Emmett Toppino
Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame
Track & Field, 1926-34
Jesuit High School/Loyola University/1932 Olympics
Inducted: 1971
Emmett Toppino was one of the world’s top sprinters as a star athlete at Loyola University in the early 1930s after a standout running career at Jesuit High School. He ran for legendary coach and fellow Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Famer Tad
Gormley who called him the best sprinter he had ever seen.
In 1927, as a senior at Jesuit, Toppino attracted national attention when he set a record of 9.8 seconds in the 100-yard dash at an AAU meet in Houston. He also matched the world-record time of 21.8 second sin the 220-yard dash at the same meet. He was the high scorer at the 1927 New Orleans Prep Championships.
He then established himself as one of the world’s greatest sprinters as a sprinter at Loyola for Gormley. On May 10, 1929 as a sophomore when he matched the world-record of 9.6 seconds in the 100-yard dash at the Senior Day Century Run – the featured event of the 23rd annual Southern AAU Championships.
During the 1931 season, finishing third in the national collegiate meet and second in the National AAU championships with time of 9.5 seconds.
The 1932 season saw Toppino equal the world record of 6.2 seconds in the sixty-yard dash at the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden in New York City in February, followed by a 10.4-second time in the 100-meter dash that also equaled the world record. In the National AAU championships in April, he finished a disappointing fourth in the 100-meter dash but still qualified for a place on the 1932 US Olympic team. However, his fourth-place finish eliminated any possibility of racing in the 100-meter dash, although he would be an alternate in the event of injury. He would also be a member of the relay team.
During the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, the 400-meter relay team consisted of Robert Kiesel, Hector Dyer, Frank Wykoff and Toppino and they set a new world record of 40.61 seconds in the second qualifying heat on August 6. In the finals on August 7, they broke that record with a 40.1-second time in the final, winning the gold medal and defeating the heavily favored German team. Famed sportswriter Grantland Rice described Toppino, who ran the second leg of the relay, as “a prairie fire fanned by a tornado.”
A charter member of the Loyola Athletics Hall of Fame in 1964, Toppino was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 1981.
Toppino was born July 1, 1909, in New Orleans and died Sept. 8, 1971, at the age of 62.
