Personal information | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Born | Arkansas City, Arkansas | July 9, 1951
Height | 6 ft 2 in (188 cm) |
Weight | 172 lb (78 kg) |
Sport | |
Sport | Running |
College team | University of California Los Angeles |
Achievements and titles | |
Personal best | 400m: 44.82 [1] |
Medal record | ||
---|---|---|
Men's athletics | ||
Representing the United States | ||
Olympic Games | ||
1976 Montreal | 4x400 m relay |
Maxwell Lander ("Maxie") Parks (born July 9, 1951) is an American former athlete from Fresno, California.
Winner of the USA Olympic Trials in 1976, [2] he did not gain a medal in the individual event (he came fifth [1] ), but did become a winner of a gold medal in 4 × 400 m Men's relay race with Herman Frazier, Benny Brown, and Fred Newhouse at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. In the 1970s he competed for the UCLA for several years. [3] In 1977 he ran on the 1977 IAAF Athletics World Cup, anchoring the 4 × 400 m relay team to what appeared to be a runaway victory when he collapsed on the track with a severely pulled hamstring 150m from the finish. This unfortunate injury denied the USA a seemingly certain victory in the team competition, the victory instead going to East Germany. [4] Parks did not compete again that season, but did return in 1978 to again capture the national title at 400 m.
Any hope of Olympic success in 1980 was denied by the USA boycott of those games, but in any event Parks's form meant he only reached the semi-final stage at the Olympic trials. [5]
Prior to UCLA he was a graduate of Washington Union High School, [6] then Fresno City College.
In 1979 Parks coached for the Athletes in Action. [7]
Parks was in 2010 honoured as a member of the '100 Stars for 100 Years' for Fresno City College. In the publicity for the event, Parks is stated as having received the honour of being, in 1990, inducted into the Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame. [8] Parks has also been elected into the California Community College Track and Field Hall of Fame [9]
Parks was ranked among the best in the US and the world in the 400 m/440 y events over the period 1973 to 1978, according to the votes of the experts of Track and Field News . [10] [11]
Year | World rank | US rank |
---|---|---|
1973 | - | 5th |
1974 | - | 6th |
1975 | - | - |
1976 | 5th | 3rd |
1977 | 4th | 2nd |
1978 | 4th | 3rd |
Parks was a very successful competitor in the US National Championships between 1973 and 1978: [12]
Year | 100m |
---|---|
1973 | 4th |
1974 | - |
1975 | - |
1976 | 1st |
1977 | 3rd |
1978 | 1st |
Notes for tables:
Year | Result | World Rank | Location | Date |
---|---|---|---|---|
1973 [14] | 45.5 | 9th | Bakersfield | Jun 16 |
1974 [15] | 45.76 | 11th | Austin | Aug 24 |
1975 [16] | 45.9 | 30th | Bakersfield | May 17 |
1976 [17] | 44.82 | 4th | Westwood | Jun 12 |
1977 [18] | 45.45 | 7th | Zurich | Aug 24 |
1978 [19] | 45.15 | 6th | Westwood | Jun 10 |
Alberto Juantorena is a Cuban former runner. He is the only athlete to win both the 400 and 800 m Olympic titles, which he achieved in 1976. He was ranked as world's best runner in the 400 m in 1974 and 1976–1978, and in the 800 m in 1976–77, and was chosen as the Track & Field News Athlete of the Year in 1976 and 1977.
Henry Carr was an American track and field athlete who won two gold medals at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.
Lee Edward Evans was an American sprinter. He won two gold medals in the 1968 Summer Olympics, setting world records in the 400 meters and the 4 × 400 meters relay, both of which stood for 20 and 24 years respectively. Evans co-founded the Olympic Project for Human Rights and was part of the athlete's boycott and the Black Power movement.
The 400 metres hurdles is a track and field hurdling event. The event has been on the Olympic athletics programme since 1900 for men and since 1984 for women.
Monique Marie Henderson is an American track and field athlete, who specializes in the 400-meter dash. Henderson was a gold medalist in both the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece and the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China as a member of the American 4×400-meter relay squad.
Ivory Crockett is a retired American sprinter who, for a time, was "the world's fastest man" when he broke the world record for the 100-yard dash in 1974.
Ralph Vernon Mann is a retired American sprinter and hurdler. He was an undergraduate at Brigham Young University, and later earned a Ph.D. in Biomechanics from Washington State University.
Benny Brown was an Olympic gold-medal winner in the 1976 4x400 Men's Relay running the second leg. He teamed with Herman Frazier, Fred Newhouse and Maxie Parks.
James Walker is a former American hurdler. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, he attended Auburn University from 1976-1980. Walker was one of "The Fabulous Four" along with teammates Harvey Glance, Willie Smith, and Tony Easley; together they set more school and conference records than any other foursome in the history of the Southeastern Conference. Walker qualified for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team but did not compete due to the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott. He did however receive one of 461 Congressional Gold Medals created especially for the spurned athletes.
Steve Williams is a retired track and field sprinter from the United States. He equalled the men's world records for the 100 m and 200 m with hand-timed runs of 9.9 seconds and 19.8 seconds, respectively, and was also a member of a team that set a world record in the 4 × 100 m relay.
Barton Williams is an American former hurdler. He attended California Polytechnic State University from 1975 to 1979. Williams is one of Cal Poly's all-time greatest track and field athletes.
Clifford 'Cliff' Wiley is a former American track and field athlete, who competed in the sprints events during his career. He is best known for winning the men's 400 metres event at the 1981 Athletics World Cup in Rome and the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas.
The USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships is an annual track and field competition organized by USA Track & Field, which serves as the American national championships for the sport. Since the year 1992, in the years which feature a Summer Olympics, World Athletics Championships, Pan American Games, NACAC Championships, or an IAAF Continental Cup, the championships serve as a way of selecting the best athletes for those competitions.
Joseph Edward ("Joe") Prince is a former American athlete born in San Rafael, California, and raised in East Palo Alto, California. He ran track for the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Mustangs. He was the 1974 CCAA Conference 220 yard sprint champion and earned NCAA College Division All-America honors. He is the subject of the 2008 documentary Liberation Saturday, which is based on his autobiography.
Milan Tiff is an American track and field athlete. He is best known for his triple jumping, but his skills pass through several arenas. He was the bronze medalist in the 1975 Pan American Games. At the Pan Am Games, his name shows the additional name of Abdul Rahman, and in the 1976 Olympic Trials and 1976-1977 National Championships he used the name Caleb Abdul Rahman but he has not gone by that name in other competitions since that period in time. In 1978 he used Milan Tiff in the National Championships. Tiff was an elite black athlete at UCLA at the same time as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in an era when converting to Islam was happening. He was ranked in the world top ten twice, 1975 and 1977.
Willie James Smith III was an American athlete who was the national champion 400 metres runner in 1979-80, and a gold medal winner at the 1984 Olympics in the 4 × 400 m relay.
Adolph Plummer was an American track and field athlete. He is best known for breaking the world record in the 440 yard dash in 1963, the last runner to hold the 400 m record with a time recorded for the longer 440 yards.
James Doyle Bolding, II was an American track and field athlete, primarily known for the 400 metres hurdles.
Esther Stroy is a former American track and field athlete, who competed in the sprinting events. She is best known for competing at the 1968 Olympics in the 400-meter dash as a 15-year-old, the youngest competitor at those games.
William Foster Hardin is an American retired track and field athlete. He represented the United States at the 1964 Olympics in the 400 meters hurdles. He is the son of 1936 Olympic champion Glenn Hardin. Like his father, he ran for the LSU Tigers and won the NCAA championship in the 400 hurdles 30 years after his father repeated in the 440 yard dash. He was also the USA champion at 400 meters hurdles that year, duplicating a championship his father won three times. He finished second to Rex Cawley at the 1964 Olympic Trials as Cawley set the world record. Video on YouTube @:40 In the Olympics, he was the fastest of the first round, but finished in a non-qualifying sixth in his semi-final. Cawley went on to win the gold medal.