Jersey City Times: Pershing Field: Its Little-Known History as a Proving Ground for Track and Field Champions
- Museum Jersey City History
- Aug 1
- 5 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Pershing Field: Its Little-Known History as a Proving Ground for Track and Field Champions
This is the fourth in a weekly series of essays on Jersey City’s illustrious sports history. It complements the Museum of Jersey City History’s current exhibit Legendary Arenas and the Legends Who Performed There at the Apple Tree House (298 Academy Street). The exhibit is open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1:00 to 5:00 pm. until October 15.
by Peter Begans
August 1, 2025
Pershing Field was built as a world-class track and field facility and dedicated to the dead of World War I. “I dedicate this field and monument in recognition of the boys of Jersey City who made the supreme sacrifice,” General John J. Pershing stated at the solemn dedication on June 9, 1923, before 25,000 spectators. Afterward, troops of the Second Army Corps participated in track and field events and war games. The N.Y. Times said it was the largest military field day since the U.S. Army’s Olympic games were held in St. Louis in 1920. Military athletic events would continue at Pershing Field through the 1920s.
Pershing Field would present excellent opportunities for tennis, basketball, swimming, baseball, and ice skating. But the broad open space between Summit and Central, which had long been held for an additional city reservoir, was truly perfect for track and field. The first competition of note was the AAU’s New York Regional Championships of 1921, two years before the park was formally dedicated. Local, regional and national meets continued well into the 1960s.
In 1930, Pershing Field hosted an international athletic carnival to celebrate Jersey City’s 300th anniversary. (Mayor Hague took the first settlements of Michael Pauw to be the city’s beginning, not the founding of Bergen Square.) The event featured the national AAU Men‘s Pentathlon Championship. Barney Berlinger of the Penn AC won the five-event competition that included long jump, javelin throw, 200 meters, discus throw, and a 1500-meters race. In 1931, Berlinger would receive the James E. Sullivan Award as America’s outstanding amateur sportsman. Two years later he would win the AAU National Decathlon Championship, seen as the nation’s top male athlete. The 300-anniversary athletic carnival also featured a 12-mile “mini-marathon” run through the streets of Jersey City and won, fittingly, by a Dutchman, Paul De Bruyn.
One of Pershing Field’s most remarkable events occurred on July 25, 1931 when it hosted the 1931 Women’s Amateur Athletic Union national championships. The event served as a qualifier for the 1932 Olympic Games and drew a crowd of 15,000. The 1931 AAU Championships took place amidst a fierce debate over women’s role in sports. Many questioned whether women should compete in longer, more strenuous events such as the 800-meter run. Some believed women should not compete in intense competition at all.
During the AAU championship, 19-year-old Gertude “Babe” Didrikson from Dallas emerged as one of America’s greatest female athletes, winning three events and breaking the world record for 80 -meter hurdles – despite the course being two feet, four inches too long! Arthur Daley of the New York Times wrote on July 26, “A new feminine athletic marvel catapulted herself to the forefront as an American Olympic possibility… yesterday when 19-year-old Miss Mildred (Babe) Didrikson of Dallas broke the world’s record for 80-meter high hurdles, shattered the American mark for the baseball throw, and topped off her activities with a victory in the broad jump.“
A local entrant, New Jerseyan Eleanor Egg was able to upset favorite Stella Walsh, a Polish immigrant from Cleveland, in the 100-yard dash. A year later at the Los Angeles Olympics, Walsh, who would compete as Stanislawa Walasiewicz representing Poland, won the 100 meters in 11.9 seconds, surpassing the old world mark of 12.0 and the Olympic record of 12.2.
Stella Walsh would make other news that July day at Pershing Field. During the discus competition, she hurled an errant toss and fractured the skull of a spectator. Walsh was placed under temporary police detention on-site until cleared for further competition.
Didrikson, Egg, and Walsh would go on to renowned athletic careers, within track and field and beyond. Didrikson won two gold medals and one silver medal at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, setting four world records during the competition. She later would marry and take the name Zakarias, become a champion golfer, and be named by The Associated Press Woman Athlete of the 20th Century.
Walsh, who competed into her 50s, would also be named as one of the century’s greatest female athletes. After winning gold for Poland at the ’32 Games, she returned to the United States where she lived until her murder in 1980. Her autopsy would determine that she had actually competed as an intersex athlete throughout her career, bringing as much notoriety in death as in life.
Eleanor Egg, who had already set world records in the 4X100 relay and the broad jump as part of the fabulous Paterson Girls’ Recreation Program in the 1920s, hoped her defeat of Walsh would lead to a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. Unfortunately, she was plagued by an ankle injury and never made it to either the Los Angeles or Berlin Games. She would go on to have a legendary career as a track and field coach and dance instructor in New Jersey.
Pershing Field was the site of other remarkable achievements. Al Blozis of Dickinson set the world’s Interscholastic shot-put record there in 1938. He would go on to an outstanding track and field career at Georgetown (three-time NCAA and AAU Champ) and later become an all-pro lineman with the N.Y. Giants, before losing his life heroically at the Battle of the Bulge.
In the 1970s, some of the America’s best college basketball players participated in a renowned outdoor summer league constructed at Pershing Field. They included local legends Jimmy Spanarkel (Duke), Jimmy Boylan (Marquette), Mike O’Koren (North Carolina), as well as other top players from around the country.
Today, Pershing Field remains an important part of the Jersey City parks system. A notable architectural feature is the Romanesque Revival entrance to the 4th Regiment Armory, moved to Pershing Field in 1941, after the Armory’s destruction by fire in 1927.
Peter Begans
Peter Begans is the curator of MJCH’s Legendary Arenas… and the Legends Who Performed There. He was born and raised in Jersey City and has had a long career as a teacher, journalist, speechwriter and public affairs representative.