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Jesse Owens

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Sports and games people

          Olympic medalist
               Center
            Medal record
           Men's athletics
   Gold 1936 Berlin      100 m
   Gold 1936 Berlin      200 m
   Gold 1936 Berlin 4 x 100 m relay
   Gold 1936 Berlin    Long jump

   James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens ( September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980)
   was a popular American athlete and civic leader. He participated in the
   1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany where he achieved international
   fame by winning four gold medals; one each in the 100 meter dash, the
   200 meter dash, the long jump, and for being part of the 4x100 meter
   relay team.

Early years

   Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama and moved to Cleveland, Ohio when
   he was nine years old as the seventh of the eleven children of Henry
   and Emma Owens. Owens was the grandson of a slave and the son of a
   sharecropper. He was often sick with what his mother reportedly called
   "devil's cold". He was given the name Jesse by a teacher in Cleveland
   who did not understand his accent when the young boy said he was called
   J.C.

   Throughout his life Owens attributed the success of his athletic career
   to the encouragement of Charles Riley, his junior-high track coach at
   Fairview Junior High, who had picked him off the playground and put him
   on the track team (see also Harrison Dillard, a Cleveland athlete
   inspired by Owens). Since Jesse worked in a shoe repair shop after
   school, Riley allowed Jesse to practice before school instead.

   Owens first came to national attention when, as a student of East
   Technical High School in Cleveland, Ohio, he tied the world record of
   9.4 seconds in the 100-yard dash and long-jumped 24 feet 9 1/2 inches
   at the 1933 National High School Championship meet in Chicago.

NCAA

   Owens attended Ohio State University only after employment was found
   for his father, ensuring the family could be supported. He was
   affectionately known as the "Buckeye Bullet" and won a record eight
   individual NCAA championships, four each in 1935 and 1936. The record
   of four golds at the NCAA has only been equaled by Xavier Carter, in
   2006, although his titles included relay medals too.meatspin.com

   Owens' greatest achievement came in a span of 45 minutes on May 25,
   1935 at the Big Ten meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he set four
   world records. He tied the world record for the 100 yard (91 m) dash
   (9.4 seconds) and set world records in the long jump (26-8¼, a world
   record that would last 25 years), 220 yard (201 m) dash (20.3 seconds),
   and the 220 yard low hurdles (22.6 seconds to become the first person
   to break 23 seconds). This incredible feat is widely considered one of
   the most amazing athletic achievements of all time. In fact, both NBC
   sports announcer, Bob Costas, and University of Central Florida
   Professor of Sports History, Richard C. Crepeau chose this as the most
   impressive athletic achievement since 1850.

Berlin Olympics

   In 1936 Owens arrived in Berlin to compete for the United States in the
   Summer Olympics. Adolf Hitler was using the games to show the world a
   resurgent Nazi Germany. He and other government officials had high
   hopes German athletes would dominate the games with victories.
   Meanwhile, Nazi propaganda promoted concepts of " Aryan racial
   superiority" and depicted ethnic Africans (e.g. the Rhineland Bastards)
   as inferior.

   Owens surprised many by winning four gold medals: On August 3, 1936 the
   100m dash, defeating Ralph Metcalfe; on August 4, the long jump, after
   friendly and helpful advice from German competitor Lutz Long; on August
   5, the 200m dash; and, after he was added to the 4 x 100m relay team,
   his fourth on August 9 (his performance wasn't duplicated until Carl
   Lewis won gold medals in the same events at the 1984 Summer Olympics).

   On the first day, Hitler shook hands only with the German victors and
   then left the stadium (some claim this was to avoid having to shake
   hands with Cornelius Johnson, who was African-American, but according
   to a spokesman Hitler's exit had been pre-scheduled). Olympic committee
   officials then insisted Hitler greet each and every medalist or none at
   all. Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal
   presentations.

   Owens was cheered enthusiastically by 110,000 people in Berlin's
   Olympic Stadium and later ordinary Germans sought his autograph when
   they saw him in the streets. Although had he lived in Germany, he would
   have been barred from citizenship under the Reich Citizenship Law of
   September 15, 1935 "§2 1. A Reich citizen is a subject of the State who
   is of German or related blood, who proves by his conduct that he is
   willing and fit faithfully to serve the German people and Reich."
   Nevertheless, Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same
   hotels as whites, an irony at the time, since Negroes in the United
   States were denied equal rights. After a New York ticker-tape parade in
   his honour, Owens had to ride the freight elevator to attend a
   reception for him at the Waldorf-Astoria. He later recounted:


   Jesse Owens

     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.


   Jesse Owens

Post Olympics

   After the games he had difficulty making a living and became a sports
   promoter, essentially an entertainer. He would give local sprinters a
   ten or twenty yard start and beat them in the 100 yd (91 m) dash. He
   also challenged and defeated racehorses although as he revealed later,
   the trick was to race a high-strung thoroughbred horse that would be
   frightened by the starter's pistol and give him a good jump. His
   self-promotion eventually turned into a public relations career in
   Chicago, including a long stint as a popular jazz disc jockey there. In
   1968, Owens received some criticism for supporting the racially
   turbulent XIX Olympic Games that year.

   Jesse Owens was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 by
   Gerald Ford and (posthumously) the Congressional Gold Medal by George
   H. W. Bush on March 28, 1990. In 1984, a street in Berlin was renamed
   for him and the Jesse Owens Realschule/Oberschule (a secondary school)
   is in Berlin-Lichtenberg.

   A pack-a-day smoker for 35 years, he died of lung cancer at age 66 in
   Tucson, Arizona. Owens is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.

Trivia

     * Running in Berlin, Owens (like most of the athletes) wore track
       shoes made by Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik, a German firm. The
       company later split in two, becoming Adidas and PUMA.
     * Owens endorsed presidential candidate Alf Landon in 1936.
     * Owens was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate
       Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.
     * The runner he beat in the 200m at the 1936 Summer Olympics was
       Jackie Robinson's brother, Matthew "Mack" Robinson, who also beat
       the world record at the time.
     * In the 1940s, Owens worked with exploitation filmmaker Kroger Babb
       as a "hygiene commentator" at predominately African-American
       locations during the Hygienic Productions presentations of the film
       Mom and Dad.
     * He was portrayed by Dorian Harewood in the 1984 Emmy Award winning
       television drama The Jesse Owens Story.

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