The Day Of Days

(Track & Field News, June 1975)

by Jon Hendershott
Forty years haven't dimmed the brilliance of the greatest day in track--Jesse Owens' five world records set and one tied in less than an hour.

Warm sun, clear skies and little wind greeted competitors for the 'final day of the 1935 Big 10 Championships, held in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was the kind of day when athletes' often feel extra good-and produce exceptional efforts as a result.

But at least one athlete was feeling lousy on the morning of that May 25. Five days earlier, Jesse Owens had been wrestling with a fraternity brother and the grappling pair had tumbled down a flight of stairs. Owens' back was so sore he couldn't practice all week.

The Ohio State sophomore wanted to do well in his first Big 10. After a notable high school career at Cleveland's East Tech (which included a never-accepted 9.4 100 record-matcher and a 24-11 1/2 prep best), he ran 9.4 as a frosh. And only the week before the Big 10 meet, he turned in a good quadruple performance which included an,other 9.4 and a 20.7 straight 220.

But on this day, he was hurting. He had had a late breakfast at a hotel in Ypsilanti and had tried to relax on a couch in. the lobby. His back was so tight and sore that coach Larry Snyder and several athletes had to help him up and into the rumble seat of Snyder's car for the ride to the stadium.

Then they had to help him out of the car, into the locker room, out of his clothes. and into a' steaming tub, where Owens sat for half an hour. He had gotten through Friday's qualifying in the 100, 220, 220 lows and long jump but today was another story.

Things were no better when he was helped out of the tub, Owens remembers: "'Some of my teammates had to help me get on my running gear. Our trainer put a big swab of hot liniment on my back and they had to help me get on my sweatsuit, which was a very heavy suit to keep me warm.

"I got out to the track and hoped I would feel better after I did my usual warmup of jogging a 440 and then stretching-but I couldn't even jog, let alone stretch."

Owens sat down and rested his back against the flagpole at one end of Michigan's Ferry Field. Athletes were warming up all over the finely-groomed cinder track. Owens rested his head on his knees as Snyder asked him if he wanted to be scratched.

"No, let's wait and see how the first race goes," Owens replied. He painfully got to his feet to walk to the starting line for the 100 yard dash. He didn't know it then, but he was walking into history .

Forty-five minutes after he had gotten. up from sitting under the flag. Owens had turned in what is universally regarded as the single finest day in track

and field history-starting with a 9.4 to officially tie the world record, progressing to a single, mighty long jump of 2681/4 which stood as the global standard for the next quarter-century, moving to a 20.3 straight 220 for another world best and finishing with a 22.6 record over the 220 lows.

In addition, he set metric marks en route in the two furlong races. Thus he set five world records and tied a sixth in less than an hour.

And Owens possibly. might have done even better had each event not been affected by unique circumstances.

3:15--The 100 Yards

"I just hoped I could get through the race," Owens recalls of the 100. "Those were the days before blocks and we had to dig starting holes for our feet and as I dug mine, my back pained terrifically. But when I got down on my, marks and the starter said, 'set,' there was suddenly no more pain. It was gone; I couldn't feel anything. I didn't know why then and I don't to this day." Owens' smooth stride carried him to the 9.4 and he won by a very comfortable tenth over Bob Grieve.

Nearly two decades later, a controversy arose over the method of timing used at Michigan, a method some charged had robbed Owens of perhaps two tenths. Dr. Phil Diamond, head timer that day, describes the method: "When I timed, I never saw a runner during the last 20 yards or so until he finished. I focused on the finish line until the leg carrying the weight of the runner crossed the line. But if the next-to-last stride just fell short of the line, or when the runner used excessive lean so his body weight was still behind the line, I waited until the other leg crossed before snapping my watch. This is how we timed at Michigan for decades."

Detractors of this method pointed out the rules for timing specify the watch is stopped in reaction to seeing the torso cross the line, but no where mentions this "center of gravity" theory."

3:25--The Long Jump

On the same day Owens hurt his back, Michigan coach Charlie Hoyt told his assistant, Ken Doherty, "Owens did pretty well last week in the long jump (over 25 feet) and we should put it in front of the stands." The regular pit and runway were several hundred feet away from the main stands. So the Monday before the meet, a pit was dug in front of the stands, the rough, cut-up turf was rolled and trimmed for a runway and a board was put down. "We did our best," Doherty, former Penn coach. remembers. "But it was far from a perfect set-up."

After the 100 that day, the meet was stopped as Owens readied for his first long jump. A white handkerchief was placed in the pit (illegal by today's rules) at Chuhei Nambu's 2621% world mark, set in 1931. Owens sped down his short, 108-foot run-up and drove off the board. He got unusual height for him and broke sand well beyond the handkerchief. In the only jump he took that day, he broke the world mark by six inches and gave jumpers a target for the next 25 years. Willis Ward finished second that day at 25-1 1/2.

"We didn't work to much on. the long jump," Snyder says. "Often Jesse would just jump off five or six strides and work on extending into the pit." But there was something different that Owens tried: "I picked out someone standing by the pit who looked about six feet tall and I tried to jump as high as he stood."

A thundering ovation roared from the crowd, officials and athletes for the next several minutes. Bob Wright, former Illinois coach, hadn't qualified for the hurdles that day so he sat at the end of the long jump pit to watch. "You saw these things," he recalls, "but it was hard to believe they were happening. After the long jump, people looked at each other and said, 'It can't be,' but you had just seen it."

3:45--The 220 Yards

Owens' back didn't improve in the intervening minutes between the long jump and 220. "From that moment in the 100 until the end of the lows, my back didn't pain," he says, "but it didn't get better either. Actually all I thought about was the next event. I never thought about records, or trying to get one in the next race. I just wanted to get through what was next, try to do my best and go to the next event."

In the straight furlong, Owens was all alone after only a few strides and he churned down the track to a comfortable four-tenth win over Andrew Dooley and a three-tenth lowering of Ralph Metcalfe's global best.

4:00--The 220 Low Hurdles

Owens wasn't a polished hurdler and cleared the barriers with extra room to avoid hitting any. He ran 2.3 seconds slower than the 220; the top hurdlers were about one second slower.

Like the 220, he was never headed in the lows either. He lead from the first barrier. Said one runner in the race, "1 could almost feel myself get sucked under as Jesse went by." Second-placer Phil Doherty was six-tenths back with Norman Paul's world record cut by four.

And Owens possibly ran faster than his official 22.6. Head timer Diamond was distracted at the gun and assigned an alternate timer to be the third official timer. The first two official timers clocked 22.4 and the third 22.6, but Diamond would not certify anything faster than 22.6 "because it was a world record application," even though timing rules say if three official watches disagree, the time on two of them shall be official.

But regardless, Owens had done it again. Then he had to be helped into the shower, to get dressed and into the car of friend and reporter Jack Clowser for the ride home to Cleveland for a family celebration of his achievements.

Ken Doherty remembers people seemed to not realize what they had witnessed. "People were exclaiming how Jesse was only a sophomore. He did it all so easily and wouldn't he be great when he really tried," he says.

But Charlie Hoyt didn't. He coached '32 Olympic champ Eddie Tolan and understood great sprinting: "I said then I thought this would be Jesse's greatest performance. He looked so easy and effortless doing it that I couldn't see how he could do any better by trying harder."

Owens pauses to think when asked his reaction after his day was over. "I simply wanted to do well in my first Big 10 meet," he says. "I never thought about records, or expected them. I never expected anything close to what happened. Afterward, the only real pressure I felt was that I was a target for other people, the guy to knock off. A lot of teams had fresh people in each of the events I did, all gunning for me. But that's something any athlete has to put aside and concentrate on competing to the very best of his ability."

Owens' historic achievement of winning four titles in one Olympics was yet to come. As great as his May day was, it sometimes seems overshadowed by his victories in Berlin. "Well, the records were a launching pad for the Olympics," he says. "To win the Olympic 100 meters had been my dream since I was a boy of 13. The Big 10 meet was a starting point where I first knew I could compete against top-class athletes and achieve things. But the Games were the ultimate, the biggest competition against the very best."

pictures courtesy The Detroit News