Back in 1936 when I was 3 years old Jesse owns was the star of the Berlin Olympics. He won the 100, the 200, the long jump, and anchored the winning relay. 15 years later when I was just beginning my track and field efforts, at our first high school meet I won the long jump. I went home and made a booklet with which to keep a record of my track and field “career”. I cut out a photo of Jesse at the height of one of his jumps and pasted it on the cover of my booklet.
What most people do not know is that Jesse was an all-around track champion. In addition to setting the world record in the long jump at 26 feet 8 inches, a record that stood for more than 30 years, he also high jumped 6 foot 6 inches. They say that he long jumped 20 feet on the sidewalk when he was in Junior High. More astounding is that when he came home as an Olympic Champion he was unable to find a job and had to drop out of college.
For several years Jesse went on a barn-storming tour around the country racing against local horses. I well remember when he came to my hometown and beat my friend Darrel Craig on his horse in the 100 yard dash. I will always remember seeing him out run Darrel and his horse. Years later Jesse was hired by the City of Cleveland to be Director of Parks and recreation and had an impact on Ohio sports for many years. It was such an honor to be able to actually see my hero in person.
Jesse did not only inspire me to be the best track and field competitor that I could, but unbeknown to him, he actually helped me a lot in my own development as a rising track star. When I was in high school I read a lot about Jesse and picked up several “tricks” of the long-jumping trade from reading about his training techniques. In one of the articles I read he mentioned that he had improved his long jump ability uniform stride by running the hurdles in order to develop a uniform stride when was running up the board from which he would be jumping.
This technique of developing a uniform running stride enabled him not to waste jumps, called “scratching,” by stepping over the jumping board from which the officials measured each jump. I worked hard at running the hurdles for this reason, and actually became a rather proficient hurdler in the process. Most importantly, I only scratched three times in all the years I was competing. As it turned out, my cousin Allan and I tied for first place at our State meet and our school won the State Championship.
By far the most important way Jesse helped me in my track career was in changing my jumping style from just running and jumping to “running in the air” after leaving the ground. If you have ever seen photos of Jesse himself jumping chances are they will show him high in the air seemingly running through the air. Believe it or not, this “pretending” to run in the air actually works. This is why all college track coaches teach their jumpers to develop this skill. It takes a lot of practice to perfect and requires the development of strong stomach muscles. This technique actually added over a foot to my jumps when I was in college.
To finish up by going back to the 1936 Olympics, Jesse, along with the several other black athletes, created quite a furor there because they were a slap in the face to Adolph Hitler’s claims about the superiority of Aryan Race. In fact, he altered his practice of congratulating each event’s champion in person. He actually refused to shake hands with Jesse Owens.
By way of conclusion here, a while back I wrote another blog piece about another of my boyhood heroes, namely Jackie Robinson. It remains a puzzle to me why, in a town where and at a time when Black athletes were far from popular, that I should choose two to be my “heroes”. I’m glad I did.