Penn Relays : TCU Gets Second Chance as Mix-Up Causes Rerun

TCU and Florida were declared co-champions in the men’s 400-meter relay at the 93rd Penn Relays Saturday after a mix-up in the original race caused it to be re-run.

The rerun was necessitated when two of the five teams in the first running of the race--TCU and Tennessee--were placed in the wrong lanes after East Carolina withdrew.

The leadoff runners from TCU and Tennessee were moved over one lane, but team members were not informed of the change.

That caused much confusion on the handoffs, and TCU, the favorite and defending champion, wound up third in 40.71 seconds, behind Florida (40.22) and Auburn (40.29).

Wisconsin placed fourth in 40.94, and Tennessee, which had placed fifth in 42.55, was disqualified, apparently for running out of its lane.

Immediately, coaches Bubba Thornton of TCU and Doug Brown of Tennessee protested, and it was decided to re-run the race.

It was stipulated that Florida would be the champion if no other team beat its time during the rerun, but if one team ran faster than the Gators did originally, the two schools would be co-champions.

All of the teams were offered the opportunity to compete in the rerun, but only TCU and Auburn showed up for it.

In what amounted to a match race, TCU edged Auburn, 39.26 to 39.43. Meanwhile, Arkansas won the 6,000-meter relay for the third straight year in 15 minutes 7.3 seconds. Villanova was clocked in 15:08.5 and Indiana in 15:09.8.