Phil Edwards leads four other men racing in front of a packed Olympic stadium

Edwards (far right) competing in the men’s 800-meter event at the XI Summer Olympics (1936) in the Olympiastadion in Berlin. That year, he was named captain of the Canadian Olympic team, a bold statement as Germany hoped to use the games to prove the “superiority” of the Aryan race. (Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Dashing Into History

Phil Edwards (STERN 1930) was born in 1907 in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana), where he practiced sprinting by racing what he described to a newspaper as “an angry cow.” A track and field star at NYU, he represented Canada in the 1928, 1932, and 1936 Olympics, winning five bronze medals. Edwards also was the first recipient of what is now called the Northern Star Award, recognizing Canada’s top athlete. He became a physician specializing in tropical diseases with a distinguished medical career briefly interrupted by his military service as a captain in the Canadian Army during World War II. He was inducted into the NYU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1971, the same year he died shortly before his 64th birthday.

Black and white headshot of a smiling Phil Edwards at his Hall of Fame induction

Phil Edwards (STERN 1930). (NYU Photo Bureau)

Edwards poses with three NYU track and field teammates

Phil Edwards (far right) with his teammates during his Violet athlete days. (NYU Photo Bureau )

Edwards stands in the bronze medal spot on the victors podium

Edwards (far right) on the men’s 800-meter victors podium at the X Summer Olympics (1932) in Los Angeles. (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images )

Edwards stands in a field in this running shorts and sweatshirt emblazoned with "Canada"

Edwards proudly representing the country he called home for the majority of his life at the IX Summer Olympics (1928) in Amsterdam. (Public Domain)

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