Meet Ohio Wesleyan’s First-Ever Cross Country National Champion Sept. 8
Quentin Brelsford, Class of 1948, to Speak on Campus
Quentin Brelsford ’48
Quentin Brelsford, Class of 1948, became Ohio Wesleyan University’s first-ever cross country national champion of any kind—individual or team—when he conquered the field at Michigan State in the 1946 NCAA cross country national championship race.
Brelsford, a World War II veteran, will speak at noon Sept. 8 in the Benes Rooms of Hamilton-Williams Campus Center, 40 Rowland Ave., Delaware. His presentation is free and open to the public.
Brelsford’s 1946 triumph was remarkable for two specific reasons. From 1941 to 1945 he served in the Air Force during World War II as an airplane engine repairman in northern Africa and Europe. When the war ended, he returned to OWU as a junior. Additionally, Brelsford was not competing against Division III colleges only, as the Battling Bishops do today. There was no divisional competition in 1946.
Read more about his life story in the spring 2015 OWU Magazine, “OWU’s Battling Bishop Legend.”