Hall of Fame
ROBERT J. BLACK '50 was the finest distance runner in Rhode Island history while competing for URI in the late 1940s. He won seven national cross-country championships, six New England crowns and each of the Yankee Conference titles for which he competed. He was undefeated in cross-country in 1948, winning the national AAU, NCAA, and IC4A championships. He also won the National Collegiate Athletic Association championships in 1948 and 1949, breaking the national record in 1948. Black won every New England intercollegiate championship in which he competed. He ran the one- and two-mile events in track, winning the two-mile in the 1948 Penn Relays. He was the first president of the URI track club and became a successful social worker for the State of Rhode Island.
