Josiah Calvin McCracken (March 30, 1874 – February 15, 1962) was an American football player and track and field athlete.
Early life: football and track achievements
McCracken, nicknamed Joe, was born in Lincoln County, Tennessee. His earliest known Ulster-Scots ancestors settled in Pennsylvania before the French and Indian War. When McCracken was eight years old, his parents moved to Garnett, Kansas, and by the age of 17, the family was living in Sterling, Kansas. McCracken excelled at both football and track and field while a school boy in Kansas. He was heavily recruited by the University of Kansas, Cornell University, and the University of Pennsylvania. The 1896 Kansas Jayhawks football team was coached was Hector Cowan a Princeton University graduate, an 1889 College Football All-America Team selection, and a future member of the College Football Hall of Fame. In addition to coaching football, Cowan was a Presbyterian minister. McCracken was raised in a devout Presbyterian family. After living on the plains of Kansas for 14 years, McCracken transferred in 1896 from Cooper College, a Presbyterian institution known today as Sterling College, along with University of Kansas transfer John Outland, to attend the University of Pennsylvania and played football under future College Football Hall of Fame coach George Washington Woodruff. Both McCracken and Outland graduated from Penn with degrees in medicine. Unlike Cornell and Penn, the University of Kansas did not have a medical school in 1896.
While at Penn, McCracken was an all around student athlete, playing varsity football four years, track four years (captain his senior year) and was a member of the gymnastics team. McCracken was named to Walter Camp's College All American football team on three occasions. He was a third-team All American in 1897; a second-team All American in 1898 and in 1899 a first-team All American. McCracken played primarily as an offensive fullback and defensive guard. During 1899 he played alongside Outland and A. R. Kennedy, another transfer students from the University of Kansas football program. McCracken, Outland and Kennedy were known around Philadelphia's Franklin Field as the "Kansas Musketeers". During McCracken's four years of playing football at Penn (1897–1900) the football team compiled a 47–5–2 record.
On May 31, 1898, McCracken set a world record in the hammer throw with a distance of 46.83m (153–8 ft) at a meet in New Jersey. After college, he won a silver and bronze medal at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris.
McCracken was elected president of his class all four years at Penn, was president of the Christian Association three years, president of the Houston Club one year, and an associate editor of the student newspaper, The Pennsylvanian. A New York Times article of April 11, 1901 described him as "the University of Pennsylvania's best all around athlete and the most popular man at the university..." When McCracken graduated in 1901 with his medical degree and received his diploma, the whole audience rose to their feet and loudly applauded, an ovation never before given in the history of the university.
1900 Olympics
McCracken's previous world record in the hammer throw earned him a spot on the U.S. Olympic team and a trip to the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. During the Paris Olympics, The New York Times reported on July 16, 1900, that the French Olympic Committee had shifted several final events to Sunday and that American athletes including Josiah McCracken from Penn and Robert Garrett from Princeton University refused for religious reasons to compete in any Olympic events that were scheduled on Sunday. McCracken and Garrett were replaced with athletes from Hungary and Greece. Richard Sheldon also representing the US, elected to participate on Sunday and won the gold medal in the shot put. Fortunately, McCracken's and Garrett's Saturday qualifying results in the shot put were good enough to earn them silver and bronze medals respectively in the shot put event. McCracken also received the bronze medal in the hammer throw.