gold in a single Olympics. People were stumbling over the top of each other to find the superlatives to describe her. The French named Wilma “La Gazelle,” and in America she was known as “The Fastest Woman on Earth.” Wilma was everybody’s darling after that, with invitations to the JFK White House and numerous guest appearances on television. The flip side of all the glory was, however, that Wilma received hardly any financial reward for her public appearances and had to work odd jobs to get through college.
One year later, Wilma again set the world on fire by breaking the record for the 100-meter dash: 11.2 seconds. Unpredictably, Wilma sat out the ’64 Olympic Games and stayed in school, graduating with a degree in education and returning to the very school she had attended as a youngster to teach second grade. In 1967, she worked for the Job Corps and Operation Champion, a program that endeavored to bring star athletes into American ghettos as positive role models for young kids. Wilma herself loved to talk to kids about sports and was a powerful symbol with her inspiring story.
That Wilma touched the lives of children is best evidenced in a letter writing campaign taken up by a class of fourth graders in Jessup, Maryland, who requested the World Book Encyclopedia correct their error in excluding the world-class athlete. The publisher complied immediately! Wilma has also been honored with induction into both the Olympic Hall of Fame and the National Track and Field Hall of Fame. A film version of her autobiography Wilma starring Cicely Tyson was produced to tremendous acclaim. Her death from terminal brain cancer took place shortly after she received an honor as one of “The Great Ones” at the premiere National Sports Awards in 1993.
“I have spent a lifetime trying to share what it has meant to be a woman first in the world of sports so that other young women will have a chance to reach their dreams.”
— Wilma Rudolph
Evelyn Ashford: The Power of Persistence
“(Wilma Rudolph) inspired me to pursue my dream of being a runner, to stick with it,” says runner Evelyn Ashford, whose incredible athletic staying power in a sport with a high burnout rate was notable. She participated in Olympic games for nearly twenty years, returning to pick up a gold medal in 1992 as a thirty-five-year-old mother of one. Evelyn was always gifted at sports, but never took herself seriously until a male coach noticed her speed and issued a challenge for her to race his male track team. When she beat the “best guy” on the field, Evelyn suddenly got the attention and positive support that spurred her on.
By 1975, she had earned a full scholarship to UCLA. One year later, she was a member of the Olympic team, but had to wait for the next games four years later to make her mark. In 1980, in protest of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter made the choice to boycott the Summer Olympic games. Along with her peers, Evelyn Ashford’s chances to win were dashed. But her persistence paid off in spades; she came back after the terrible disappointment and won a gold medal for the 100 meter sprint and another gold medal for the 400 meter relay in the 1984 Summer Olympic Games held in Los Angeles. Renowned as the perfect model of a good sport, on and off the field, she takes enormous joy in running with fellow champions Alice Brown, Sheila Echols, and Florence Griffith-Joyner, and promoting track and field as a sport. There’s no doubt that Wilma Rudolph would be proud of Evelyn Ashford’s accomplishments.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee: Queen of the Field
Arguably the greatest cross category track and field star of all time, Jackie Joyner-Kersee has a string of firsts to her credit and keeps racking them up at an astonishing rate: she’s the first U.S. woman to win gold for the long jump, the first woman ever to exceed 7,000 points for the heptathlon, and the first athlete, man or woman, to win multiple gold medals in both single and multiple events in track and field. Since her debut in the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Events, Jackie has been at the top of her game.
Along with her athletic prowess, Jackie’s charisma and style made her an overnight sensation. In addition, she has a policy of giving back as good as she gets to the community she’s from. She has a strong desire to nurture athleticism and scholarship in urban settings where access to a place to run and play is the first of many challenges ghetto kids face. Her foundation, the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Youth Center Foundation, is currently developing a recreational and educational facility for kids in East St. Louis where area kids will have access to a computer lab, library, ball fields, basketball courts, and of course, indoor and outdoor tracks.
Like several other outstanding athletes, Jackie comes from poverty, an alum of the poorest part of East St. Louis. Fortunately, Jackie received encouragement from her family to participate in sports. She discovered track and field at the Mayor Brown Community Center, and her Olympic dreams started when she saw the 1976 Olympics on television. Jackie quickly emerged as a veritable “sporting savant” and started breaking national records at fourteen, excelling at basketball and volleyball while maintaining a super grade point average. Soon she was courted by many tantalizing college scholarships, ultimately deciding to attend UCLA, where Bob Kersee would be her coach.
Bob Kersee, whom she married in 1986, convinced both Jackie and the powers-that-be at UCLA that Jackie’s career lay in multitrack events. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine Jackie anywhere but in the event where she is the best in the world. Jackie’s forte is the seven-event heptathlon, a previously overlooked event in which athletes earn points by running a 200-meter dash, compete in both high and long jumps, throw both the javelin and shot put, run the 100-meter hurdles, and complete an 800-meter run, all in two days. These herculean challenges alone call for super-sheroism, and Jackie has not only made the heptathlon her own, but through her prowess made the event a track and field favorite.
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