Craig Dixon

The 1948 Olympics arrived just a year too early for Craig Dixon. In 1949 he won the AAU and NCAA high hurdle titles for UCLA, also winning the NCAA 220 yard hurdles that year, and began a winning streak of 59 consecutive hurdles victories. His bronze medal behind gold medalist Bill Porter and silver medalist Clyde Scott completed a medal sweep for the United States. Dixon put in a strong bid for a place on the 1952 Olympic team but, after winning his heat at the Final Trials, he fell at the eighth hurdle in the final.

Dixon had been a high school star at University High School, where he was Los Angeles city champion and sat in class next to Norma Jean Baker, later a bit better known as Marilyn Monroe. Dixon later became a coach at UCLA, serving as an assistant to legendary coach Ducky Drake, and recruiting, among others, Rafer Johnson and C. K. Yang. He then went on to a successful career in industrial publishing, working for Dun and Bradstreet until 1987, then starting his own publisher’s representative firm, and finally retiring in 2004. Dixon was inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame in 1985.

Personal Bests: 100 – 10.6 (1949); 200 – 21.2 (1949); 400 – 48.6 (1950); 110H – 13.8 (1949); 440yH – 53.4 (1948).