March 11, 2013
For
as long as she can recall, Constance Darnowski Stoll ’56Ed knew
that the key to success was to work hard and never lose sight of
the goal. It was that mixture of determination and perseverance
that propelled her from an amateur runner training on her own time
in a Brooklyn park to the worldwide stages of the 1952 and 1956
Olympics.
“I started competing in track when I was 12 years old,” she
recalled. “I was first sponsored by the Police Athletic League, and
then I met a gentleman who was coaching a few young ladies in a
park near my house in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He was sponsored by the
German-American Athletic Club. So I started to compete with that
group because he was an excellent hurdle coach. Even as a young
girl, I loved hurdling and was fast enough for the hurdles back
then.”
This dedicated young athlete carried her love of hurdling all
through high school, and by the time she began her studies at
Teacher’s College (now The
School of Education) on St. John’s Lewis Avenue campus, she had
already participated in her first Olympic games, held during the
summer of 1952 in Helsinki, Finland. She readily acknowledges that
the memories of that special time are as vivid today as ever.
“What most impressed me were the Opening Day ceremonies,” she said.
“Everybody was in uniform, marching into the stadium. It was so
emotional, and so fantastic to hear the crowd cheering for us.
Traveling to Helsinki was great, and we even took side trips to
England and Amsterdam. As if being on the Olympic team wasn’t
enough, I got to see other parts of the world that I would never
have seen otherwise.”
As with many St. John’s students then and now, Darnowski Stoll
needed to work to help pay her college tuition. Although her days
and nights were a whirlwind of activity, she managed to get
everything done without ever falling behind on any of her
responsibilities. Wanting to experience as much of what the
University had to offer as possible, she even found the time to
serve as President of her sorority and sportswriter for The
Quill, the Lewis Avenue student newspaper.
“While I was at St. John’s from 1952 to 1956, there were no track
teams for women,” she noted, “so I still competed for the
German-American Athletic Club. I took classes at St. John’s from 4
- 6 p.m. every day and all day on Saturday. I had a job from 9 a.m.
– 3 p.m. every day, and then I trained on Tuesdays and Thursdays
and most Sundays. And somewhere along the way, I fit in my studying
and my homework.”
A few months after graduation she was again in the Olympic
spotlight, this time competing against world-class hurdlers in
Melbourne, Australia. Returning home after the games, the two-time
Olympian decided to hang up her spikes and turn her attention from
the track to the classroom.
She began the next phase of her life as a Mathematics teacher at
New Hyde Park Memorial High School on Long Island, and subsequently
taught at a number of schools in New York and Connecticut. Along
the way she transitioned from teacher to administrator, serving
first as a middle school Guidance Counselor and finally as
Principal of the school at which she had taught for more than two
decades.
Although more than 60 years have passed since Darnowski Stoll
joined the St. John’s family, she still remains connected to the
University that played such an important role in her early
life.
“You know, everything changes over time,” she said. “and progress
is usually a good thing. The Olympics are very different today than
when I was involved, and that’s true of St. John’s as well. I’ve
watched the University evolve for so many years, and the changes
are absolutely amazing. But regardless of how much St. John’s has
changed since I was a student, the spirit is still absolutely the
same. I’m proud to say that I was inducted into the St. John’s
Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993, and even though I live in
Connecticut, I try to get to as many St. John’s events as I can.
I’ll always be proud to be associated with the University
that I love.”