Emmett Toppino

Sport: Track and Field

Induction Year: 1981

University: Loyola

Induction Year: 1981

In 1929, the listed world record in the 100-yard dash was 9.6 seconds – shared by five Americans and Canadian Cyril Coaffee. Charles Paddock, proclaimed the “worlds fastest human,” equaled the record six times between 1921 and 1926.

On May 10, 1929, Loyola sophomore Emmett Toppino matched the record in the Senior Day Century Run – the feature event of the 23rd annual Southern Amateur Athletic Union Championships.

The starter for that race, which was held on a rainy day in New Orleans, was George Queyrouze, who had held the Southern AAU record of 9.8 seconds since 1905.

Loyola coach “Tad” Gormley, who had developed world-class sprinter Dana Jenkins while he was coaching at LSU, called Toppino the best sprinter he had ever seen.

Two years before his 9.6 race, when he was a senior at Jesuit (New Orleans) High, Toppino attracted national attention when he set a record of 9.8 seconds in the 100-yard dash at an AAU meet in Houston.

Developed by Bill Healey, who left New Orleans to enter college coaching on the east coast after Toppino’s senior season, the Jesuit High speedster was the high point scorer in the New Orleans Preparatory School Athletic Association Championships at Tulane University with 13 points. But the sprinters were running into a stiff wind that day, and his timers were “only” 10.1 (which equaled the record) in the 100 and 23.6 in the 220-yard dash.

When he matched the world record in the 1927 Southern AAU meet, Toppino also won the 220-yard dash in 21.8 seconds. Tom Daigle of Jesuit finished second in both races.

Toppino was never listed as a co-holder of the record because Eddie Tolan of the University of Michigan lowered the record to 9.5 seconds in the first qualifying heat a few weeks later.

The best was yet to come for Toppino.

In qualifying heats for the 1931 national AAU meet at Lincoln, Nebraska, Frank Wykoff of Southern California lowered the meet record to 9.5 seconds in the first qualifying heat and Toppino equaled that record in the second heat.

Wykoff, who had established a world record of 9.4 seconds n 1930, was clocked at 9.5 again in the finals, winning the race with Toppino finishing second and Tolan third.

On the 1931 collegiate honor roll, Wykoff and Toppino were the only athletes credited with 9.5 clockings. Two others (Tolan and Southwest Conference champion Richard Houser of TCU) were listed at 9.6, and a half dozen others made the honor roll with 9.7 performances.

Labeled the “Human Bullet,” Toppino equaled the world record of 6.2 seconds in the 60-yard dash in the Milrose Games at New York’s Madison Square Garden in February of 1932. It was his first race on a hardwood track, and Toppino proved it was no fluke by tying the record six more times.

In April of 1932, he tied the world record of 10.4 secnds in the 100-meter dash. But in the national AAU championships at Stanford, Calif., he need an assist from the Kirby automatic camera – which was used for the first time in a national meet – to salvage a fourth place finish in the 100-meter dash and a berth on the United States Olympic team.

Ralph Metcalfe of Marquette University swept both spring races in the meet, as he had done in the National Collegiate Athletic Association championships a month earlier. But there was a dispute about the fourth and fifth positions in the race.

Judges originally ruled Wykoff fourth and Toppino fifth. But the automatic camera showed that Toppino was fourth and those positions were reversed.

In the Los Angeles Olympics a few weeks later, Tolan and Metcalfe finished in a virtual dead heat in the 100-meter dash as both were clocked at 10.3 seconds – three-tenths under the previous Olympic record.

Most spectators felt the race was a tie, or Metcalfe had won. But after judges viewed the film repeatedly, they ruled several hours later that Tolan had crossed the finish line two inches ahead of Metcalfe. Current rules now state the first runner to reach the finish line is the winner – and if they had been in effect in 1932, Metcalfe would’ve won the gold medal.

None of the United States’ three finalists in the 100 were members of a 400-meter relay team that lowered the world record to 40.6 seconds in a preliminary heat and then dropped it to 40 seconds flat in the final – eight-tenths under the previous record.

Legendary sports writer Grantland Rice reported that the American team of Robert Kiesel, Emmett Toppino, Hector Dyer and Frank Wykoff “not only ran away from he picked relay of the five rival nations, but set a new mark of 40 seconds flat – one of the most amazing performances in an amazing week.”

“They ran the flying legs off Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Great Britain, who finished in that order. At the bark of the starter’s gun, Bob Kiesel, the big California sprinter, was off to a much faster getaway than he drew yesterday. His passing to Toppino of New Orleans was perfect, and when Toppino got underway, he came on like a prairie fire, fanned by a tornado. It was easy to see that he was running close to record time.”

Toppino, wearing No. 42 on his back, earned his Olympic gold medal and a share of a record that embarrassed all previous performances.

Although he was a charter member of the Greater New Orleans Hall of Fame and the Loyola Hall of Fame, Toppino wasn’t nominated for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame until seven years after his death.

He died at the age of 62 on Sept. 7, 1971 – exactly 39 years and one month after he won an Olympic gold medal. Toppino was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 1981.