Top 50 Cal Sports Moments -- No. 6: Sub-4, 1957

Hours after taking a final exam at Cal, Don Bowden drove to Stockton and became the first American to break the 4-minute mile

Don Bowden completes his historic run / Cal Athletics

As the Pac-12 Conference era comes to a close after more than a century, we count down the Top 50 moments involving Cal athletics.

THE MOMENT: Over the past 67 years, 762 different Americans have completed the mile run in less than 4 minutes. But no U.S. track athlete had broken that barrier when Cal undergrad Don Bowden trekked to Stockton on June 1, 1957. He made history that evening when he crossed the finish line in 3 minutes, 58.7 seconds.

THE STORY: Advised against playing football at 6-foot-3, 160 pounds while at Lincoln High School in San Jose, Don Bowden was directed to the track. He became the national high-school record-holder in the half mile before enrolling at Cal, where he set the collegiate record in the two-lap event.

But Bowden’s moment came in the mile, track and field’s glamor middle-distance event. Great Britain’s Roger Bannister famously became the first man to run a sub-4-minute mile when he clocked 3:59.4 on May 6, 1954 at the Iffley Track in Oxford, England.

Ten more men broke 4 minutes over the next three years, but no American had done it.

Bowden was tutored by Brutus Hamilton, who coached Cal athletes to 22 world records. But Hamilton, well-respected in the sport, also had predicted back in 1935 that running a sub-4 mile was impossible.

By 1957, obviously, Hamilton had changed his thinking and he believed Bowden was ready to do it. Bowden qualified to run at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics in the 1,500 — the metric mile — but didn’t make it past the first round after a bout with mononucleosis. In the spring of ’57, he was hand-timed at 4:01.6 for his mile split in a relay, enhancing the belief it was possible.

After taking an economics final in Berkeley at 1 p.m. on June 1, Bowden drove 90 minutes to the campus of what was then known as College of the Pacific to race on a cinder track at Baxter Stadium. 

The occasion was the Pacific Association AAU championships and the six-man field provided him with no pacesetter or any real competition. Bowden acknowledged years later he wasn’t feeling particularly good but Hamilton encouraged him to run at a 60-second per-lap pace.

He passed through three laps at 3:00.6 and armed with a 40-yard line, then took off. The moment he crossed the finish line with a time of 3:58.7, Bowden became the 11th man to break 4 minutes, the youngest at the time to do so and the first American.

Bowden never again broke 4 minutes and an Achilles injury derailed his bid to return to the Olympics in 1960. But nothing will change the fact he was the first American to crack the milestone.

His was the third-fastest mile of all-time when he accomplished it.

"It was a great goal. The 880 was my best race. But the race everyone was looking for was the mile,” Bowden told the San Francisco Chronicle on the 50th anniversary of his run. 

“Brutus had a great saying, 'You are divinely gifted.' I always liked that term. I had the right circumstances at the right time to do it.”

* Top 50 Moment No. 7: Andy’s Death

* Top 50 Moment No. 8: Kidd Stuff

Only specific acts that occurred while the team or athlete was at Cal were considered for the Top 50 list, and accomplishments spanning a season or a career were not included. 

Leslie Mitchell of the Cal Bears History Twitter site aided in the selection of the top 50 moments.

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo