Top U.S. Athlete Got Her Running Start at the Cake Race

It’s been going on since 1930, and Davidson College is the only one we know of that has first-year students running a 1.7-mile course for the sweet reward of cake. (Apologies if there are others, but we did it first.)

On Wednesday, class of 2029 runners raced through campus to claim their confections. And while the class has some extremely speedy people, it was an alum from 1980 who caught Runner’s World’s attention. 

Susan Davidson Rollins, a retired pathologist in Johnson City, Tennessee, is one of the country’s fastest senior women runners. And if we can brag for a moment, she told the magazine she started running back in 1976 at Davidson’s Cake Race. She won the women’s race that year, and as a sophomore, helped start the college’s first women’s cross-country team.

She’s been running ever since, and in 2015, competed in her first National Senior Games, setting a new record in the women’s 55–59-year-old category, running 1,500 meters in 5:23 minutes.

At this year’s games in Des Moines, Iowa, she took second place in the mile race, third in the 10K, and fifth in the 5K for women overall; and was first in all those races in the 65-69 age bracket, setting new records in all three events.

Despite some arthritis and knee issues, including a knee replacement, she still runs about once a week, swims and lifts weights, because she believes in the adage that “motion is lotion.”

The Cake Race is one of Davidson’s most cherished traditions. It dates to a 1930s track coach who decided to scout out new talent by ordering all freshmen (then men only) to race.

Faculty members’ wives baked the cakes back then; these days the entire college community, as well as the town of Davidson, local schools, churches and businesses descend upon the Baker Sports Complex with their offerings.

It’s fun, but it’s also a way to let the new students know that the community they’ve joined cares about them and wants them to love their college experience.

While some bakers keep it simple, others create elaborate, sometimes gravity-defying concoctions you wouldn’t be surprised to see on The Great British Bake Off television show (kind of a Runner’s World for bakers).

The Cake Race is no longer mandatory for first-year students. It’s no surprise that track and cross-country team members usually come in at the top of the heap. Runners select cakes in the order they came in, with winners usually leaving with the most impressive offerings.

Perhaps some of this year’s Cake Racers will find inspiration in Rollins’ story.

She had never run before she got to Davidson and learned she’d be required to compete in the race. She was surprised, even more so when she won and got to select the first cake. She doesn’t remember what it was, just that it was delicious and that she and her dormmates in Watts lived on cake that night.

After the race, she’d take study breaks to run on the college’s track. That’s when she met legendary men’s cross-country runner and coach Sterling Martin ’63, who told her and a few others that if they could run a three-mile course by the next fall, he’d take them to a tournament and help start a women’s team. 

They could, and women’s sports opportunities grew at Davidson. Rollins and Martin remain close friends today.

Life as a scholar athlete opened doors for Rollins, who gained new friends and enjoyed competing. Running helped her reduce stress during medical school and throughout her career.

At her 15th Davidson reunion, she ran a race pushing her first child, Jacqueline, in a stroller and won, beating the college’s cross-country runners. (Her younger daughter, Harriet Rollins Coggan, graduated from Davidson in 2019.)

These days Rollins and her husband, Ed, who she met in medical school, keep busy tending their 200-acre farm and a variety of hobbies. Recently, she became a volunteer cross-country coach for second through eighth graders at a local school.

Who knows? Perhaps one of them will end up running in the Cake Race someday.

She laughs at how little she knew about running before that race.

“I didn’t even know how long the course was going to be,” she said. “I just went out and ran the race. I guess I really liked the feeling of being totally exhausted and just on the other side of getting sick.”

When she saw the table of cakes, she thought, “Really, I get to choose one of these?

“It was such fun. It’s such a great tradition.”