was a small meet compared to today. Only six teams.

*The Trenton Times, May 19, 1935. Eddie Rodman of the School for the Deaf wins the 220.*

The 1935 meet was conducted and hosted by “State Teachers College” which today is TCNJ. The meet was a three way combo of team titles—or “classes”. There was a junior high county championship, a high school county championship, and a college invite, all simultaneously held. The classes were scored separately. The high school county meet was held within that event and ran in separate heats from the College and Jr High races. The county meets for the rest of the 1930s were also directed and hosted by TCNJ.

1936: A Three-peat for PHS

*The Trenton Times, Sunday, May 17, 1936, page 23.*

At the 1936 meet, Mose Walker of PHS won his third straight county championship in the quarter mile to lead his team to yet another county crown. Walker was also a 2-time state champion in the 440 during his high school career.

1937: Trenton Takes Their First

*The Trenton Times, Sunday, May 23, 1937, page 27.*

Trenton, guided by their new head coach Peter Morgan, won their first-ever Mercer County Title in 1937.

Marcellus Jenkins of Trenton took three county gold medals to lead the Tornadoes to victory. He won both the Broad Jump, the 440, and he anchored the winning Mile Relay Team.

1938: The Tornadoes Do It Again

*The Trenton Times, Saturday, May 21, 1938, page 13.*

Coach Peter Morgan’s Trenton Squad took their 2nd straight county championship. Trenton was led by triple winner Al Kurlander who took both the high and low hurdles races, and won the broad jump.

County runners-up Princeton High School would go on to win the Group 2 State Championship later in the 1938 season — their first ever state track title in the history of the school.

1939 to 1947: A Break in Action

Starting in the 1939 spring season, the Mercer County Meet was put on hold for nine years. One of the reasons for the stoppage was that Trenton left their county affiliation and joined “The Big Six Conference” in 1939. The Big-6 was composed of Trenton, Perth Amboy, Camden, New Brunswick, Asbury Park, and Morristown — all of them Group 4 schools. Trenton would go on to win the Big-6 for nine years in a row from 1939 to 1947. During the same years they would also win three state track titles in Group 4 (1940, 1944 & 1945).

There may have been other factors leading to the break in county meets. In 1939, Coach Irwin Weiss of PHS took a break from coaching track & field until 1943, Trenton Cathedral’s program had deteriorated by the late 1930s, and Trenton Catholic Boys (Immaculate Conception) had not yet developed into the state championship caliber team that they would eventually become by the late 1940s. So the overall quality of in-county competition was lower by the late ‘30s.

1948… A Mercer County Rebirth

In the fall of 1947, Coach Morgan — who had previously removed Trenton High from the county meet — left his TCHS post to join the Princeton University Athletics staff as a coach. Coach Irwin Weiss had built Princeton High School’s program back up to state prominence by the late 1940s, and Trenton Catholic Boys’ High School had won its first ever state team championship in 1946.

By 1948, the time was right and the Mercer County Meet was reinstated. There were only four teams entered in the spring of ‘48 but the competition was so packed with quality that Trenton Catholic (who were state parochial champions that year) ended up in only 3rd place.

The meeting was held at Trenton, and Princeton High School won the title with state powerhouse TCHS coming in second.

*The Trenton Times, Wednesday, June 2, 1948, page 33.*

Since its rebirth in the spring of 1948, the county meet has been held in consecutive uninterrupted years all the way up until today.

The Original Outdoor Mercer County T&F Championships