Leone Smashes Meet Record for 440 At Championships in Quincy Sunday

Crimson runner Nick Leone Sunday shaved two-tenths of a second off the meet record in the 440 at the 85th New England Track and Field Championships in Quincy.

Leone, 1973-74 captain of the Harvard thinclads, covered the distance in 48.1 seconds, as a loose contingent of Harvard trackmen managed to grab second place in the meet.

In the only other events in which Harvard performers placed, Ric Rojas took first place in the three-mile run while sophomore Kevin McCafferty captured third place in the shot-put.

Rojas, a senior and standout for the Crimson cross-country squad and the cindermen, clocked a winning time of 14 minutes, 16 and four-tenths seconds.

In the 440, Leone bested Joe Mulligan's 1956 time of 48.3 to set the only new meet record at the Sunday spectacle.

Harvard coach Edgar Stowell, who could not make the meet because he was in Texas, applauded his runners' efforts last night.

Stowell said Sunday was a "tough day for running, what with the heat in the 90s."

Leone, whose record 440 was his last race in a Harvard uniform, was hampered this season by an injury to his calf.

Stowell said the injury hindered Leone's performance in the indoor season but that he was undefeated in the quarter-mile during the spring season. "He's now starting to round out into some condition," Stowell added.

Rojas will continue to run in the amateur circuit, Stowell predicted, adding that the distance man is a candidate for the 1976 summer Olympics in Montreal.

"We're going to miss them," Stowell said of Rojas and Leone.

Over 300 athletes competed in the Championships, which a rag-tag group of Crimson cindermen won last year. This time the Greater Boston Club was victorious with 56 points to Harvard's 17, while the Aquid Neck Island trackmen finished with 14 points. Over 20 clubs or associations were represented at the meet.

Tim Walker, the 16-year-old high school sensation from Newport, R.I., won the high jump going away, but stopped at 6 feet, 8 inches instead of challenging the meet record.

Walker cleared seven feet Sunday in the New England High School Meet and was saving himself for the National Junior Championships next weekend in Florida.

The only double winner Sunday was Worcester State grad John Dupuis who won both the discus and the shot-put.

Leone's record helped offset Crimson high-jumper Mel Embree's failure to score last week at the NCAA championship finals in Houston, Tex. Embree cleared 7 ft.. but so did 14 other jumpers.