IAAF logo (© IAAF.org)
Cordner Nelson, the founding editor of Track & Field News, died of cancer Monday (26) at his home in Carmel, California. He was 91.
Cordner Bruce Nelson, 6 August 1918 – 26 October 2009
Nelson was a casual athletics fan as a boy growing up in Southern California. He recalled playing at high jumping as a seven-year-old, and organizing neighbourhood street races in his early teens. His interest was whetted by the approach of the 1932 Olympic Games in nearby Los Angeles, where he attended two athletics sessions. For the rest of his life, he went to every major meeting he could get to.
Shortly after graduating from college in 1940, he was called to active service in the U.S. Army as a lieutenant. His 4-1/2 years in the Army took him to Australia, India, Burma and China, and he was discharged in November 1945 as a major.
Hoping to become a novelist, he spent 1946 and 1947 as a graduate student in creative writing, but put that career on hold when he and his younger brother, Bert, decided to start an athletics magazine, Track & Field News, with Cordner serving as editor.
Nelson was among the first athletics writers in America who delved deeply into the techniques and methods of athletics training – the how as well as the what of the sport. His articles in the early 1950s introduced interval training to American coaches, and the magazine opened its pages to articles by experts on such subjects as fartlek, javelin throwing and pole vaulting.
That technical knowledge -- plus keen observational skills -- gave his reports on meetings a depth and lucidity that changed athletics writing in the United States, giving readers the feeling that they had actually been at the meeting.
Nelson was also an early member of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians, and the magazine pioneered a consistent approach to statistical presentation, such as annual world lists. In the 1950s, the magazine began publishing T&FN’s annual World Rankings, which today are almost universally recognized as the definitive authority.
He authored a number of books on athletics, including the classic Runners and Races: 1500/Mile, (with Roberto Quercetani); The Jim Ryun Story; The Great Ones; Track's Greatest Champions; and The Advanced Running Book. Other titles included Careers in Pro Sports; Excelling in Sports: How to Train; and even a successful novel, The Miler.
Nelson was a fan as well as a journalist. Upon returning from the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, he devised the first known “fantasy sports” game, not surprisingly based on athletics. A descendant of that original game is still active today, with rules much like the ones he drew up in 1956.
IAAF
With thanks to James Dunaway
