Keith Spalding Brown (June 1913 – July 1991) was an American athlete, politician and businessman. He broke the pole vault world record both indoors and outdoors and was also a good high jumper. He later became involved in politics and served as the Republican Party’s state chairman in Arizona for two years.
Although Brown had tried pole vaulting early on, he only took it up seriously after being cut from the basketball team of his high school, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.[1] In May 1931 he cleared 13 ft 4 5⁄8 in (4.08 m) at an interscholastic meet at the Harvard Stadium, a new national high school pole vault record.[2][3] As a vaulter he followed in the footsteps of his uncle Bobby Gardner, who in 1912 had become the first jumper to clear 13 feet (3.96 m).[1][2][3][4]Brown graduated from Phillips Academy in 1931[5] and went to Yale, which at the time was a leading pole vault power thanks to its coach A. C. Gilbert.[1] As a freshman in 1932 he jumped 13 ft 10 in (4.21 m) to win the Eastern Olympic Tryouts;[1] at the final Olympic Trials in Palo Alto, however, he only cleared 13 ft 4 in (4.06 m) and tied for 7th with nine other athletes, failing to qualify for the Olympic team.[6]Brown helped Yale win an unexpected team title at the 1933 IC4A indoor championships.[7] He not only jumped a meeting record 13 ft 9 3⁄4 in (4.21 m) to tie for first in the pole vault with his Yale teammate Wirt Thompson, he also tied George Spitz of the favored New York University for first place in the high jump.[7] At the national indoor championships he shared first place with another Yale teammate, Franklin Pierce, at 13 ft 6 in (4.11 m).[1][8] He capped his indoor season on March 15 at Madison Square Garden, jumping 14 ft 1 3⁄4 in (4.31 m) for a new indoor world record.[9][10]
At the 1933 outdoor IC4A meet Brown pulled a tendon high jumping, but still shared first place with four others in the pole vault, including Olympic champion Bill Miller and outdoor world record holder Bill Graber.[11][12] He also won his first national outdoor title that summer, tying with Matt Gordy at 14 ft (4.26 m).[13] He broke his own indoor world record on February 17, 1934 with a jump of 14 ft 4 in (4.37 m), again at Madison Square Garden;[9][14][15] that summer he repeated as both IC4A champion[12] and national outdoor champion.[13]
Brown became captain of the Yale track team in 1935 and won both the pole vault and the high jump at that winter’s indoor IC4A meet.[16] In his final collegiate competition on June 1, 1935, at the outdoor IC4A Championships – the same meet where his uncle had broken the world record exactly twenty-three years earlier – Brown cleared a bar set at 14 ft 5 1⁄8 in (4.39 m), breaking Graber’s outdoor world record of 14 ft 4 3⁄8 in (4.37 m).[17][18][19][20][21] Later that summer, Brown broke the British all-comers record on two occasions and won the British championship.[22][23] A panel of experts viewed him as likely to make the American team for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin,[24] but he retired from the sport without attempting to qualify.[4][25] more
