Maxie Parks


Maxwell Lander Parks is an American former athlete from Fresno, California.
Winner of the USA Olympic Trials in 1976, he did not gain a medal in the individual event, but did become a winner of a gold medal in 4 × 400 m Men's relay race with Herman Frazier, Benny Brown, and Fred Newhouse at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. In the 1970s he competed for the UCLA for several years. In 1977 he ran on the 1977 IAAF Athletics World Cup, anchoring the 4 × 400 m relay team to what appeared to be a runaway victory when he collapsed on the track with a severely pulled hamstring 150m from the finish. This unfortunate injury denied the USA a seemingly certain victory in the team competition, the victory instead going to East Germany. Parks did not compete again that season, but did return in 1978 to again capture the national title at 400 m.
Any hope of Olympic success in 1980 was denied by the USA boycott of those games, but in any event Parks's form meant he only reached the semi-final stage at the Olympic trials.
Prior to UCLA he was a graduate of Washington Union High School, then Fresno City College.
Parks was in 2010 honoured as a member of the '100 Stars for 100 Years' for Fresno City College. In the publicity for the event, Parks is stated as having received the honour of being, in 1990, inducted into the Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame. Parks has also been elected into the California Community College Track and Field Hall of Fame

Rankings

Parks was ranked among the best in the US and the world in the 400 m/440 y events over the period 1973 to 1978, according to the votes of the experts of Track and Field News.
YearWorld rankUS rank
1973-5th
1974-6th
1975--
19765th3rd
19774th2nd
19784th3rd

USA Championships

Parks was a very successful competitor in the US National Championships between 1973 and 1978:
Year100m
19734th
1974-
1975-
19761st
19773rd
19781st

Best performances

Notes for tables:
  1. world rankings are based on the best time for each athlete.
  2. 440 yard times are converted to 400 metres times by subtracting 0.3 s for manual-timed results.
  3. for comparison with automatically-timed races, manual times have a factor of 0.14 s added.
YearResultWorld RankLocationDate
197345.59thBakersfieldJun 16
197445.7611thAustinAug 24
197545.930thBakersfieldMay 17
197644.824thWestwoodJun 12
197745.457thZurichAug 24
197845.156thWestwoodJun 10

Personal

Parks has a nephew, Adolphus Parks, who is a promising young college athlete.