By MATT OTTE
Special to The Gazette
Fifty years ago on Saturday (April 28, 1951) an astonishing, perhaps unparalleled, winning streak in small college track and field was begun in Stevens Point.
When the streak that covered four seasons ended three years later on May 22, 1954, in Milwaukee, a gifted Wisconsin Rapids runner named Ed Jacobsen had won 50 mile and two-mile runs for Central State College (now the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point).
Jacobsen never lost a race in competition against Wisconsin State College conference and similar small college opponents like Michigan Tech, Lawrence, St. Norbert and Carroll College. His only defeats came when he went against NCAA Division 1 runners in the Central Collegiates Conference (CCC) events hosted by Marquette University.
The son of an outstanding distance runner (Henry Jacobsen who starred at Whitewater), the Point stalwart came to the campus here without fanfare. He was a good high school miler at Wisconsin Rapids but not a spectacular one. As a senior, he was fourth in the Wisconsin Valley Conference meet. He upped that to third in the sectionals but only the first two went to State so he missed out on a Madison trip.
Running the mile and two-mile on the same day would be something new to Jacobsen. There were no races longer than a mile for prep runners in those days. WIAA rules at the time didn't even allow a boy to double in the mile and half-mile.
As a freshman at CSC, Jacobsen's coach was Frank "Pat" Crow. The first meet on the 1950-51 schedule was at Winona (Minn.) State but weather wiped it away. That made a dual with Oshkosh State on April 28 at Goerke Park the meet that launched the 50-race undefeated streak. Jacobsen won the mile by 100 yards. His time was a slow 4:56. Maybe he was saving himself for his first-ever two mile. He won that by an even wider margin in the likewise slow time of 11:27.5.
Sports writers would use such phrases/words like "no opposition," "room to spare," "took it easy" and "coasted" to describe Jacobsen's victories throughout his career. The Stevens Point Journal on May 21, 1950, heralded the pleasant, easy-going teen-ager as the "smooth-striding freshman
with a rosy future on the cinders." (Hard-surface tracks, of course, had not yet come to the world of track and field.)
Jacobsen got his mile time down to 4:38.9 as a freshman at the Pioneer Relays hosted by Carroll at Waukesha. Again, he won by 100 yards. A few days earlier he chalked-up the first of four conference "doubles" with a 4:39.8 mile and season-best 10:23.9 two mile. For the year his even-dozen wins included seven in the mile and five at two miles.
Jacobsen's sophomore year began with a personal best 4:35.4 mile at Appleton against Lawrence. John Roberts was now his coach and would be for his junior year, too. "Jake's" time got down to 4:29.3 in the conference meet (less than a second off the record). And he set a record in the two mile at 9:55.4. As always, he had no competition. The sports pages of the Journal on May 26 said other runners were just "coming around the last curve" at his mile finish and were "half a lap behind" in the two-mile.
But Jacobsen's best time as a sophomore didn't come until early June when he was entered in the prestigious CCC mile at Marquette. Running against big college competition, he was clocked in 4:25.6 after leading at the first quarter. Len Truex of Ohio State won in 4:13.2. Jacobsen finished eighth out of 13 runners.
Going into his junior year, the Pointer star had 25 straight wins against small college foes (15 mile and 10 two-mile). As a third-year runner, he not only made it six out of six wins at the WSC conference meet but also established a mile record - 4:28.2. His best two-mile that year was in the same meet - 10:21.6. He won the mile by 75 yards, the two-mile by "even more," said the Journal.
Once more he entered the big CCC spectacle. He responded with his best-ever mile in 4:24-flat and finished sixth. Jim Kephard of Michigan State won in 4:14.2.
His string of wins now at 37 (22 mile and 15 two-mile), Jacobsen had another domineering year as a senior. He had no opposition, however, thus his times were seldom great. Coached now by Alf Harrer in his last year of eligibility, Jacobsen recorded his 49th and 50th wins at the conference meet with times of 4:28.7 and 10:18.5, his best in both for the season. That also gave him his fourth WSC "double" and 29 mile wins along with 21 two-mile victories for his career.
One last time Jacobsen entered the CCC meet in Milwaukee. The 1954 appearance, however, would be in the two-mile run. It resulted in a personal best of 9:50.2 and sixth place. Gene Matthews of Purdue was first in 8:58.8.
In a time when milers like Roger Bannister, Wes Santee and John Landy were flirting with (and breaking) the four-minute barrier, Jacobsen was just another distance runner to most people. But his feat of 50 wins in a row in an unbeaten career has not been forgotten in the annals of small college track and field in this part of the country.