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Jesse Owens, the son of a sharecropper and the grandson of a slave, achieved what no Olympian before him had accomplished. His incredible achievement of four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin has made him the best remembered athlete in Olympic history.
Although Adolf Hitler intended the 1936 Berlin Games to be a showcase for the Nazi ideology of Aryan racial supremacy, it would be a black man who left the biggest imprint on that year’s Games. In one of the greatest performances in Olympic history, Owens captured gold in the 100 meters, long jump, 200 meters and 4×100 meter relay, a feat that would not be matched until American Carl Lewis did the same at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
Showing promise in high school
As a child, Owens was often sick from his battles with chronic bronchial congestion and pneumonia. Still, he was expected to work, and at the young age of seven he was picking up to 100 pounds of cotton a day to help his family put food on the table.
At the age of 9, Owens moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, where the young "J.C." discovered a world far different than the slower, southern life he'd known. School proved to be one of the bigger changes. Gone was the one-room schoolhouse he'd attended in Alabama, replaced by a bigger setting with stricter teachers.
He was named James Cleveland Owens by his parents, and was fondly called ‘J.C.’
On his first day at Bolton Elementary School after moving to Cleveland at age 9, the teacher was unable to decipher his thick southern accent and thought he said his name was “Jesse” instead of ‘J.C.’
Owens was too shy to correct his new teacher in front of his new classmates, and he was called “Jesse” for the rest of his life.
His promising athletic career began in 1928 in Cleveland, Ohio where he set Junior High School records by clearing 6 feet in the high jump, and leaping 22 feet 11 3/4 inches in the broad jump. During his high school days, he won all of the major track events, including the Ohio state championship three consecutive years.
At the National Interscholastic meet in Chicago, during his senior year, he set a new high school world record by running the 100 yard dash in 9.4 seconds to tie the accepted world record, and he created a new high school world record in the 220 yard dash by running the distance in 20.7 seconds.
A week earlier he had set a new world record in the broad jump by jumping 24 feet 11 3/4 inches. Owens' sensational high school track career resulted in him being recruited by dozens of colleges. Owens chose the Ohio State University, even though OSU could not offer a track scholarship at the time.
While smashing records for the Ohio State Buckeyes track team, he became known as the “Buckeye Bullet.” Although he was the first black man elected captain of an Ohio State varsity team, Owens was barred from living in the on-campus dormitory because of the color of his skin.
An anecdote from the 1936 Olympics
Owens was almost out of the Long Jump event after making two foul jumps, when a tall, blue-eyed and blonde German long jumper named Luz Long came along and introduced himself to the American. He followed it up with a suggestion that Owens should make a mark several inches before the take-off board, and jump from there to just to play it safe.
This advice proved fruitful for Owens, who managed to qualify.
Long's fifth jump matched Owens' 25-10 during the finals, but Owens jumped 26-3¾ on his next attempt and won the gold medal with a final jump of 26-5½. The German was the first to congratulate Owens, who was expected to be a model Nazi but wasn’t one.
"It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler. You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace.”
“The sad part of the story is, I never saw Long again. He was killed in World War II."
Owens would continue to correspond with Long's family even after his close friend’s death.
Life post Olympics win
Even though Owens helped the US clinch the Olympic Games, his return was not met with the kind of fanfare one would expect. President Franklin D. Roosevelt failed to meet with Owens and congratulate him, as was typical for champions.
The athlete wouldn't be properly recognized until 1976, when President Gerald Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Owens seemed not the least bit surprised by his home country's hypocrisy.
"When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted.”
“I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the president, either."
Owens also did not have enough money to support his family despite winning four gold medals, and began to participate in stunt races against dogs, motorcycles and even horses during halftime of soccer matches and between doubleheaders of Negro League baseball games.
Owens would start 40 yards ahead of his equine competitors before sprinting for 100 yards, and he would often win by a nose.
“People said it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals.” – Jesse Owens
Owens eventually found his calling in public relations and marketing, setting up a business for himself in Chicago, Illinois, and traveling frequently around the country to speak at conventions and other business gatherings.
Jesse Owens, who smoked up to a pack of cigarettes a day for a good deal of his life, died of lung cancer in Tucson, Arizona, on March 31, 1980.
President Carter’s best explained the kind of person Jesse Owens was with these amazing words.
"Perhaps no athlete better symbolized the human struggle against tyranny, poverty and racial bigotry. His personal triumphs as a world-class athlete and record holder were the prelude to a career devoted to helping others.”
“His work with young athletes, as an unofficial ambassador overseas, and a spokesman for freedom are a rich legacy to his fellow Americans."
