Fred Wolcott’s outstanding accomplishments earned him the reputation as Texas’s greatest track and field performer for the first 50 years of the 20th Century.

The 1935 graduate of SHS broke world records seven times during the late 1930s and early 1940s and was the first man to hold world records in the high and low hurdles simultaneously. One of his best performances came in 1940 when he broke Jesse Owen’s world record in the 220-yard low hurdles with a time of 22.6 seconds. The next year, he set the world record in the high hurdles with a time of 13.7 seconds.

Wolcott never earned an Olympic medal since no Olympic games were held during World War II, but he did win seven National AAU titles, five NCAA championships, and 10 SWC individual gold medals.

He was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1958.