Sport: Track & Field
Born: September 12, 1914
Died: September 15, 1976
Town: Somers Point, New Jersey
Eddie’s family was very well off. Fast, wiry and athletic, the boy everyone called “Obie” was unbeatable in foot races. He was a tremendous sprinter in high school and enrolled at Syracuse University in 1933 with dreams of becoming an Olympic star.
As a freshman for the Orangemen, Eddie was talked into focusing on middle-distance races, including the 600 yards, 500 yards and the quarter-mile. In 1935, Eddie won the 440 at the Princeton Invitational with a time of 47.3 seconds. He also captured the AAU outdoor title that spring. During the 1936 indoor season, Eddie was unbeaten, and set a world record in the 600 meters with a time of 57.8 seconds.
At the 1936 Olympic Trials, Eddie roomed with sprinter Marty Glickman, who would become an icon in New York sports broadcasting. Eddie finished seventh in the 400 meters, which at the time was good enough to make the US 4 x 400 relay team headed to Germany. The Americans were slight favorites in Berlin, and did indeed make it to the 4 x 400 finals. Eddie ran the third leg—as it turned out, the fastest leg at 46.7 seconds—but the US squad was already trailing England at that point and could not close the gap. Eddie’s time shaved a tenth of a second off his personal best, set a year earlier. The other runners were Harold Cagle, Robert Young and Alfred Fitch. The US team’s silver medal drew criticism from fans who wondered why Archie Williams and Jimmy LuValle were not in the mix. Both had medaled in the 400 meters.
Eddie returned to the US and dominated the competition in the 1937 indoor season, racking up victories at multiple distances. He improved on his world record in the indoor 600 meters with a time of 57.6 seconds. Eddie was named an All-American in the 400 meters for the third year in a row and graduated from Syracuse that spring. He went to work in Newark for Liberty Mutual Insurance, which had a company track team. At the outbreak of World War II, Eddie enlisted in the Navy and served on a destroyer in the Pacific.
Eddie became an insurance broker and, after retiring in the 1970s, split his time between New Jersey and Bermuda—where he and his wife, Florence, had honeymooned decades earlier. He passed away in 1976 after a bout with colon cancer. That year, he was honored by Syracuse University as a Letter Winner of Distinction. He was also a member of the Syracuse Hall of Fame and the Niagara Track & Field Hall of Fame.