Running Against All Odds

The track was soaked from the pouring rain earlier in the day. The wind blew hard and fast as the runners planted their feet on the muddy mess of a track. Crouching, they waited for the signal. The crowd roared, chanting “Oh-vens, Oh-vens,” their German accents attempting to pronounce the American runner’s name. Crack! The pistol sounded and the runners took off, blasting straight into the wind. A mere 20.7 seconds later, the race was over. Jesse Owens, representing the United
States of America, had run his way to his third gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany. He notonly won the gold in miserable conditions, but he also set a world record for the 200-meter sprint. One journalist even described him as a “dark streak of lightning.”

James Cleveland Owens, nicknamed Jesse, was born on September 12, 1913, in Oakville, Alabama. Although his family worked very hard, life was not easy for them. His parents, Henry and Emma Owens, were the children of slaves. Slavery ended in the United States in 1865, but even as free people, the Owens family faced a lot of hardship. They did not own the land on which they worked and struggled to survive. To help out, Owens, along with his nine brothers and sisters, worked with their parents in the fields. Unfortunately, this left little time for school or learning, but it did encourage Owens’ love of running. He spent his days running to the fields to help pick cotton, running to the orchards to pick fruit, and running around with siblings and friends. In 1922, when Owens was ten, his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he attended school for the very first time. Eventually, he caught up to the other students and started at Fairmount Junior High in 1928.

At Fairmount, Jesse Owens was noticed by the track team coach, Charles Riley. Coach Riley had seen Owens running around the school and knew that he had the makings of a champion. Although Owens wanted to work with Coach Riley, he worked after school to help his family and could not quit his jobs in order to practice. To solve this problem, Coach Riley met him early every morning before school to help him. Under Riley’s mentorship, Owens’ running speed and form improved greatly and, at the age of 17, he joined the track team at East Technical High School. Even as a high school student, Owens was an excellent runner who excelled at sprints, short races where you run as fast as you can. He was so talented that he tried out for the 1932 Summer Olympic team. He did not make the team, but this did not stop him.

With hard work and persistence, Owens began to set world records in sprints. College track coaches took notice and wanted to recruit him, giving him the opportunity to do something that none of his siblings had done—attend college. He chose to attend Ohio State University. Although there were thousands of students at Ohio State, only about one hundred were black and the university was segregated. Owens, therefore, faced a lot of prejudice. Despite this, he was so talented and well-liked that he quickly became captain of the Ohio State track team, the first black team captain at a Big Ten school. At Ohio State, he also did something that helped to cement his legacy as one of the greatest runners in history. In 1935, while facing a back injury, Owens found the strength and energy to compete in the Big Ten championship. On that day he won four events—two sprints, the long jump, and the low hurdles. He also did what no one else has ever been able to repeat— in less than one hour, Owens set three world records and tied another!

The 1936 Summer Olympics were coming up and, this time, Jesse Owens earned a spot on the Olympic team. These Olympic Games were hosted in Berlin, Germany, and were very controversial. At this time, Adolf Hitler was the leader of Germany. Hitler believed that one group of people was better than all the others and did not like those who were different from him. He especially disliked the Jewish people and black people, like Owens. Some Americans thought that the United States should not attend the Olympics in Berlin as a way to show Hitler and his political party, the Nazis, that they disagreed with his beliefs. Owens, however, had faced racism and prejudice in the United States. He believed that by winning his races he could show the world just how great a black athlete could be. In the end, the United States decided to participate. In the summer of 1936, Owens sailed across the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Germany to compete with athletes from forty-nine other countries.

On August 3rd, it was time for Owens to compete in his first Olympic event, the 100-meter dash. Rain was falling in Berlin making the dirt track muddy and uneven. As he lined up for the first heat, the German crowds chanted his name in anticipation. The gun sounded and Owens took off, leaving the other runners in the dust and finishing the race at his own world record speed of 10.3 seconds. Hours later, in the second heat, Owens sped through the tape once more, setting a new world record of 10.2 seconds. When the finals were held one day later, Owens took his position on the innermost lane. The gun went off and he flew to the finish line, soaring through mud. With a time of 10.3 seconds, Jesse Owens won his first gold medal of the 1936 Olympic Games and took his place on the podium as the American flag was raised to the national anthem.

The following day was the busiest for Owens. He had heats for the 200-meter dash and rounds of the long jump to face in the cold and rainy weather. In the long jump, his main competitor was a German athlete named Luz Long. Blue-eyed, blonde, and muscular, Long fit the type of person Hitler liked and was favored to win. After a tough qualifying round, the finals came down to a jump-off between Long and Owens. Ultimately, Owens jumped a huge 26 feet 5.5 inches, setting a new Olympic record. Long could not beat that and Owens took the gold medal. Despite their athletic rivalry, Long rushed to hug Owens and congratulate him on his victory. He respected Owens as a fellow athlete, despite what Hitler and the Nazis believed.

The pair jogged around the stadium arm-in-arm after the competition while the German crowds cheered. The two remained in touch until Long died fighting in World War II. The day after the long jump, Owens took the gold in the 200-meter dash, setting a world record with his time of 20.7 seconds.

For his last event of the Games, Owens competed with his American teammates in the 4x100-meter relay. He was not originally supposed to compete in this event, but at the last minute, his coaches decided to put Owens and 100-meter-dash silver medalist, Ralph Metcalfe, on the relay team. The team ran the relay with the new line-up, finishing in 39.8 seconds, setting a world record, and taking the Olympic gold. This was Owens’ fourth gold medal. Four times Jesse Owens stood proud on the Olympic podium as the Star-Spangled Banner played, showing the Nazis and the world that black athletes and black people could excel even in the face of racism and adversity.

When Owens came home from his Olympic victory, he was celebrated as a national hero. After the excitement wore off, however, Owens had a hard time finding a job and providing for his wife, Minnie Ruth Solomon, and their two daughters. It was not easy, even for a famous black runner, to overcome prejudice in the United States. Despite his fame, he had to work many different jobs just to make ends meet. In 1950, fourteen years after his Olympic victories, the Associated Press named Jesse Owens the greatest track athlete of the first half of the twentieth century. After this, Owens was paid to give speeches all over the country and world. In 1980, he died of lung cancer at the age of 66. His amazing athletic skill and the way that he stood strong against prejudice in both the United States and in Germany has inspired people all over the world.