The meet is the oldest and largest in the United States, and every year - with exceptions during World Wars I and II, and during the worst of the Covid pandemic - it serves as a coming out party for ascendant high school stars and a coronation for the top collegians. Sure, there are individual and pro events, their titles highly coveted, but the core of the meet is right there in its name: the relays.
Short of a stadium gawking at an Olympic 100m final, we'd wager that the loudest track and field moments come at Penn Relays, specifically when an anchor leg of a relay - literally any relay - is attempting to pull off a pass.
Piercing through the deafening roar, you'll register tinnitus-inducing "whoops" from all corners of Franklin Field. Penn Relays attracts a devoted and knowledgeable fanbase, and everyone in attendance knows the significance of winning a coveted Penn Relays "Championship of America" wheel. The athletes know it too. Spurred on by the most cacophonous atmosphere they'll likely ever compete in, they will push themselves harder than they ever would think possible in an individual race.
Hoisting up that wheel with your teammates is special. Perhaps nobody understands that feeling more fluently than Edward Cheserek.
Cheserek is certainly in the running for the best U.S. high school and NCAA distance runner ever. As a prep standout at St. Benedict's in Newark, New Jersey, the Kenyan native won two Foot Locker championships and broke a 49-year-old high school national record that previously belonging to Gerry Lindgren (it's since been broken again). During his tenure as an Oregon Duck, Cheserek won a record 17 NCAA track and cross country titles - 15 individual and two relays. But equally important to Cheserek's legacy are the wheels he secured for his teams, both in high school and college.
Representing St. Benedict's, Cheserek carried the stick around Franklin Field's track in six races. Apparently a very good sport, he raced the 4x400m three times - splitting 49-point at least once! - in addition to his customary anchor leg duties in the Distance Medley Relay. His splits in the DMR are the stuff of legend, particularly when you consider what sort of times were considered fast during his era. In 2011, 2012, and 2013, he closed in 4:05, 4:06, and 4:05, respectively. That 4:06 anchor leg in 2012 brought his squad its first Penn Relays championship since 1935.
From there, Cheserek wasted no time making a splash collegiately - he won the 2013 NCAA cross country title his first fall in Eugene, notched additional NCAA wins in the indoor 3000m and 5000m, then took the 10,000m crown in the spring. As a sophomore he defended his cross country title and racked up four more track NCAA victories: the indoor mile and DMR, the 5000m and 10,000m outdoors. His junior year he somehow leveled up again and was the NCAA champion in cross country, the 3000m, 5000m, and DMR indoors, then the 5000m and 10,000m again outdoors. During his injury-shortened senior campaign at Oregon, he still managed to snag a pair of NCAA titles in the 3000m and 5000m indoors.
Let's pause here and come up for air.
Ingesting too long a list of accolades can make for a lousy reading experience. But appreciating all that Cheserek did as an NCAA athlete is an essential part of the King Ches Experience.
Yes, Cheserek ran very fast for his era - his first year on the pro circuit he ran the then-second-fastest indoor mile ever at 3:49.44. But above all else, on the U.S. high school and college scene, Cheserek was a winner. And short of global championships, there's no place where winning trumps time more than at the Penn Relays. Splits are ephemeral (and often fuzzy in their accuracy). Records are broken. A wheel is eternal. And during his time as a Duck, Cheserek was a massive part in Oregon winning three.
First was the 2014 DMR, which Cheserek anchored. He received the baton in second position, about half a second behind then-leaders Stanford, and tucked in for the long haul. The lead duo's pace slowed almost imperceptibly, but it was enough for two more teams to tow them back in. At the bell, Cheserek was in third, looking like he was jogging. For fans familiar with his game - either from his high school heroics or from his early NCAA successes - the result was a foregone conclusion. Cheserek's gear shift with a little over 200m to run, was a thing of beauty (watch it here) - in the blink of an eye Cheserek put three seconds on the field and never relented.
A day later, Oregon took a different tack and ran Cheserek on the second leg of the 4xMile. The leading first legs handed off around 4:11, with Cheserek accepting the baton buried in third position.
We can't crack open the heads of the guys who started leg two in front of Cheserek - we can't know for certain what they were thinking. What we do know is that they hit the gas... hard. What we can assume is that they saw what Cheserek did the day before - how he dismantled the top milers in the country with an otherworldly shock of pace - and they wanted no part in that happening again.
Nevertheless, Cheserek floated along until he reconnected with the lead then calmly tucked in as if he appreciated the temporary pace-setting... before doing the exact same thing he did in the DMR, this time with 500m to go: taking a handful of hard steps that somehow resulted in him shooting several insurmountable feet in front of the pack. (Full race video can be found here.) Cheserek was attributed with a 3:56.4 split, and his teammates never allowed the gap he'd opened up to shrink.
In 2015, the men of Oregon returned to the City of Brotherly Love in hopes of flying back west with another pair of wheels. Perhaps they wanted to build a car out of wood. Again, we can't know these things. But we do know that their "quest for quatro" got off to a great start.
The DMR was a topsy-turvy affair from the jump. Each leg's pacing ebbed and flowed, and no real rhythm was established. After 1200m, it was Oklahoma at the helm. Indiana passed off in the lead after the 400m leg. Columbia's 800m man created a bit of separation on the rest of the field, and when Edward Cheserek took the stick, he had a little over a second to make up.
You've seen this movie before. (You can watch this particular "movie" here.) Cheserek knew what he was going to do. Every other 1600m leg knew it, too. That didn't mean anybody could change what was coming.
Cheserek remained tucked in second behind Columbia's anchor at the bell, then with 300m of running left, it was actually Villanova's Jordy Williamsz who broke things open, surging to a pass on the inside. Of course Cheserek responded in kind, matching Williamsz's move on the outside of lane one. With 200m to go, it looked like Williamsz's slight jump on the kick was going to pay off.
But... it didn't. Cheserek bolted around Williamsz with 120m to go, then set the world record for most times looking back over one's shoulder mid-kick, before crossing the line, victorious.
But perhaps Cheserek's most memorable race at Penn was his only collegiate loss there. The day after anchoring his Ducks squad to the Distance Medley Relay title, Cheserek was handed the baton for the final leg of the 4xMile. His teammates - and the field still in contention - up to then had kept things honest, each splitting something in the 4:01 range. But just as soon as Cheserek took over, he hit the brakes harder than you've likely ever seen in a race by a non-injured athlete.
Go ahead, shut your eyes and envision what that looks like: the most decorated distance runner in NCAA history literally jogging the opening steps of a high-stakes anchor leg. Now watch the replay of that moment.
You can hear the crowd booing almost instantly in response to Cheserek's tactics. But also, you come to understand just how feared and respected Cheserek was. Rather than taking over the lead and pushing things in a more honest direction, each of his competitors - an increasing supply of them, given how slow the front pack was moving - threw any semblance of a race plan out the window, instead opting to key off of King Ches. Out of fear? Respect? A deluded belief in their own kicking ability? Whatever the reason, various milers momentarily assumed the lead, attempting to inject some pace in hopes that Ches would then take back over more briskly, but to no avail.
Coming around the final bend, things finally burst open. Williamsz of Villanova rockets around Cheserek and pulls off the stunner. The crowd erupts, not just because 'Nova is something of a hometown team, but because they'd done something unthinkable: took down Ed Cheserek at the height of his powers. Williamsz would go on to represent Australia at the 2017 World Championship. He had a very solid career! But his greatest athletic feat is undeniably that vicious kick at Penn Relays in 2015.
You can measure an athlete's greatness by their statistical achievements. (Cheserek checks that box 17 times at the NCAA level.) You can measure an athlete's greatness by their immediate impact on the culture of their sport. (A nickname like "King Ches" certainly points to Cheserek captivating plenty of imaginations.) But perhaps the best measure of an athlete's greatness is how their sport bends and contorts itself to try and contain said athlete's dominance. In sports like basketball, rules evolve to stifle the talents of generational stars for whom it just looks too easy.
And in track and field, you see it when a field of sub-four-minute milers and NCAA point-scorers jogs at a pace plenty of middle schoolers could maintain in the middle of one of the most important races of their lives. For a period of time, Edward Cheserek went further than distance running in America. He temporarily broke it, which is far rarer.
