Original from Reader's Digest, October 1960
Jesse Owens amazed the world by winning four gold medals at the
1936 Olympic Games—in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, the broad jump and the
400-meter relay. When this piece was originally published in October 1960, he
was an extremely active member of the Illinois Youth Commission, which sponsors
local committees “dedicated to keeping youngsters active in sports and out of
mischief.” Luz Long, about whom he writes here, was killed in Sicily during
World War II.
It was the summer of 1936. The Olympic
Games were being held in Berlin. Because Adolf Hitler childishly insisted that
his performers were members of a “master race,” nationalistic feelings were at
an all-time high.
I wasn’t too worried about all this.
I’d trained, sweated and disciplined myself for six years, with the Games in
mind. While I was going over on the boat, all I could think about was taking
home one or two of those gold medals. I had my eye especially on the running
broad jump. A year before, as a sophomore at Ohio State University, I’d set the
world’s record of 26 feet 8-1/4 inches. Everyone kind of expected me to win
that Olympic event hands down.
I was in for a surprise. When the time
came for the broad-jump trials, I was startled to see a tall boy hitting the
pit at almost 26 feet on his practice leaps! He turned out to be a German named
Luz Long. I was told that Hitler had kept him under wraps, evidently hoping to
win the jump with him.
I guessed that if Long won, it would
add some new support to the Nazis’ Aryan-superiority theory. After all, I am a
Negro. A little hot under the collar about Hitler’s ways, I determined to go
out there and really show Der Fuhrer and his master race who was
superior and who wasn’t.
An angry athlete is an athlete who will
make mistakes, as any coach will tell you. I was no exception. On the first of
my three qualifying jumps, I leaped from several inches beyond the take-off
board for a foul. On the second jump, I fouled even worse. “Did I come 3000
miles for this?” I thought bitterly. “To foul out of the trials and make a fool
of myself?”
Below: An amazing look at Owens and Long competing at the 1936 Berlin Games:
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