The Best Race In This Year's Penn State National Invitational Was Named After Penn State Great Barney Ewell

"Ewell probably would have been the most decorated Olympian in the history of the games.”

-Bill Lyon, Philadelphia Inquirer

(The 1940 and 1944 games were cancelled.)

Barney Ewell.

 A Legacy of Greatness

Usually, the Mile has been the highlight of the Penn State National Invitational meet.  Occasionally the 800M has been great too.  But this year, the sprints outshined the middle distance races..  At least in my humble opinion.

An honorable mention has to go to the 400M effort of Penn State Junior Dan Chisena.  His PR of 46.27 got some Penn Relay-like ooohs and ahhhs out of the crowd.

But the best race of all was the Mens 200M.   This year's race was named after PSU great Barney Ewell to celebrate his 100th birthday.  With PSU stars Malik Moffett and Xavier Smith in the Finals, it was bound to be good!  Here's the race captured by 1979 Penn Relay Marathon victor Tim Backenstose's cell phone...



But who was that flash in the outermost lane?  It wasn't Malik or Xavier.  It was Penn State Freshman Terrance Laird in 20.79, from the same Coatesville area that brought us both Tim Backenstose and the Dawson brothers!  Wow!