• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

Jesse Owens (Buckeye Bullet, 4 Time Olympic Gold Medalist, 8-time NCAA Champion)

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
Jesse Owens' exploits still echo at Berlin's Olympic Stadium
Members of the U.S. track team, competing this weekend at the same venue where Owens shocked Adolf Hitler and the world in 1936, say he remains an inspiration.
By Philip Hersh
August 15, 2009

48657363.gif

Jesse Owens competes in a 200-meter sprint at the Olympics in Berlin on August 14, 1936. (Associated Press / August 14, 2009)


Reporting from Berlin - Stephanie Brown Trafton, a young woman of commanding physical stature and Olympic achievement, had a sense of the overwhelming Friday morning as she looked at the austere granite facade of the 1936 Olympic Stadium.

"The first thing I thought of was how intimidating and imposing it was, just the rocks with all the columns," said Brown Trafton, the 6-foot-4, 225-pound reigning Olympic discus champion. "I imagined how Jesse felt walking into the stadium in a situation where people definitely weren't rooting for him."

For Brown Trafton, 28, and the other 135 members of the U.S. team, most of whom were not yet born when Jesse Owens died in 1980, the World Track and Field Championships that begin here today have become an occasion to remember the life of a man many consider the greatest athlete in Olympic history.

This is the first time a U.S. track team has competed at an international event in Berlin since Owens, a black sharecropper's son, disproved Adolf Hitler's theory of Aryan superiority by winning four gold medals in the '36 Games -- an Olympics that Hitler had hoped to use to glorify Nazi ideology.
Click to expand...

Jesse Owens' exploits still echo at Berlin's Olympic Stadium -- latimes.com

Updated: August 14, 2009
Owens' 1936 feat stands test of time
By Jeremy Schaap
Special to ESPN.com

On Saturday, the fastest, strongest and most durable athletes on the planet will gather in the west end of Berlin for the World Track and Field Championships.

And they will be competing on hallowed ground. The stadium in which they will run, jump, throw the hammer and put the shot was built to host the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games of the 11th Olympiad in 1936, as well as the Olympic track and field competition. More important, it was where Jesse Owens fashioned the most significant individual performance ever in sports. The Berlin Olympic Stadium may have been the house that Hitler built, but over the course of one week in August, Owens all but wrested it from him.

By the time Owens arrived in Berlin in the summer of 1936, he was already world-famous. Fourteen months earlier, on May 25, 1935, in Ann Arbor, Mich., in the span of less than an hour, he set world records in the 220-yard dash, 220 hurdles and the long jump. In the 100-yard dash, he merely equaled the world record.

Over the next several months, Owens had slumped: At one point, he lost four consecutive races to Eulace Peacock of Temple University. But, in the spring, he was back in top form. That Owens was favored to win four gold medals in Berlin does not diminish the simple truth that what he achieved in Berlin stands as the greatest accomplishment ever in sports.

It's really not close.
Click to expand...

Jesse Owens' four golds at 1936 Berlin Olympics still stands as sports' greatest achievement - ESPN
 
Upvote 0
Rob Oller commentary: Bolt is fast, but he hasn't caught Owens
Thursday, August 20, 2009 3:19 AM
By rob oller


0820_bolt_only_xx_sp_08-20-09_C1_04EQSD6.jpg

AP file photo
Usain Bolt's 9.58-second clocking in the 100 meters made him the fastest man in history.

0820_oly_only_sp_08-20-09_C1_O2EQS8A.jpg

AP file photo
Jesse Owens won a gold medal in the long jump thanks to help from Germany's Luz Long, right. Their families still maintain contact.

0820_owens_only_xx_sp_08-20-09_C1_04EQS9V.jpg

AP file photo

Traveling at a top speed of nearly 27 mph, Usain Bolt can chase down anyone alive, but the world's fastest human still hasn't caught Jesse Owens.

Bolt is the fastest man in history, but that doesn't make him the most distinguished sprinter in history, a title I believe still belongs to Owens.

A mere blink separates the two sprinters' world-record times in the 100 meters: 10.2 seconds for Owens, set during the summer of 1936; and 9.58 for Bolt, clocked Sunday at the IAAF World Championships in Berlin. That blink, however, might as well be a pregnant pause -- the distance between the two if they ran in the same race.
Click to expand...

The Columbus Dispatch : Rob Oller commentary: Bolt is fast, but he hasn't caught Owens
 
Upvote 0
HONORING OWENS, DREAMING OF 2016
Olympian's family at dedication of field house, playground
Comments

September 19, 2009
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter [email protected]

When Mayor Daley talks about Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid, he harkens back to local legends Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe -- African Americans who defied Adolf Hitler's racist, Aryan superiority theory to pile up gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

On Friday, the mayor did more than just invoke the name of Jesse Owens. He honored Owens' legacy in a way that just might inspire a new generation of Olympians.

091909owens.jpg_20090918_16_36_13_379-282-400.imageContent

On Friday, Mayor Daley celebrated two new pieces of Jesse Owens? physical legacy that just might inspire a new generation of Olympians.

Daley joined Owens' daughters and grandson at a sun-baked ceremony to dedicate a new $9.7 million field house and Olympic-themed playground at Jesse Owens Park, 8800 S. Clyde.

The 18,500-sqare-foot field house has been a decade in the making -- long before Daley reversed his longstanding opposition to hosting the Olympics.

It was funded by $3.5 million from the state, $3.2 million from the city and $3 million from the 99-year lease that privatized the Chicago Park District's Millennium Park and Grant Park garages.
Click to expand...

HONORING OWENS, DREAMING OF 2016 :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Lifestyles
 
Upvote 0
Owens' character could vault him to D.C.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
By Jim Siegel
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

owens_frame.1_11-07-09_B1_QRFJP5G.jpg

file photo
State legislators heard reasons why Olympian Jesse Owens, one of several candidates, should represent Ohio in the National Statuary Hall.

His legs carried him to world prominence. But it was his heart, dedication and love of a country that didn't always return the love to men of his color that gave Jesse Owens the combination of athleticism and character to make him a top-notch choice to represent Ohio in Washington, D.C.

That was the message delivered yesterday to the National Statuary Collection Study Committee, a legislative board that will recommend in May which Ohioan should represent the state in National Statuary Hall. Three state legislators visited Ohio State University to hear a panel, including two of Owens' daughters, tell why the Olympian is worthy of the honor.

"He believed in being a role model, because he knew people would be watching," Owens' daughter Marlene Owens Rankin said in a hearing in the main campus library. "He wanted to live an exemplary life, and that's what he tried to do."
Click to expand...

Owens' character could vault him to D.C. | The Columbus Dispatch


Jesse Owens statue may represent Ohio at U.S. Capitol Building
By By Ari Milgrom
[email protected]
Updated: Sunday, November 8, 2009

375306119.jpg

Jesse Owens

A statue of former Ohio Gov. William Allen at the U.S. Capitol Building might be replaced by legendary Ohio State alumnus Jesse Owens.

Members of the National Statuary Collection Study Committee met Friday to discuss the placement of the Owens statue. The Ohio General Assembly decided in 2000 to replace the statue of Allen, who opposed President Abraham Lincoln?s emancipation of slaves.

The National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol includes two statues of individuals chosen by each state. The other Ohioan represented is former U.S. President James Garfield.

It is now the job of the study committee to find a replacement that better represents Ohio and the state?s values.

Other famous Ohioans who are being considered are Thomas Edison, Tecumseh, the Wright brothers, politician James Ashley and baseball player William Ellsworth ?Dummy? Hoy.
Click to expand...

The Lantern - Jesse Owens statue may represent Ohio at U.S. Capitol Building
 
Upvote 0
Jagdaddy;1590023; said:
I'll assume that one has to be dead before being so honored as Neil Armstrong appears to not be under consideration. They should probably replace the second statue of Garfield with one of Grant while they're at it.
Click to expand...

Meh, while Grant did lead the Union troops his presidency was filled with corruption. He also was handed superior numbers in the Civil War, a much better war machine, and was simply not an incompetent boob like many of the other Union Army leaders that preceded him (if the Union had listened to Sherman in the beginning, and given him more power instead of sending him home we would have no idea who Grant is other than a footnote in history). Add in many failings in personal life and I am not so sure I would put him up there with some of the others. Plus it would probably piss off Southerners. Not always a bad thing, but not sure that is the best idea here. Of course if you really want to piss off Southerners go with Sherman (another Ohioan).

(waits for the mandatory ex president schtick to show up).

Edison or the Wright brothers along with Jesse Owens would be my choice for the two spots. With only one, that is some stiff competition for Jesse.
 
Upvote 0
Jessie finally made the "big time", i.e. his own bobblehead::biggrin:

UVZQLZCMMDQMKIF.20100325143449.jpg


CHICAGO - Throughout the Big Ten Conference's illustrious history, many student-athletes have defined excellence: National Champions, All-Americans, Olympians. Their jerseys hang from the rafters. They are the standard against which all others are measured, the players who made the conference big.
Beginning this fall, the Big Ten Network will celebrate these individuals with its most ambitious project in its three-year history: a multi-platform event whose centerpiece is a new 20-episode series, Big Ten Icons, hosted by legendary college sports broadcaster Keith Jackson. The show debuts Sept. 18 following a Big Ten Network football telecast in which Icon No. 20 will be revealed. The countdown continues every Tuesday night through the end of football season and into the spring. The No. 1 Big Ten Icon will be revealed around the 2011 Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament.
.
.
.
Beginning March 11 on www.BigTenIcons.com, Big Ten fans will be encouraged to go online and click on their favorite bobblehead. The university that receives the most clicks during the Bobblethon will win $10,000 for its alumni association's scholarship fund.

Buckeye Broadcast Update - The Ohio State Buckeyes Official Athletics Site - OhioStateBuckeyes.com
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top