NCPrepTrack.com . . . Tony Waldrop (Polk Central HS) - North Carolina High School Track and Field

NCPrepTrack.com

Tony Waldrop wins the Mile in 3:59.8 at the 1974 ACC
Championships, his ninth successive sub-4-minute mile.

Tony Waldrop (Polk Central HS) as a sophomore (1968) won the state title for the 1-A/2-A schools in the mile (4:22.0).

At the 1969 state meet Waldrop ran 1:53.9 to smash by 2.3 seconds the existing 880-yard state meet record of 1:56.2 that had stood for 14 years.

Rules at the time prohibited running the 880/mile double. Waldrop won the mile (time not available) in the 1-A/2-A classification as a senior. His best mile that year was 4:18.0

At the University of North Carolina as a Morehead Scholar Waldrop, ran 1:50.2 (880y) as a freshman and 1:48.3 as a sophomore. His junior year he ran the mile in 3:57.3 and as a senior 3:53.2 -- in winning at the Penn Relays.

While at Carolina, Waldrop won six ACC titles, ran an unprecedented 11 consecutive sub-four minute miles, won NCAA titles in the indoor 1000 yards and mile, and set an indoor world record of 3:55.0

He was voted ACC Athlete of the Year for 1974, winning over national basketball player of the year David Thompson (State), and Maryland's John Lucas.

Waldrop was on the cover of Track and Field News twice in 1974.

Tony Waldrop

He set an American Collegiate Indoor Record of 3:39.8 for the 1500 meters in 1974 -- a record that was not broken until 2012. The record lasted for 38 years (!).

Waldrop received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He later became a professor in molecular and integrative physiology, and then the vice chancellor for research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

1995 Waldrop Interview - Winston-Salem Journal

In 2001 he became Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies at UNC.

Waldrop later (2010) was provost and executive vice president of the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

In 2014 Waldrop became the third President of the University of South Alabama, in Mobile.

As of late 2021 Waldrop was retired, and living in Durham, where his wife was teaching at Duke University.

Waldrop died at 70 on December 3, 2022 after a long illness.

Legendary North Carolina Miler Tony Waldrop dead at 70 - PolkSports.com

Dr. Tony G. Waldrop, 1951-2022 - SouthAlabama.edu

Waldrop is a member of the N.C. Sports Hall of Fame

2005 Article on Waldrop - LetsRun.com

Article - NSJOnline.com

Article - UCF.edu