Much of the background information in the biography below was gleaned from a 1988 article profiling Gaffney’s life and running career in the Allentown Morning Call. The article was published on June 19, 1988 and is available electronically (subscription required).
Joe Gaffney was a standout sprinter for the Wildcats who competed during one of the program’s peaks of success on a national and worldwide stage. He graduated from Villanova in 1954 and was inducted to the Varsity Club Hall of Fame in 1989.
Under the watchful eye of legendary track & field coach Jumbo Elliott, Gaffney was a college teammate of Charles Jenkins and Ron Delany who would each win gold medals at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. Gaffney would recall many years after his career that although he never qualified for an Olympic team he “defeated seven Olympic champions,” at one time or another.
Two races in particular stood out to Gaffney later in his life. One of those was the Buer Mayer 500 at the New York Athletic Club Games at Madison Square Garden on February 18, 1956. Gaffney recalled that he and Jenkins were even at the 400 yard mark in 48.1 seconds before Jenkins pulled away in the final 60 yards. Jenkins’ winning time of 56.4 set a new world record.
One year earlier a race during the Knights of Columbus Games at Madison Square Garden was one that Gaffney considered to be the highlight of his career. He tallied a wire-to-wire victory in the 600 yards, in the process defeating Mal Whitfield, Jenkins and Reggie Pearman. As described in Gaffney’s recollections years later, “At the time, Whitfield was undefeated for two years and was a two-time Olympic champ. Jenkins was the National AAU champ at the time…and Pearlman was the national collegiate champ.”
In 1953, the Wildcats had a chance to set a world record in the two mile relay. The team had already won at the Penn Relays and was prepared to try for a world benchmark at the Coliseum Relays, a prominent AAU meet hosted in Los Angeles. The week before the meet, Elliott instructed his athletes not to attend a prom on campus. Gaffney went, and was spotted by Elliott himself who stopped into the prom. Gaffney later said “the rest of the guys he didn’t catch.”
Elliott dismissed Gaffney from the team and Villanova missed the world record in the two mile relay by about two seconds. The ban was temporary, but the memory was vivid enough that Elliott wrote about in a book he was writing and which was incomplete at the time of his death in 1981. He wrote that “Joe got more out of it in the years to come than he did at the time he could have been a part of a record-setting team.”
Gaffney himself would later quip that “the funny thing was, I was a lousy dancer anyway. … He was quite a character. I’m honored to be remembered in his book.”
In his individual sprint events Gaffney recalled a fourth place finish at the national collegiate championships in the 440 yards with a time of 47.4. He ran every event from the 100 yards to the half mile (880 yards) as a collegian and twice finished third at the National AAU Championships.
“It was different then than it is today,” Gaffney said. “My best race was 600 yards, which isn’t an Olympic event. Back when I was in school they used to rank runners nationally from the 440 to 600 yards. Two years running I was No. 5.”
Gaffney came to Villanova after attending St. Thomas More High School in Philadelphia. Following his collegiate career, he ran for the Armed Forces Team from 1956-58 and competed at meets throughout the United States and Canada.
A Finance major, Gaffney held jobs around the country before coming to the Lehigh Valley in 1981 to work at Coplay Cement where he was the Vice President of Human Resources. He continued running for recreation and personal fitness and continued to support the Wildcats by attending several meets each year.
