Ken Doherty (track and field)
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| Personal information | ||||||||||
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| Born | May 16, 1905 Detroit, Michigan, United States |
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| Died | April 19, 1996 (aged 90) Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States |
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| Alma mater | University of Michigan | |||||||||
| Height | 185 cm (6 ft 1 in) | |||||||||
| Weight | 75 kg (165 lb) | |||||||||
| Spouse(s) | Lucile Mason | |||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||
| Sport | Athletics | |||||||||
| Event(s) | Decathlon | |||||||||
| Club | Cadillac Athletic Club | |||||||||
| Achievements and titles | ||||||||||
| Personal best(s) | 7784 (1929) | |||||||||
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Medal record
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John Kenneth Doherty (May 16, 1905 – April 19, 1996) was an American decathlon champion, college track and field coach, author and longtime director of the Penn Relays. While a student at the University of Michigan, Doherty won the American decathlon championship in 1928 and 1929 and won the bronze medal in the event at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. He later served as a track coach at Princeton University (1929–1930), the University of Michigan (1930–1948), and the University of Pennsylvania (1948–1957). He was also the meet director for the Penn Relays from 1956 to 1969 and of the first dual track meet between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1959. He was also a published author of works on track coaching, and his Track & Field Omnibook was regarded as "the track coach's bible" from the 1970s through the 1990s. Doherty has been inducted into at least six athletic halls of fame, including the National Track and Field Hall of Fame and athletic halls of fame at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, and Wayne State University.
Born of Canadian parents who crossed the Detroit River to find work in Detroit, Michigan, Doherty recalled learning about track and field at age six when the local pole vault champion lived across the street: "I took my mother's clothes pole and tried to clear a string stretched across two fence posts." Doherty attended Detroit's Western High School where he did not earn a letter. He later recalled being small for his age in high school and joked that, at the end of high school, "they gave me a letter for long and faithful service!"
He enrolled in the College of the City of Detroit (later known as Wayne State University) in 1923 but did not try out for the track team until his junior year. He tried out for the track team as a high jumper, but the school's track coach, David L. Holmes, saw Doherty's potential as an all-around athlete in the decathlon, and entered him in competitions in the Penn Relays, the Illinois relays and the Ohio Relays. Doherty won four letters at Detroit City College, and was elected the student body president. He trained indoor on a track built in the 1880s for City College's "Old Main," when that large building served as Detroit's Central High School. He trained for outdoor track on a field maintained by the City of Detroit on an island in the Detroit River, Belle Isle, two miles from City College. As Doherty indicates in his autobiography, the outdoors team had neither dressing room nor showers. Even in his time, these facilities were outdated.
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