The Greatest Performance Ever

     Ninety years ago last week — in the early days of August 1936 — a 22-year-old black American accomplished something majestic, something so incredible, it is to be remembered as long as people celebrate the idea that no race or religion is inherently superior or inferior to another. 

    A soft-spoken young man, Jesse Owens, was the son of black Alabama sharecroppers. Sickly as a child, he began working in the fields when he was 7, expected to bag 100 pounds of cotton a day. When he was 9, his family moved to Ohio, where in junior high school it became evident that he, maybe, had a talent for running.

    Talk about gross understatements! In Berlin, Germany, during that summer of 1936, Adolf Hitler was host of the Olympic Games. Hitler's main goal was to establish once and for all that there was an Aryan master race, symbolized by Germany’s Olympians. Owens, by that point a champion track athlete at Ohio State University, was on the U.S. team.

    In a newly constructed 110,000-seat Olympiastadion stadium, the grandson of slaves showed the world that Hitler, again, could not have been more wrong. Owens won the gold medal in the 100-meter dash. He won another gold medal in the long jump. He won a 3rd gold in the 200-meter dash. And then, just for good measure, he won a 4th in the 400-meter relay! Each time he stood with his gold medals on the awards podium as “The Star-Spangled Banner” sounded through Hitler’s stadium, the world received the message loud and clear. 

    Few people alive today have firsthand memories of Owen’s triumph in Berlin. The writer Bob Greene, tells us that those, like him, born in central Ohio after World War II didn’t know, because they were so young, of the indignities Owens had faced when he returned to a segregated United States from the Olympic Games after the cheers had faded; the trouble finding meaningful work, the barnstorming, the carnival-like tours in which he raced against horses, motorcycles and dogs to support his family.

    In the late 1950s and early 1960s, though, America was beginning to change, and with that change Owens began to receive the respect he deserved. It was said that you could see the respect in the eyes of people who came out to hear him speak, whether in central Ohio or farther throughout the United States. On summer days, it wasn’t hard to sneak into an empty Ohio stadium and to step onto the track that surrounded the football field. Youngsters of all races used to race each other on that same cinder track where Owens once plied his athletic trade. How cool is that!

    The first title I put above this little essay included a question mark. I did that because whenever you state something with the word “Greatest” in it, every Tom, Dick, and Moron comments on social media giving multiple opinions (including what an idiot the writer is), and examples of what they think was the greatest sports performance ever. And I get that. In fact, I have done that...maybe more than once. However, while typing and doing a little research, and remembering my history, I finally took the question mark away. I did that because I started thinking about the 1980 United States hockey team. That was huge! And like many of you, I watched it. It was probably the most exciting and most patriotic event I’ve ever been a part of. But, and there’s always a ‘But.’ First of all, it was not unprecedented. The U.S. won the mens’ hockey gold in 1960. Secondly, it’s a team sport. I think an individual achievement like Owens’ trumps a team sport where you can get a lot of help. But that’s just me. My blog, my rules! Oh, yeah! Team USA won at home. Huge home-field advantage! Owens had to go on the road. That’s huge! Very, very hostile. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. 

    Jesse Owens did not just win multiple medals in an Olympiad. More than a few athletes have done that over the years. Owens, on the other hand, did it when Black men, even American Black men, were, in many respects, still considered second-class citizens. And he did it in the bowels of our own little hell on earth, known as Nazi Germany. He was Nike before Nike: Just Do It! He was Al Davis before Al Davis: Just Win, Baby! And he Mr. Owens was as American as it gets. 

    What Jesse Owens did at those Olympic Games 90 Augusts ago in 1936 — and what it signified to a world on the verge of a global war that would cancel the Olympics until 1948 — still resounds. It could have been anyone who showed Hitler, to his face, that his view of life was a lie. It could have been anyone, but it was Jesse Owens. Always and forever, it was Jesse.

Write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com