Edward P. Hurt was the long time track and football coach at Morgan State University. In the early days coach Hurt reportedly said, "We had a heck of a problem getting started; there is no question about that. There have been 17 or 18 schools in the conference down through the years, we didn't have to worry about scheduling teams." While a group of small black colleges played among themselves and received little national attention, Coach Hurt was developing a first class program. According to Hurt, "It was hard to get recognition, especially, in track and field, and we just never had a chance to compete against the better schools. When we first started trying to improve our program, nobody knew we were alive."

Coach Hurt's Morgan State thin clads won 15 CIAA conference open and closed track & field championships and 16 individual national championships. In Penn Relay competitions, Hurt's athletes earned several college class mile relay victories, one freshmen mile relay championship, one 400-meter hurdle championship and one Class A mile relay championship.