Charlie Slade - One of the Great Unrealized Track and Field Talents

From Ed Grant (New Jersey Track):  Charlie Slade, one of the great unrealized talents in US track and field history, died Nov. 23. The announcement of his death appeared today in the Star-Ledger. There will be a memorial service Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. at the Lafayette United Presbyterian Church, 417 Rose Ave , Jersey City.

Slade was a high school teammate of 1952 Olympic 200M champion Andy Stanfield and it was he, not Andy who was considered the star of the team.

The peak of Slade's career came in 1947 when he won four events in  the prep school division of the National scholastic meet at Madison Square Garden: the 440, HHs, HJ and LJ. He had left Lincoln HS, Jersey City, after three years because he would have been overage for regular HS competition as a senior. He then spent two years at Seton Hall Prep, after which he joined Andy on the university team.

A brief illness kept me from seeing his four wins in '47, but I was there when he attempted a repeat in '48, winning the 400 and LJ, but placing 2nd in the other two. In those days, two Brooklyn schools, Boys and Bishop Loughlin, were battling for the HS division title and had large contingents of fans present for the meet. They joined together in rooting Charlie on, particularly when he uncorked a close foul in the LJ , measured at past 24 feet.

In 1946, he had won the National AAU Junior (not an age group then) 400M hurdle title and this event would probably have been his ticket to the Olympics. He also ran on a Shore AC 1600R team which narrowly missed the WR a couple of years later, so he could have been a strong contender for a relay berth as well.

But Charlie had another passion which interfered with his track career. He was a very fine jazz drummer and had his own combo both in HS and college and later played with some of the top talents in the country, touring the US and Europe during the summer while serving as a health education teacher in the public schools of his native Jersey City. He retired from active competition soon after his graduation from Seton Hall in 1952.

Lincoln should have easily won the state Group III title in 1946 with Andy and Charlie at their peaks. But Charlie, who won the 440 and HJ that day, fouled out in the LJ (which Andy won) and they lost by less than a point. This was, by the way, the first meet in which Andy competed as a sprinter---he had been a 440 runner up to then--and he finished only 3rd in the 100, while winning the 220.

In all the years since I have never seen two such multi-talented youngsters on the same team in our state. Andy was also a competent pole vaulter, a relic of his gymnastic days in Washington, DC, before moving to Jersey City. and started out as a miler, trying to emulate his older cousin, Franklin W. Dixon, the first black runner to better 4:10 for the mile. (Another talent was the triple jump, in which Andy held the state record for a number of years with a PR just past 44 feet in AAU competition).

To sum it up, it was like having two Milt Campbells, Renaldo Nehemiahs or Carl Lewises on the same team. Under present competition rules (four events, any three running you wish), they would have won that state title by a mile.