Growing Up
A replica of a small, wooden house stands in Jesse Owens Memorial Park in Oakville, Alabama to commemorate the birthplace of the four-time Olympic gold medalist. It was there on Sept. 12, 1913, that James Cleveland (J.C.) Owens was born, the last of 10 children raised by Henry and Mary Emma Owens. Jesse's parents were sharecroppers and the family lived on a meager income, with little money left for clothing and other necessities. By the early 1920s, though, Jesse's older sister, Lillie, had moved north to Cleveland and wrote home how the city offered plenty of jobs in its factories and other businesses. With the promise of a better life up north, the Owens packed up and traveled by train to Cleveland, moving into a small apartment on the east side.
Though jobs were plentiful, they also offered little pay, and Jesse's mother and several of his sisters worked as maids, while his brothers found odd jobs, from unloading freight cars to working as janitors. All of the children dropped out of school, except for Jesse, who started all over at Bolton Elementary School, though he had attended school in Oakville before the move. It was there, the story goes, that one of his teachers, misinterpreting how he pronounced "J.C." because of his southern accent, started calling him "Jesse." The name stuck.
From Bolton, Jesse moved onto Fairmount Junior High, where he started participating in athletics and met Charles Riley, the gym teacher as well as track coach. Riley had noticed Owens in gym class and encouraged him to start training for the track team. Owens worked after school, so he got up in the mornings to perform his regular workouts. Riley had great influence on Owens, both technically and mentally. It was Riley who taught his athletes that training for longer races would help them in the 100- and 200-yard dashes. He also taught them that good runners make no unnecessary movements and waste no energy. At the same time, Riley taught the mental aspect of competition. His motto, "Train for four years from next Friday," emphasized long-term rather than short-term gains. And his focus on determination and perseverance conveyed that hard work was as important as talent.
Track was not the only sport, however, that attracted Owens when he enrolled in
Cleveland's East Technical School in 1930. The next year, he tried out for the East Tech
football team and that winter, he tried out for the basketball team. He didn't last more
than a week in either sport and even injured his ankle in basketball. The high school
principal subsequently encouraged Owens to focus instead on track, under the guidance of
Edgar Weil, East Tech's new head track coach. But Weil had little experience in the
sport, having coached football before arriving at East Tech. Weil then asked Riley to help
him train Owens, and under their tutelage, the young athlete soon became the best-known
track star in Cleveland, dominating every race he entered. Only two years later, his
coaches were preparing him for a tryout on the U.S. Olympic Team and competition at the
1932 Summer Games in Los Angeles. At the Midwestern preliminary trials at Northwestern
University, however, Owens lost all three events he entered: the 100-meter dash, the
200-meter dash and the long jump.
A few months later, Owens returned to school for his senior year, and was elected president of East Tech's student council as well as captain of its track team. In the spring of 1933, his last in high school, he placed first in 75 of the 79 races he entered, and set a new record in the long jump at the state interscholastic finals. The pinnacle of his high school career came at the National Interscholastic Championship in Chicago where he won the long jump, set a world record in the 220-yard dash and tied a world record in the 100-yard dash. When Owens returned to Cleveland, city officials gave him a victory parade, the first of many honorary events over the years celebrating the track star's achievements.
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