Jesse Owens -- one of America's greatest athletes

Yesterday, September 12, was the birthday of Jesse Owens, one of the greatest track stars ever to be born in the US. He was born in 1913, the son of sharecroppers in Oakville AL. After many years of training diligently in running and jumping, Jesse Owens, an African-American, competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. There, in front of Hitler who despised African-Americans and 100,000 other Germans, Jesse Owens won four gold medals, as well as setting Olympic and world records. His record in the long jump stood for 24 years.

The story of Jesse Owens’s rise to fame is simple – it was based on plain, hard work. He didn’t have money or influence to push him to the front of the Olympic team. He just had a desire to win and listened to his coaches’ advice.

I am working on a big story for a major magazine about the friendship that developed between Jesse Owens and Luz Long, his German competitor for the broad jump in the 1936 Olympics. It should be a good article, as it represents a supreme example of sportsmanship on the part of Luz Long and a willingness to communicate with someone of a different race on the part of Mr. Owens.

There's not a lot of data on Luz Long, but it appears he may have been the first winner of the Pierre de Coubertin medal for sportsmanship. These are rarely awarded so it is a big thing. Pierre was the man who organized the Olympics in 1896.

Now that the research is nearly completion, it’s time for the writing. I like to learn things during research but the writing is what benefits the reader and pleases the editor. I’ll post when the article is published – it may be several months from now. Hopefully, readers will find it inspiring and worthwhile of publication.

I encourage everyone reading this to study more about the life of Jesse Owens. Several books have been written about him, including The Legend of Jesse Owens by Hank Nuwer and Jesse Owens : an American Life by William J. Baker.

Jesse Owens also wrote 2 books: Blackthink and I Have Changed. He talks about Luz Long in his books and equates Long’s actions to him that day as some of the best that ever happened to him.

There is a Jesse Owens Foundation that provides scholarships for students. Here’s the website:

http://www.jesse-owens.org/about1.html

You can learn more about Jesse Owens there and at your local library. Write and let me know what you think about this athlete after doing some of your own research.

Take care,