When a Gold Medal Meant Something

Just happened to catch the Jesse Owens story while channel surfing. Classic B/W flick narrated by Jesse himself discussing the 1936 Olympics.

Really amazing story that probably does not get near the attention that it should. The pictures of Hitler refusing to shake Owens hand are amazing. Also amazing at medal ceremony to see US flag raised next to Nazi flag.Hearing Jesse Owens tell the story himself as he walks through Berlin stadium is riveting. What a gentlemen Owens was.

He tells an interesting story of ticker tape parade thrown in his honor in NYC. During parade someone tossed a bag into his car. He thought it was a sandwich and did not open it . After parade he was about to toss bag out and decided to open it - it had $10,000 with no note.

 

Owens needed that money. Sometime after the Olympics, my Dad saw Owens in a match race against dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson at Ruppert Stadium in Newark. Owens spotted him a 35-yard lead, but Bojangles had to run backwards. Bojangles still nearly beat him.

 

What is less remembered about the Nazi Olympics is the saga of two American Jewish sprinters, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller. The 18-year-old Glickman had been a track and football star at Syracuse University, while Stoller competed for the University of Michigan. The two young men made the U. S. Olympic squad as members of the 400-yard relay team. Glickman and Stoller traveled to Germany and prepared diligently for the relay race. The day before the race, however, with little explanation, the U.S. track team coaches replaced Glickman and Stoller with two other runners, Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, both African-Americans.

By Glickman’s own account, the last-minute switch was a straightforward case of anti-Semitism. Avery Brundage, chairman of the United States Olympic Committee, was an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler’s regime and denied that the Nazis followed anti-Semitic policies. Brundage and assistant U. S. Olympic track coach Dean Cromwell were members of America First, an isolationist political movement that attracted American Nazi sympathizers. Additionally, Cromwell coached two of the other Olympic sprinters, Foy Draper and Frank Wyckoff, at the University of Southern California and openly favored those two over Glickman and Stoller.

Glickman’s suspicions about the fairness of the relay team selection process began at the American Olympic team trials in New York, when he was told he placed fifth of the seven runners competing in the sprint finals. Finish-line photography was not yet in use at that time, but films of the race seem to indicate that Glickman actually finished third behind Owens and Metcalfe. The judges, apparently under pressure from Cromwell, placed Glickman fifth behind Draper and Wyckoff. As a result, Glickman was not one of the three sprinters entered in the 100-yard dash, a premiere Olympic event. Instead, Glickman and Stoller traveled to Berlin as part of the 400-yard relay team, each scheduled to run a 100-yard leg of the race.

As an 18 year old, Glickman was grateful to be going to the Olympics, even if he felt that he’d been robbed of his chance at a medal in the 100 yard dash. There was an effort made by some American Jewish organizations to convince the U. S. Olympic committee to boycott the Nazi Olympics, but Brundage prevailed and the team went. Glickman, like most American Jews, thought that the anti-Semitism he might encounter in Berlin would be no worse than what he faced growing up in Brooklyn. Like many Americans, Glickman had no inkling of the horrific fate awaiting German Jewry in the years after 1936.

Once in Germany, Glickman, Stoller, Draper and Wyckoff spent two weeks practicing as the 400-yard relay team. They were confident of victory. Then, on the day of the qualifying trials, head track coach Lawson Robertson told Glickman and Stoller that Owens and Metcalfe would be replacing them. To his credit, Owens protested to Robertson that Glickman and Stoller deserved to run. Glickman pointed out to Robertson that any combination of the seven teammates could win the race by 15 yards. Robertson replied that he would enter his four best athletes in the relay and that, in his judgment, Owens and Metcalfe were better than Stoller and Glickman. Robertson said his goal was winning, nothing more. Glickman turned to assistant coach Cromwell and said, "Coach, you know that Sam and I are the only two Jews on the track team. If we don’t run there’s bound to be a lot of criticism back home." Cromwell retorted, "We’ll take our chances." The American team won in record time as Glickman watched from the stands.

Glickman (who remained a close friend of Owens until the latter’s death) and Stoller were devastated by the decision. Stoller, age 21, announced his retirement from track competition but later recanted. Later that year he won an NCAA sprint championship. Glickman returned to college and became a football All-American. After a brief professional career in football and basketball, Glickman went on to become a distinguished sportscaster, best known as the voice of the New York Knicks and football Giants. Despite his later success, the disillusionment of the 1936 Olympics always loomed large for Glickman. He recalled returning to Olympic Stadium in Berlin in 1985 as part of a tribute to Jesse Owens. Glickman was surprised by his reactions. He told historian Peter Levine:

As I walked into the stadium, I began to get so angry. I began to get so mad. It shocked the hell out of me that this thing of forty-nine years ago could still evoke this anger… I was cussing...I was really amazed at myself, at this feeling of anger. Not about the German Nazis …that was a given. But the anger at Avery Brundage and Dean Cromwell for not allowing an eighteen-year-old kid to compete in the Olympic Games just because he was Jewish.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/glickman.html

 

The 1936 Olympics really was an amazing event when you think of what happened not to long afterwards.

Both Jesse Owens and Marty Glickman were both elegant gentlemen that clearly suffered true predjudice and indignity in their lives yet they never seemed bitter.

It gets hard accept the Pac Man Jones apoligists when they tell us that we should not judge him because of his rough upbringing.

 

Gold medals still mean something. Thanks for keeping a story like this alive to remind us of that statement.

 

Jeremy Schaap just finished a really good book about this whole thing. There's an interesting interview he recently gave about the book on NPR's website.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7480112&ft=1&f=1033

 

For some reason, I was drawn to Owens' story at a very young age. I still have a book on him that I bought when I was 10.

He remains one of my heroes.