Sport: Track & Field
Born: August 5, 1905
Died: November 15, 1993
Town: Hackensack, New Jersey
Elizabeth Gertrude Stine was born August 5, 1905 in the Bronx and grew up in Bergen County. She was the third of four children born to Thomas and Consuelo Stine, who settled in Hackensack, NJ. Women’s track and field as an organized sport was basically non-existent in the first two decades of the 20th century, but there were pockets of competitive culture around the country, including Vassar and Bryn Mawr colleges, and also at a handful of schools in northern New Jersey—where Elizabeth distinguished herself as a jumping prodigy as a schoolgirl.
Elizabeth was fortunate to come under the tutelage of Suzanne Becker, a progressive physical education teacher at Leonia High School. Becker fine-tuned Elizabeth’s technique and saw her inch up on the recognized high-jump world record as a freshman and sophomore. During the winter months, Elizabeth starred for the school’s basketball team. Sports were an important part of Elizabeth’s life—all the more so after he father passed away in 1920, when she was just 15.
In 1918, Dr. Harry Stewart formed the Women’s National Track & Field Committee. During World War I, when the women’s movement made profound strides, there had been great hope that women’s track and field events would be included in the 1920 Olympics, in Paris. After the International Olympic Committee refused, plans were made for the first international women’s track and field competition in 1922, also to be held in Paris—with an eye toward convincing the IOC to open the door to women in 1924.
The US team was chosen from athletes competing in two regional competitions. The first was held in May of 1922 at the Oaksmere School in Mamaroneck, New York. Coach Becker (by now a member of Dr. Stewart’s committee) brought her Leonia team—the smallest school in the competition—to Mamaroneck. Competitors included schoolgirls, college students, and working women who were part of athletic clubs.
Elizabeth entered the first event, the long jump. She won with a leap of exactly 16 feet, finishing ahead of the second-place finisher by nine inches. After a brief rest, Elizabeth entered what is now called a triple-jump jump but back then the “hop-step-and-jump.” The recognized world record was 33’6”. Elizabeth won the event with a new world mark of 33’10 1/4”. The final event of the day was the high jump, Elizabeth’s best, but she was fairly winded at this point. She finished second at 4’6”, one inch shy of the height cleared by Nancy Voorhees, a student at the Ethel Walker School in Connecticut, who earlier had finished behind Elizabeth in the long jump.
Leonia ended up winning the meet. The school’s 440 relay team—Leila Hopper, Martha Nyquist, Janet Hobson and Maybelle Gilliland (like Elizabeth a track prodigy)—set a new record with a time of 57.8 seconds, four seconds faster than the existing world mark. Gilliland also won the 50-yard and 100-yard sprints, with Elizabeth finishing third in the 100. Another Leonia teammate, Edith Easton, won the baseball toss at 200’ 6 ½” and she also finished third in the javelin and standing broad jump.
Coach Becker told the press that her girls had only been training intensively for two weeks. In an interview given during her junior year at Leonia, Elizabeth laid out her training philosophy: “I must work hard. I can’t eat candy, ice cream or cake. I must keep in training. I can’t sit up late. That’s the prescription for breaking world records.”
Among the other New Jersey athletes who acquitted themselves well were Camille Sabie, who won the 100-yard hurdles in record time. Sabie went on to make the US team that sailed for Paris that summer, as did Elizabeth and Maybelle.
Elizabeth, who had extended her long jumps to 17 feet in practice, was favored to win this event. She was also slated to compete in various sprints and her specialty, the high jump. The triple-jump was not part of the competition, but Elizabeth and her teammates gave an exhibition during the qualifying round. During the finals, more than 20,000 spectators showed up—a throng that did not go unnoticed by the IOC.
Elizabeth surprisingly did not figure in the medal tally at the high jump. She and Camille Sabie both made the finals in the long jump, but finished second and third, respectively. Elizabeth was not at her best in the high jump and finished far off the winning height.
Back i the US, Elizabeth continued to compete for Leonia High. At the Bergen County championships in May of 1923, more than 2,000 spectators traveled to Englewood to witness her set a new world record with a high jump of 4’10 1/2”. The Leonia team, led by Elizabeth (now a junior) and Paris teammate Gilliland (now a senior), scored more points than all of the other teams combined. Elizabeth won the standing broad jump and finished either second or third in the long jump and all of her sprints.
Around this time, Elizabeth was featured on a souvenir postcard sold in vending machines for a penny. It is believed to be the first “trading card” of an American woman track & field champion.
Meanwhile, the AAU put the final touches on its effort to take control of women’s track and field. The first AAU national championships were held in Newark’s Weequahic Park in the autumn of 1923. Elizabeth did not enter this meet, but she would soon become a force on the national scene. After graduating from Leonia High, she continued her education at the Savage School for Physical Education in New York and competed under that school’s colors at the 1925 Women’s National Track and Field Championship in Pasadena, winning the high jump with a height of 4’10” and finishing in a third-place tie in the long jump. Earlier that year, Elizabeth had established the American record in the long jump at an even 17 feet.
In 1926, Elizabeth—at this point a member of the Paterson Recreation Club (co-starring with Eleanor Egg)—entered the Women’s National AAU Track and Field Championships in Philadelphia and lost out by a quarter-inch in the high jump to Catherine McGuire; both pushed the world record past 4’11” before Elizabeth failed to clear the final height of 4’11 ¼”.
In 1928, women’s track and field events were included in the Olympics for the first time. The Olympic Trials were held in Newark, but Elizabeth did not make the team. Elizabeth joined the Millrose Athletic Association in New York and continued competing into the 1930s. In 1930, she finished 2nd in the high jump at the AAU Indoor Nationals.
The following year she married Fred Glasier, whom she had met after moving to Teaneck, and retired from competition. The couple had one son. Gilliland served as her maid of honor.
In the years that followed, as her records were eclipsed and her name faded into history, Elizabeth retained her celebrity status in Northern New Jersey athletics. In 1934, she was among the invited dignitaries at the Bergen County Record’s Women’s Outdoor State Track Championship in Hackensack. She passed away in 1993 at the age of 88 in Union.