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Joseph James Yancey, Jr. (1910-1991) co-founded the New York Pioneer Track and Field Club. Its interracial track team, which nurtured many Olympic athletes, was the first of its kind in the United States. In the 1948, 1952, and 1956 Olympics, Yancey served as the head coach of the Jamaican Olympic team. His 1952 group included the “Flying Quartet,” a relay team that ran the 1,600 meter race in 3 minutes and 3.9 seconds, thereby winning the gold medal in world-record time. He also worked with Olympic teams from the Bahamas, British Guiana (now Guyana), and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Yancey never had an opportunity to coach an Olympic team for the United States. However, one of the boys he mentored at the Pioneer Club—Larry Ellis, first African-American coach of an Ivy League sport—coached the 1984 U.S. men's track and field team.