He used to play up his track prowess on his sitcom and became some sort of ambassador at the Penn Relays. Just how good was he? Did he run at NCAAs?
He used to play up his track prowess on his sitcom and became some sort of ambassador at the Penn Relays. Just how good was he? Did he run at NCAAs?
Sorry, he ran at UMass didn't mean to imply he ran for UPenn.
Sorry again, he went to Temple and ran track there.
True story, it used to be really cool, but is now pretty creepy.
A girl running for my high school pulled her hamstring battling for the win in the last 100 of the 4x400. She collapsed on the track in a heap of tears partly from pain, partly from not being able to win the race.
Someone, she didn't know who, picked her up and carried her off the track, telling her everything would be alright. When he put her down in the infield she realized it was Bill Cosby.
As I recall, he held the school record for the high jump.
Gabe Jennings's Teeth wrote:
Sorry again, he went to Temple and ran track there.
Yes, Temple and like the BYU grandpas of late he was a 24 year old freshman. Don't know just how common that was in the early '60s nor why he fled high school for the Navy in the '50s.
He was a good conference-level sprint/jump guy. He was MAC champion in the HJ at least once. i think he went 6'6" or 6'8" but i can't remember any more which. if you think about what high jumping looked like in the 60s, that's a decent effort, either way.
They used to have hall-of-fame portraits and bios in the old basketball arena, and there was something about all that on his. It's been decades since I saw it, though.
Cosby claimed to have jumped 6'7 3/4" and had a 48.6 440 and 9.8 wind aided 100. He was a big supporter of the Penn Relays and put up six figures to keep the event alive back in the 1990s. He supposedly kept running masters track and was coached by a Temple teammate.
There is an episode of the Cosby show where he runs a leg of a 4x400 relay at the Penn relays (staged for the Cosby show). He was in his late 40s and still moved well for his age.
Precious Roy wrote:
There is an episode of the Cosby show where he runs a leg of a 4x400 relay at the Penn relays (staged for the Cosby show). He was in his late 40s and still moved well for his age.
Yeah, but he got chicked!
Precious Roy wrote:
...He was in his late 40s and still moved well for his age.
That's what she said.
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