Fresno State Athletics
July 31: "Dutch" Warmerdam wins Sullivan Award in 1942
7/31/2009 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field
July 31, 2009
FRESNO, Calif. - Fresno State Athletics has had many memorable moments during its history. Each day during the month of July, Gobulldogs.com will highlight a great moment from Fresno State Athletics history.
July 31: Bulldog track and field legend "Dutch" Warmerdam wins Sullivan Award in 1942 as America's Most Outstanding Amateur Athlete.
As a senior in college, Cornelius "Dutch" Warmerdam won the 1942 Sullivan Award as the nation's best amateur athlete after finishing second in voting for the award in 1941.
Few, if any athletes have ever dominated an event as Warmerdam did in the pole vault during the 1940's. He raised the world record from 14-11 to 15-7 3/4 outdoors in 1942, which stood for 15 years.
Warmerdam's Fresno State career spanned from 1938-42. While competing with the San Francisco Olympic Club in 1940, he won or tied nine National Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) titles, seven of which were outdoors.
Right from the beginning, he began closing in on the 15-foot barrier. He vaulted 14-4 at Stanford on April 6, 1940. On April 13, he attended a small meet at Cal. His first few vaults were 14-2, 14-5, and 14-8 ½. He then told the officials to set the bar at 15 inches.
Warmerdam became the first human ever to clear over 15 feet in the pole vault accomplishing that feat on April 13, 1940, and he did it 43 more times before University of Illinois' Bob Richards did so in 1947.
He was selected the top pole vaulter of the 20th century and voted the greatest track and field athlete of all-time in a 1955 United Press International poll. Warmerdam was never able to compete in the Olympics because the 1940 and 1944 games were cancelled due to World War II. Had the 1940 and 1944 Games not been called off, he would have been an overwhelming favorite.
By 1948 he was retired from vaulting. He began coaching professionally and therefore ineligible to compete. He later returned to Fresno State as the head track coach, a position he held from 1961-80. The Fresno State track and field facility is named in his honor.
There haven't been many athletes who have made the same kind of impact on Fresno State athletics as Warmerdam. Warmerdam is arguably one of most recognized and well-known figures in the history of Bulldog track and field.
Warmerdam grew up in Hanford, Calif., as the son of Dutch emigrants and because of his ancestry he was more commonly known as "Dutch." Warmerdam got his start in pole vaulting in his backyard using the limb of a peach tree and landing in a pit of piled up dirt.
By the time he was 16, his highest mark was 12'3, and his greatest vaulting achievement was a tie for third place in the 1932 California state high school meet. In addition to pole vaulting, Warmerdam played basketball. He was discovered by the local track coach and vaulted for Hanford High School until his graduation in 1932, after which he attended and vaulted for Fresno State.
In December of 2000, Warmerdam accepted USA Track and Field's award for American Pole Vaulter of the Century, in Reno, Nev.
Warmerdam is considered one the greatest American track and field athletes of all-time. He was selected by Fresno State fans as the greatest Bulldog athlete of the 20th century in April of 2001. Warmerdam won the balloting by fans, who were asked to select Fresno State's 25 Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century.
Soon after being named "Athlete of the Century" he passed away in Nov. 2001 at the age of 86. Dutch is a member of several halls of fame, including the National Track and Field Hall of Fame and the Millrose Games Hall of Fame.
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