Skill and Timing

Taylor was born on November 26, 1878, in Indianapolis, Indiana. One of eight children, his given name was Marshal Walter Taylor. His parents, Gilbert Taylor and Saphronia Kelter, had left rural Kentucky following the Civil War. Many Blacks were emigrating to cities at the time in search of better economic opportunities, and Taylor’s father was among the fortunate who succeeded in finding them. He was a coachman for the wealthy Southard family, which allowed the Taylors to live on the grounds of a peaceful estate and raise their children in relative comfort. The Southards were kind to Taylor and occasionally gave him gifts, including a bicycle.

Taylor quickly developed a joy for cycling, and exhibited a natural grace and fluidity atop the machine. In order to earn money, and to indulge his passion for bicycles, he worked at a local bicycle shop as early as age 12. Taylor entertained his coworkers with a surprising repertoire of tricks and stunts that he had taught himself to perform. He was so impressive that the bicycle shop paid him to perform on the street in order to draw onlookers into the store. As part of the routine, Taylor was given an old soldier’s uniform, which led to the nickname he would keep for the remainder of his life, “Major.”

At age 13, Taylor won his first bicycle race. He became a regular on the burgeoning amateur racing circuit in Indianapolis, frequently winning over white competitors with impressive reputations and better equipment. A bicycle manufacturing entrepreneur, Louis “Birdie” Munger, recognized Taylor’s significant talent and became his promoter. With Munger’s guidance, Taylor became increasingly dominant, which aggravated racial tensions in segregated Indianapolis. Cycling was becoming a hugely popular sport, and some segregationists were so upset to see a black man winning races that Taylor began to receive threats. In search of a more tolerant community and better business opportunities, Munger and Taylor moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1895. Munger opened the Worcester Cycle Manufacturing Company, and Taylor, welcomed into the traditionally abolitionist community, began training in earnest for a career as a professional bicycle racer.

A Global Sensation

In preparation for professional competition, Taylor returned to the Indianapolis Capital City Track in 1896 and set two unofficial world records for one-mile sprint races. His reward was a ban from the track at the behest of segregationists. Taylor’s professional debut occurred in New York City at Madison Square Garden. He managed to place eighth, but the event was a six-day endurance trial and his specialty was sprint racing up to two miles. By 1898, Taylor held seven world records for various sprint distances, but these were timed achievements: he had yet to prove his mettle in head-to-head international competition.

When the World One Mile Sprint Championship was held in Montreal, Canada, the following year, Taylor got his chance. He defeated his most ardent rival, Tom Butler from Boston, and earned the title of World Champion. The only black man to hold such a title in any sport prior to Taylor was George Dixon, who had won the bantamweight boxing title in 1890. Controversy over his race continued. Taylor was refused membership in the League of American Wheelmen, the predominant organization for cycle racing enthusiasts, and was continually denied entry into races held in southern states. In part because of the controversy surrounding him, however, he caused a commotion everywhere he traveled and racing fans adored him. For most of the country, Taylor was a national hero. In 1900, Taylor was finally allowed to compete in the United States National Championship where he captured the American Sprint Champion title as well.

With Munger’s constant support and negotiating skills, Taylor earned good money at the races he did enter, and by late 1900, he was able to marry Daisy Victoria Morris and settle in an affluent neighborhood of Worcester. The couple eventually had a daughter, Sydney, who was born in 1904. Before the birth of his child, Taylor rode to international acclaim by making several tours of Europe and Australia between 1901 and 1904. He emerged victorious in sprint competitions with the reigning champions of Belgium, Denmark, England, Germany, and Italy. His rare combination of grace and tremendous power was hailed wherever Taylor traveled and raced. After his string of successful international races, Taylor retired from competitive cycling.

Although he returned to competition sporadically until 1910, and frequently won races, the height of his career came with his national and world titles, and his undefeated overseas tours. Following his retirement, at age 32, Taylor’s savings were sapped by poor business investments. Unable to initiate a second career, he was forced to slowly sell off assets as the family dwindled into poverty. Taylor self-published an autobiography in 1929, but was unable to sell sufficient copies to earn any money from the venture. After becoming estranged from his wife, he spent his final years living at a YMCA in Chicago, Illinois. On June 21, 1932, Taylor died in the charity ward of a Chicago hospital.

Taylor and his accomplishments returned to prominence in the decades following his death. The Schwinn Bicycle Company funded a new gravesite for him, with a commemorative plaque detailing his accomplishments. In 1982, Indianapolis embraced the hero it had once shunned by dedicating the Major Taylor Velodrome for international cycling competition. Taylor’s legend and legacy were celebrated in the 1991 film, Tracks of Glory. A consistently positive attitude and good will toward his rivals accompanied Taylor’s incredible athleticism in his voyage to the pinnacle of his sport, and he continues to be celebrated for those characteristics, as much as for his long list of victories.

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Cruel Beginnings

Liston was born in St. Francis County, Arkansas, around 1932. Very little is known about his birth and his childhood. His birthday is most commonly given as May 8 of that year, although he may have been born as early as 1927 according to some accounts. Liston’s parents, Tobe Liston and Helen Baskin, labored as tenant farmers, and put all their children to work harvesting cotton at their side. A middle child among more than 20 born between his parents and their several relationships, Liston never received any formal education. He later claimed that his father was a brutal man who meted out punishment with a whip. Liston worked the fields until age 14 when he moved with his mother to St. Louis, Missouri. Already approaching his stature of more than six feet tall and two hundred pounds, he had no trouble finding work as a manual laborer.

Constant poverty, low wages, and the urging of peers to use his strength for intimidation and mugging soon lured Liston toward a consistent pattern of crime. After consistently falling under suspicion for theft and robbery, he finally was caught, tried, and sentenced to five years imprisonment at the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1950. In prison, Liston began to express an interest in religion and to take the counsel of the Catholic chaplain. The chaplain, in turn, had noticed Liston’s tendency to fight with other prisoners, and determined to focus his strength and temper Liston’s ferocity with discipline in the boxing ring.

A rigorous physical regimen suited Liston, and he responded well to training. He soon became the foremost boxer at the penitentiary. Sensing his potential as a prizefighter, a newspaper publisher and a Catholic priest—both associated with St. Louis mobster John Vitale—arranged for Liston’s early parole in 1952. He was hired by Vitale to work as a union-buster while he trained to enter the world of professional boxing. Learning the ropes from a sparring partner of famed boxer Joe Louis, Liston quickly gained skill and speed in the ring. A left-handed fighter with enormous fists, his punching power was intimidating, and he quickly worked his way through the amateur ranks. A notable victory came toward the end of 1952 when he easily defeated Ed Sanders, the reigning Olympic heavyweight champion. Liston turned professional the following year and began to compile a record comprised almost wholly of victories, most often by knockout.

Controversial Champion

Liston met and married Geraldine Chambers in 1956. The marriage was a happy one, despite the fact that his reputation for violence was not confined to the ring. Liston was known to street fight and continued to have occasional trouble with the police, once remanded to a labor house for assault on an officer. He also never broke his close ties to the mobsters who had helped arrange his release from prison and who managed his career. In 1958, Liston and his wife moved to Philadelphia. He finally had escaped from the poverty in which he had been raised and was able to make a decent living. All that awaited him was a championship bout.

It was not until 1962 that the reigning heavyweight champion, Floyd Patterson, agreed to fight Liston. The two fighters had extremely different personalities, and the media played up the bout as a battle between good and evil. Whereas Liston was quick-tempered and had a criminal record, Patterson was quiet spoken and courteous; he was considered by many to be an ideal African American sports figure to capture the public eye. But Liston was the superior boxer. He defeated Patterson with a first round knockout and claimed the title. Patterson challenged Liston to a rematch in July of 1963, but the result was exactly the same.

For the next two years, Liston wore his championship proudly. He toured Europe and Great Britain and was, in general, a more amiable public figure than people had thought. His reputation in the ring, however, remained as formidable as ever. Much of the world was shocked when a fast-talking young boxer named Cassius Clay defeated Liston in 1964. Because the champion withdrew in the seventh round, there was widespread suspicion that his mob-connected managers had fixed the fight to generate larger betting and ticket sales during a rematch. A special commission investigated, however, and concluded that there had been no wrongdoing. When the rematch finally came in May of 1965, Clay had taken the soon-to-be world famous name of Muhammad Ali as part of his conversion to Islam. Ali knocked Liston out in the first round and went on to become the single greatest boxer of the 20th century.

Although he was never again a title contender, Liston continued to box and to enjoy family life. He and his wife adopted a child in 1967 and settled in Las Vegas, Nevada. But Liston’s long-time ties to the mob kept a grip on his activities. Rumors began to circulate that drug dealers were using him as a bodyguard during illicit exchanges. Liston never ran into trouble with the police again, but in January of 1971, his wife returned from a vacation to find him dead from a heart attack with traces of heroin in his blood. Liston’s official date of death is December 30, 1970.

The American public struggled with the image of Liston as a champion, but much of the rest of the world identified with his rise from poverty and the success he was able to achieve with brute strength and aptitude. He remains a legendary boxer whose only notable defeat came at the hands of Muhammad Ali. In 1991, Liston was posthumously inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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An Athletic Family

Lewis was born in 1961 in Birmingham, Alabama, the third of four children of Bill and Evelyn Lewis. Both parents were superior athletes who attended Tuskegee Institute where his father ran track and played football. His mother, a hurdler, ran in the Pan-American Games of 1951. His siblings also showed great talent, more so than Lewis himself, who was relatively short and thin. After relocating to Willingboro, New Jersey, his parents started a track club but urged Lewis to concentrate on music.

Showing an early determination that would serve him for the rest of his career, Lewis instead focused on practicing the long jump and competing in local track meets, losing more often than not. However, he succeeded in capturing the attention of track star Jesse Owens at a meet in Philadelphia when Owens encouraged the other children to follow the example of Lewis’ spirit. By the time Lewis graduated from high school in 1979, he had become the country’s top-ranked athlete in high school track.

Intent on pursuing an athletic career, Lewis enrolled at the University of Houston, Texas, to work with that school’s track and field coach Tom Tellez. On their first meeting, Lewis famously announced, “I want to be a millionaire and I don’t ever want a real job.” Tellez responded in kind by improving Lewis’s long jump style; he would remain his coach for Lewis’ entire career. The results were immediate: in 1980, Lewis qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team in the long jump and 400-meter relay. However, in protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, the United States joined several other nations in boycotting the Moscow games of that year. As an alternative, the boycotting nations participated in the Liberty Bell Classic games, at which Lewis earned a bronze medal in the long jump and a gold with the relay team. His sprinting talent was also developing rapidly, and by the end of that year, he was among the top 100-meter runners worldwide.

Lewis relocated to California in 1982 to train at the Santa Monica Track Club. His progress continued at a remarkable pace, as did his achievements in the four events that would comprise his repertoire for the balance of his career: the long jump, 100-meter and 200-meter sprints, and 400-meter relay. In the 1983 track and field world championships in Finland, he earned three gold medals, and then set an indoor long jump world record in early 1984. With the Los Angeles Summer Olympics approaching later that year, his prospects seemed excellent; Lewis confidently (some felt arrogantly) predicted that he would win four events, an achievement unmatched since Jesse Owens’ triumphant performance and victory over racial bias in the 1936 Berlin games in Nazi Germany.

Going for Gold

With the stated goal of matching Owens’ record, Lewis approached the 1984 games with a combination of talent and strategy. He began with the 100-meter sprint, and racked up his first gold medal with a time of 9.99 seconds. Next up was the long jump, in which his first leap was an exceptional 8.54 meters. Lewis knew that this was good enough to win his second gold medal. Mindful of his remaining heats and races in the 200-meter sprint and 400-meter relay, and in order to avoid any risk of injury or strain, he opted to take just one more of his allotted jumps and passed on the last four. His nearest competitor jumped 8.24 meters, and the gambit payed off with a second gold. But while it was legitimate under Olympiad rules, many members of the public didn’t understand the technicalities. Some also felt disappointed that Lewis failed to go on to challenge the long jump record, held by Bob Beamon at 8.9 meters, with his jumps that remained. There were boos from the crowd. Nevertheless, Lewis and his teammates were in top form for his last two events: he set a new Olympic record of 19.8 seconds for the 200-meter sprint, and the relay team, which he anchored, set a new world record of 37.83 seconds, bringing Lewis his third and fourth gold medals of the 1984 games.

But while he had matched Owens’ achievement and was held in high esteem in Europe and Japan, Lewis failed to secure the general popularity and lucrative endorsements that he sought in the United States. Indeed, one such contract with Nike was cancelled, and some writers began referring to him as “King Carl” in response to his attitude and occasional peremptory behavior.

Lewis’ disappointments in this regard were compounded on the track. A Canadian, Ben Johnson, began running the 100-meter sprint against Lewis in 1985, often winning the race. In the 1988 Olympic games, held in Seoul, Korea, Johnson beat Lewis in this event with a record-breaking time. However, Johnson’s performance was disqualified when he was found to have used performance-enhancing drugs, and his gold medal was then awarded to Lewis. Nevertheless, time began to take its toll. Lewis would continue to win in competition, including the 1992 and 1996 Olympiads, but younger competitors were increasingly victorious.

Nevertheless, Lewis succeeded in achieving the acclaim and endorsements he had sought, including standing ovations from crowds and lucrative personal appearances, during this time. Taken together with a lifetime record of nine Olympic gold medals, Lewis achieved every one of his objectives. He was listed as one of the century’s greatest athletes at the 1999 Sports Illustrated 20th Century Sports Awards, a fitting acknowledgement of a lifetime of accomplishment.

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A Star is Born

Owens was born in Alabama in 1913 to Henry and Emma Owens, sharecroppers who were the children of slaves. Their existence was marginal, often without enough food, and Owens (the seventh of 11 children) was sickly. The family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, when Owens was seven, but life was not much improved. The young boy worked in his spare time to contribute to the family income, while attending public school.

During a 60-yard race in gym class, Owens so impressed the coach that he was offered special coaching. By age 12, Owens showed extraordinary promise as a sprinter. At Cleveland East Technical High School, he distinguished himself in competition, while still working after-school jobs. He tied the world record in the 100-yard dash, and set new national records in the 200-yard dash and broad-jump. He was aggressively courted by a number of colleges and universities, but no scholarships were available.

Owens felt unable to leave home and forfeit his financial contribution to the household. When Ohio State University arranged work for his father, Owens accepted an offer to attend (but still worked three jobs in his free time). There he achieved national recognition while experiencing the insult of racism. He and the other African Americans were forced to live off-campus, and when traveling, they were confined to “blacks-only” restaurants and hotels.

At the Big Ten track and field meet in Ann Arbor in 1935, Owens’ coach was unsure that he could compete. Owens had injured his back one week prior, and had not been able to train. He prevailed upon the coach to let him run, and achieved the unprecedented feat of setting three world records, and tying a fourth, in less than one hour. He smashed the broad-jump record by almost six inches, with a leap of 26 feet, 8-1/4 inches. He set new world records with 20.3 seconds in the 220-yard dash, and in the 220-yard low hurdles with 22.6 seconds. And he once again tied the 100-yard dash record of 9.4 seconds. Also in 1935, Owens married long-time girlfriend Ruth Solomon, with whom he would have three daughters. Reaching the end of his sophomore year, he turned his eyes to Olympic competition; and the eyes of America were on this rising star.

Going Gold

The 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin, Nazi Germany. Adolph Hitler planned to use the competition to prove Aryan (white) racial supremacy. Owens was scheduled to compete in three events, and became a substitute for a relay runner in a fourth. After initially faltering with two fouls in the broad-jump, he received encouragement and advice from Hitler’s favorite Lutz Long. Owens proceeded to win the Gold Medal. He also won Gold Medals in the other three events, the 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash, and 400-meter relay team. Owens was the first American to win four Gold Medals in the history of Olympic Track and Field competition, and by the end of the event the mostly German audience was cheering and chanting his name. Hitler left the stadium before Owens could complete his triumph.

While a ticker-tape parade greeted Owens in New York City on his return, there were no professional endorsement opportunities available (possibly due to racial discrimination). As he said in an interview: “I came back to my native country and I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus.” A misunderstanding with a track and field association compromised his ability to compete. Owens left school before graduating, and did what he could to earn a living by running and racing horses and motorcycles in demonstrations and shows. An unsuccessful dry-cleaning business was followed by a term as national director of physical education for African Americans with the Office of Civilian Defense from 1940 to 1942. In 1942, Owens joined the Ford Motor Company in Detroit as personnel director for minority employment. He subsequently became a celebrated spokesman, U.S. goodwill ambassador, and public relations representative for such organizations as Ford and the U.S. Olympic Committee. He was President Eisenhower’s personal representative at the 1956 Olympic Games in Australia.

Owens also developed a second, equally important and successful career working with disadvantaged children. Beginning with his experience as a playground director, he moved to Chicago in 1950 and joined the Board of Directors of the South Side Boys Club. In 1956, he organized the Junior Olympic Games for youngsters aged 12 to 17 in Chicago. He served as a sports specialist for the Illinois Youth Commission for six years. In partnership with a public relations client, Owens created the ARCO/Jesse Owens Games in 1964 for youths between the ages of 10 and 15, benefiting millions.

Owens was criticized for his political attitudes during the late 1960s when he opposed a black boycott of the Olympics. He wrote a defense of his position in 1970, “Blackthink,” but two years later revised his view in the more militant, “I Have Changed.” In another sign of change, 40 years after Owens’ Olympic triumph, President Gerald Ford awarded him the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom. Then in 1979, President Jimmy Carter honored him with a Living Legend Award.

Owens died of lung cancer on March 31, 1980, in Arizona, and was buried in Chicago. His widow Ruth and daughter Marlene operate the Jesse Owens Foundation, a philanthropic memorial to America’s first athletic superstar. In a final posthumous tribute, Ruth accepted the Congressional Gold Medal on her husband’s behalf from President George Bush in 1990. As Owens himself once said: “Life is the real Olympics.”

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Early Victories

Born on July 10, 1943, in Richmond, Virginia, Ashe’s potential became apparent with his first encounter with a tennis racket. Ashe’s mother, Mattie Cunningham, had died when he was just six years old and his father, a police officer, encouraged tennis over rougher sports like football. Ashe soon came to the attention of Dr. Walter Johnson who had coached another famous black tennis champion, Althea Gibson. Under his tutelage, Ashe became a strong competitor, ranking fifth in his age group nationally at age 15. But segregation kept him from playing in whites-only tournaments in the south. For his senior year, Ashe moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he was able to compete against both black and white players. In 1960 and 1961, he competed in the previously segregated U.S. Interscholastic tournament, winning the junior indoor singles title both years. He also graduated first in his high school class.

Ashe then moved west to attend the University of California at Los Angeles on a tennis scholarship. In 1963, at age 20, Ashe became the first African American player named to the U.S. Davis Cup Team. He also played varsity tennis, winning the NCAA men’s singles championship, and leading UCLA to the team title in 1965. Ashe graduated from UCLA the following year with a degree in business administration. From 1966 to 1969, he served in the U.S. Army, but was frequently granted leave for important competitions.

In 1968, at age 25, Ashe defeated Tom Okker of the Netherlands to win the U.S. Open. He was the first black man to win the Open, and this began a long string of important wins. In 1970, Ashe took the Australian Open and was the top-ranked American player, but when he applied for a visa to compete in South Africa, it was denied because of the color of his skin. In protest, he called for South Africa to be expelled from the International Lawn Tennis Association. Three years later, after additional victories including the French Open, Ashe was finally granted a visa. He was the first black pro to play in South Africa’s national championships, and he and Tom Okker won the doubles title. In 1975, Ashe defeated Jimmy Connors to become the first African American man to win at Wimbledon.

The sport of tennis exploded in popularity during this period, but Ashe grew concerned that the amount of money earned by the players remained meager. In response, he and several other players organized the Association of Tennis Professionals, which helped to negotiate a fair distribution of prize money for players. The following year, Ashe met Jeanne Moutoussamy, a professional photographer. The two were married in 1977 at the UN chapel in New York City.

Heart Ailments and Activism

As he aged, Ashe only seemed to improve as a player, winning the doubles championship at the Australian Open when he was 34 years old. But on July 31, 1979, he suffered a heart attack while playing in New York. He was hospitalized for nearly two weeks, and in December of that year, he underwent quadruple bypass surgery. Then, in the spring of 1980, he again suffered chest pains while training and decided to retire from competitive tennis. Not ready to give up his involvement completely, Ashe became captain of the U.S. Davis Cup Team, which he led to victory in 1981 and 1982. But in 1983, he required another double bypass surgery. Although he would not learn it for another five years, a blood transfusion related to this second operation left him infected with HIV.

During his “retirement,” Ashe worked as a television commentator and newspaper columnist, and continued to fight against apartheid. During one protest in Washington, DC, he was arrested outside the South African embassy. Two months after the arrest, in 1985, he became the first black man to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Ashe and his wife welcomed a daughter during this time whom they named Camera Elizabeth. Branching out, Ashe published a three-volume history of African American athletes called A Hard Road to Glory in 1988, which was followed by an Emmy award-winning television version. The same year, however, brought tragedy. Ashe was hospitalized again, and this time, tests revealed the presence of HIV. Stunned, Ashe and his family decided to keep the news private. They succeeded until 1992, when fearing that a newspaper was about to report it, Ashe announced at a news conference that he had AIDS. On World AIDS Day in 1992, Ashe addressed the UN General Assembly, asking them to increase funding for AIDS research. That same month, he was named Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated magazine.

On February 6, 1993, at age 49, Ashe died of AIDS-related pneumonia. His body was transported to Richmond, Virginia, where he lay in state at the Governor’s Mansion and more than 5,000 came to pay their respects. Even after his death, Ashe’s influence remained broad. Months after he passed away, he was honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton. In 1996, a statue of Ashe was placed among the statues of confederate soldiers that line Monument Avenue in Richmond. Arthur Ashe Stadium, dedicated as part of a $254 million renovation of the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, hosted its first U.S. Open in 1997. And in 2006, the Arthur Ashe Tennis and Education Center opened in East Falls, Pennsylvania. The $12 million facility is dedicated to providing tennis lessons for inner city children of modest means and fostering future champions in the tradition of Ashe himself.

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Dancing on the Sidewalks

Robinson was born Walker Smith, Jr., in Detroit, Michigan, on or about May 3, 1920. His father, Walker “Pop” Smith, Sr., was a construction laborer, and his mother, Leila Hurst, worked as a chambermaid and seamstress. After his parents divorced, Robinson moved with his mother and his two older sisters through a succession of homes in Detroit, Georgia, and then New York, barely managing to earn enough to survive. In New York City, Robinson attended public schools and held odd jobs to help support the family. During this period, his mother scraped up enough money for tap lessons, and Robinson could sometimes be found with his friends dancing for change outside Broadway theaters.

After his family settled in Harlem, Robinson earned a reputation as someone good with his fists, both on the streets and in the school yard. In high school, he began hanging out with a friend at a local gym. The gym featured a boxing program, and as soon as Robinson stepped into the ring, the grace and balance that would characterize his style were apparent. A coach at the gym, George Gainford, first showed Robinson the ropes, then began entering him in amateur boxing tournaments. To avoid red tape, Gainford entered him under the name of another boy who had boxed at the gym. The boy’s name was Ray Robinson. Legend has it that “Sugar” was added when someone (thought to be a coach, reporter, or fan) observed that Robinson’s boxing style was “sweet as sugar.”

Robinson rose quickly in amateur boxing, winning the featherweight championship in 1939. He turned professional the following year, knocking out a boxer named Joe Escheverria in the second round of his first fight. Over the next 25 years, he went on to become world champion in three different weight classes. His first defeat came at the hands of Jake LaMotta in 1943, in his 41st fight. He didn’t lose again for eight years.

A Legendary Match-up

Robinson’s five matches against LaMotta, also one of the great boxers of the 20th century, have become legends. Two weeks after the first fight on February 4, 1943, they had a rematch, and this time Robinson won. Both fights went 10 rounds. Two years later to the day, the two boxers met a third time, and once more, Robinson prevailed. Then, in September of 1945, he defeated LaMotta again. Robinson was now in peak form. The next year, in December, he was given a shot at the welterweight title and defeated Tommy Bell in 15 rounds. He never lost another welterweight fight, holding the world title undefeated until he made the decision to vacate it in 1951, and fight for the world middleweight title. The championship bout took place on February 4th of that year, and once more his opponent was Jake LaMotta. Robinson defeated him again, this time by a knockout in round 13. It was the last time LaMotta fought Robinson.

With his fluid, powerful style, great ability to absorb punches, and a superb feel for tactics, Robinson overcame stronger opponents time and time again. He never lost a featherweight fight. He suffered only one loss to LaMotta as a welterweight. As a middleweight, he lost only once to Randy Turpin in a title fight in London in 1951. After the middleweight loss, Robinson quickly regained the title by defeating Turpin in a rematch in New York. The next year, in the summer of 1952, he lost a light-heavyweight championship fight to Joey Maxim. It took place in New York in the midst of a sweltering heat wave. In the 10th round, the heat overwhelmed the referee who nearly fainted. Then, in the 13th, Robinson was ahead on points when he succumbed to the heat and passed out. That loss was enough for Robinson, and a few months later, in December 1952, in the 12th year of his professional career, Robinson announced his retirement. His record at the time was an astonishing 98 victories, three defeats, and one draw.

For the next two years, Robinson pursued a career as an entertainer in the United States and Europe. His stage shows were a mixture of comedy, singing, and dancing. But in October 1954, in response to a sudden crisis in his finances, Robinson reentered the ring. Between late 1954 and late 1965, he boxed in 99 matches, winning 77 of them. Finally, on December 10, 1965, at a gala ceremony in New York’s Madison Square Garden, Robinson formally announced his retirement, and this time it was for keeps. His career record was 175 victories, 109 knockouts, 19 losses, and six draws. He had defeated such legendary boxers as Henry Armstrong, Kid Gavilan, Carmen Basilio, Rocky Graziano, Gene Fullmer, Fritzie Zivic, and Carl “Bobo” Olson.

In his final years, Robinson found success in motion pictures and television, and he used the wealth he accumulated to create the Sugar Ray Robinson Foundation to help disadvantaged children participate in sports. But he was unable to win a bout with diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, and died on April 12, 1988. His funeral services in southern California were attended by a Who’s Who of the boxing world, along with celebrities from Elizabeth Taylor to the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Jackson delivered the eulogy, but Robinson’s best epitaph may have been renowned sportswriter Barney Nagler’s observation that “he boxed as though he were playing a violin.”

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1906?-1982  Satchel Paige was the top pitcher in baseball’s Negro League.  He became one of the first African Americans to play major league baseball and continued pitching for over a span of 40 years. He was named the first black player in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and is famously remembered for saying, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”

Throwing Rocks, Throwing Balls

Paige was born Leroy Paige in 1906, in Mobile, Alabama, the seventh of 12 children. He earned his nickname carrying satchels for railroad travelers, which he would occasionally try to steal. At age 12, he was charged with truancy and shoplifting and sent to the Industrial School for Negro Children in Mount Meigs, Alabama. An instructor there helped him develop a pitching technique.

Released in 1923, Paige began playing with semiprofessional teams, enhancing his skills and showmanship. He signed his first professional contract with a Negro Southern League team, the Chattanooga Black Lookouts, for $50 per month for the 1926 season. By 1927, his monthly salary was raised to $200, but he switched to the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro National League and $275 that season. His record with the Barons was impressive, culminating with the Negro League strikeout record in 1929.

By then, the Barons’ owner had begun “renting out” Paige to other clubs, since his growing reputation was a reliable draw. This pattern would continue for much of his career, with exhibition games and short-term contracts alternating with longer-term stints. At about the same time, Paige accepted a lucrative $100 per game to play in Cuba, the first of several international contracts. Returning to the United States in 1930, he played for American Negro League champions the Baltimore Black Sox and then the Chicago American Giants, followed by a 1931 signing with the Crawford Colored Giants of Pittsburgh. He continued to distinguish himself with Crawford in loan-outs, and in All-Star games for the next several years. In 1934, Paige married his longtime romantic interest Janet Howard. That year, his record for all games pitched was a phenomenal 31 wins and four losses.

The Satchel Paige All-Stars

Paige accepted a promoter’s offer in 1935 to form his own barnstorming team. The Satchel Paige All-Stars, whose publicity guaranteed that Paige would strike out the first nine batters, went up against Joe DiMaggio in his last minor league game. Of his experience, DiMaggio called Paige “…the best I’ve ever faced, and the fastest.” After subsequent stints with Crawford and other barnstorming teams, Paige was hired in 1937 by a Dominican Republic team to recruit players. He brought eight top Negro League players with him; but after returning to the United States, they were banned from the League and formed a barnstorming team called Trujillo’s All-Stars after the Dominican dictator. Then in 1938, playing for a Mexican team at an astonishing $2,000 per month, Paige’s pitching arm gave out after over a decade of exhausting service.

After seven months of restful inactivity, Paige was picked up by the owner of the Kansas City Monarchs for a traveling division of that team, and learned to use finesse and control in his pitching. He again became a draw for loan-outs, including one for the New York Black Yankees in 1941 when Life magazine did a photo essay on him. The Monarch’s owner bought a DC-3 airplane to convey Paige to his many engagements. Not long after, Janet Paige divorced him. With the U.S. entry into World War II, Paige devoted himself to playing games in support of war bonds and charities, including a game at Chicago’s Wrigley Field that marked the first time an African American team played in that stadium. By then, he was earning $40,000 annually, one of the highest paid athletes in the world. Paige played for the Monarchs in the 1942 Negro League World Series, which the team swept, with Paige winning the last three games.

After the 1946 Negro League World Series, he formed another all-star team, and in 1947, married Lahoma Brown with whom he would have four children. The following year, the Cleveland Indians’ owner was in urgent need of pitching talent. He tested Paige, and signed him that day to a major league contract for $40,000 for the three months remaining in the season. Paige became the oldest rookie, the first black pitcher in the American League, and the seventh African American to join major league baseball. His games attracted record-breaking attendance with over 201,000 at his first three. He ended the year with a superlative 6-1 record, a 2.48 earned run average (ERA), 45 strikeouts, two shutouts, and two base hits, and helped the Indians win the World Series.

With ownership changes, Paige was dropped by the Indians and became a top relief pitcher for the St. Louis Browns. Casey Stengel appointed him to the American League All-Star team in 1952 and 1953, making him the first black pitcher and the oldest athlete so honored. Further ownership changes resulted in Paige’s return to the Negro Leagues, more barnstorming, international and regional league play, and even a stint with the baseball act of the Harlem Globetrotters. He appeared with Robert Mitchum in a 1957 movie, “The Wonderful Country,” and his autobiography, published in 1962, went to three printings. In 1965, the master showman mocked his age in a game with the Kansas City Athletics by sitting in the dugout in a rocking chair with a “nurse.” At age 58, he pitched three shutout innings. He pitched his final organized baseball game in 1966. A failed run for state assembly was followed by a contract with the Atlanta Braves as a pitching coach in 1969. That year, the Commissioner of Baseball appointed a committee to nominate the first African American inductees to the Hall of Fame. In 1971, Paige became the first black member.

He subsequently advised a television movie about his life, “Don’t Look Back,” starring Louis Gossett, Jr., and served as vice-president of the regional Springfield Redbirds. After several years of declining health, Paige died in 1982 at home in Kansas City. He continues to serve as an inspiration to athletes, and to all who aspire to transcend boundaries, excel, and succeed.

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Sandlot Star

Gibson was born in Buena Vista, Georgia, on December 21, 1911. His family moved to Pittsburgh in 1924 after his father found work in a steel mill. Gibson attended school and received vocational training as an electrician. He worked in various factories and stores while developing an early athletic talent, competing successfully in track, and showed the makings of what would become a six-foot one-inch 215-pound muscular frame. During this time, he also began playing baseball, and by the age of 16, was making a name for himself in semiprofessional sandlot ball and specializing as a catcher.

Pittsburgh was home to the finest teams in the Negro Baseball League. Gibson had been noticed by the owner/manager of one of those teams, the Homestead Grays, and had been told to be ready to enter the professional league. When Gibson was 18 years old, the Grays’ catcher injured a finger in a game. Knowing that Gibson was playing across town, the Grays summoned him. He entered the game several innings later and was signed to a contract the same day. Sadly, that year, his wife died giving birth to twins.

Gibson remained with the Grays for the rest of 1930, batting a superb .461 in his rookie year while helping lead them to victory in the Eastern Division Championships, and continued with the team through the 1931 season when he hit 75 home runs. He then left for the formidable Pittsburgh Crawfords. During five remarkable seasons with the Crawfords, he won three home run titles, batted as high as .467, and during the 1936 season, caught for all-star pitcher Satchel Paige, thus creating one of the most dynamic and popular shows in African American athletic history. That year, Gibson belted 84 home runs. Paige, who would ultimately go on to play in major league baseball, said Gibson was “…the greatest hitter that ever lived.” In 1937, Gibson joined Paige and a handful of other Negro League superstars in a team created in the Dominican Republic. While the others were temporarily banned from League baseball, Gibson was permitted to return that summer, and resumed playing for the Grays at the start of their nine-year dominance of Negro League championships.

Major League Material

Gibson had also developed into a fine catcher; his muscular anatomy allowed him to throw runners out without taking the time to stand. His powerhouse home run hitting, which exploded from a compact swing, was matched by a fine sense of control and an ability to hit for averages. The Negro League teams kept no rigorous statistics, but Gibson won two additional home run titles with the Grays in 1938 and 1939. Many of his feats are the stuff of legend: Gibson is said to have hit a ball that struck the Yankee Stadium center field wall two feet from its top, and 580 feet from home plate. Had it cleared the wall, it would have been a 700-foot hit. Eyewitnesses swear that on another occasion, he did hit a home run out of “the House that Ruth Built,” which would make him the only player ever to do so. Home runs of over 500 feet became so common for Gibson that he was the standard against whom hitters were measured.

During this time, it is fairly well documented that the Pittsburgh Pirates of major league baseball prepared a list of Negro League players it would consider hiring, including Gibson, and that the Washington Senators actually came close to recruiting him. It has also been suggested that major league baseball’s offers to buy out Gibson’s contract were refused because he was too valuable. Lending credence to this idea is a 1937 statement from the Grays’ owner that Gibson was “…the best ballplayer, white or colored, that we have seen in all our years of following baseball.”

Like many other players, Gibson took advantage of lucrative winter season contracts in Cuba, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. He played through the 1940 and 1941 seasons for the Vera Cruz club of the Mexican League, and in the Puerto Rican Winter League, which earned him another batting title and the Most Valuable Player award. But in response to a lawsuit filed by the Grays, he returned to Pittsburgh in 1942 where some sources say he hit .542.

The following year, Gibson was hospitalized with what was diagnosed as a nervous breakdown; after persistent dizziness and nausea, it was determined that he had a brain tumor. Suffering headaches and other ailments resulting from thousands of innings of baseball, he continued to play. His deteriorating physical condition was complicated by drinking, and by some accounts, drug use, which may have been in response to depression at being denied access to major league baseball. Nevertheless, Gibson won two more batting championships and three more home run titles over the course of the next four seasons.

Gibson died in 1947 at the age of 35 from a stroke. Legend holds that he predicted his demise that morning, and asked his family to join him with his baseball trophies. Just three months later, Jackie Robinson was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers as the first African American to join major league baseball. Gibson was, nevertheless, recognized by his peers as a towering great of baseball and home run hitting, often referred to as the “Black Babe Ruth.” He had a lifetime batting average over .350 and possibly close to .400, the highest in the history of the Negro League. He started in nine East-West All-Star games, in which he maintained a .483 average. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972 where a commemorative plaque states that he hit “almost 800 home runs” in his 17-year career, the most fitting acknowledgement of all.

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Stricken with Polio

When Rudolph was born in Bethlehem, Tennessee, on June 23, 1940, she was delivered prematurely and weighed just 4 1/2 pounds. Her father, Edward Rudolph, a railroad worker, had married twice, and Rudolph was the 20th of his 22 children. Her mother, Blanche, and her many siblings shepherded the sickly Rudolph, first through double pneumonia, then scarlet fever and polio. When she was six years old, polio affected the use of her left leg, and Rudolph was forced to wear metal leg braces. Because the local hospital refused to accept black patients, her mother drove Rudolph 90 miles round-trip to a Nashville hospital for treatment each week. There, at a black medical college, doctors guided Rudolph through physical therapy exercises, which her siblings dutifully reproduced with her at home. Although she also suffered through whooping cough, measles, and chicken pox, she was able to say good-bye to leg braces and orthopedic shoes by age 12.

Free from the cumbersome braces and finally healthy, Rudolph promptly began to pursue an interest in sports. She quickly graduated from playing basketball with her brothers and sisters to joining the junior high girls’ basketball team in nearby Clarksville. By high school, she had become a star player, setting a state record for the most points in one game. Rudolph’s speed on the court caught the eye of Tennessee State track coach Ed Temple, who invited the young basketball star to participate in track practice at Tennessee State. Under Temple’s tutelage, she entered the Amateur Athletic Union track and field competition, a national event, and won both the 75- and 100-meter races. At just 16 years of age, Rudolph earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team for the 1956 games in Melbourne, Australia. The youngest member of the track team, she brought home a bronze medal in the 4×100 meter relay. After the Olympics, Rudolph returned to her all-black high school in still segregated Tennessee. When Tennessee State offered her a full scholarship, she accepted. Rudolph majored in education, and trained diligently for the next Olympics.

Olympic Glory

At the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Italy, Rudolph became a hero. She had trained hard with Temple, who was the women’s U.S. Olympic Team coach as well as the Tennessee State coach, and it showed. Earlier in 1960, Rudolph had set a world record in the 200-meter sprint at the U.S. Championships. During the Olympic trials, she ran the 200 meter in a world record-setting 22.9 seconds. In Rome, she won the 100-meter, 200-meter, and 4×100 meter relay events, becoming the first American woman to earn three gold medals. Immediately, she was dubbed the “fastest woman alive.” Fans in Rome adored her incredible speed, good looks, and quiet grace. Traveling the European competition circuit in 1961, she was mobbed by fans throughout the continent. The French affectionately nicknamed her “The Black Pearl,” and the Italians called her “The Black Gazelle.” That year, she received the Sullivan Award as the nation’s top amateur athlete, only the third woman to be so honored. The Associated Press named her Woman Athlete of the Year in 1960 and again in 1961. When she returned home from Rome, Tennessee’s segregationist governor, Buford Ellington, was forced, at Rudolph’s insistence, to make the parade and banquet open to Blacks along with Whites. These were the first integrated events her hometown had ever hosted.

After this unprecedented success, Rudolph retired from competition at age 22. She graduated from Tennessee State with a degree in education, returned home to Clarksville, and married her high school sweetheart Robert Eldridge. The young couple had four children, and Rudolph taught at her old elementary school and became track coach at the same high school where she herself had been discovered.

But Rudolph didn’t settle into obscurity. In 1963, she was named a Goodwill Ambassador to the Games of Friendship in Senegal. She became a popular speaker and was a guest at schools across the country. Her experience made her a valuable commentator on television and radio sports broadcasts. In the late 1960s, Rudolph became involved in a national outreach program for young inner-city athletes, and the experience inspired her to form the Wilma Rudolph Foundation that provided free coaching and mentoring to young, underprivileged athletes. Her biography, Wilma, became a television movie that brought her story to a new generation of young athletes. In 1974, she was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, and in 1983, she was among the first group inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Rudolph remained active as a speaker and mentor.

Rudolph was only 54 years old when she succumbed to brain cancer on November 12, 1994, at her home near Nashville. The illness was sudden and devastating. Rudolph had triumphed over tremendous odds in the segregated south, surviving a precipitous birth and beating polio to become a national hero. Her Olympic success was instrumental in encouraging athletes like Florence Griffith Joyner, who won three gold medals at the 1988 Olympic games in Seoul, and Rudolph was proud of the women who succeeded her. At a time when black students weren’t permitted to go to class with Whites, and girls were forbidden to wear pants to school, one polio survivor from Tennessee showed the whole world what African American women could do.

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Mexican to Minor League

Campanella was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1921. His father was Italian and his mother was African American. Little is known of his early life, but by age 15 he was playing with a Philadelphia semi-professional baseball team called the Bacharach Giants. In 1937, while still in school, he was recruited by the Negro National League’s Baltimore Elite Giants for whom he played on weekends. After one year, he decided to leave school and begin playing full time with the team, and in1939 was promoted to its first-string roster as catcher. That year, he married Bernice Ray with whom he would have two daughters before their divorce several years later. In the 1941 Negro League East-West all-star game, Campanella was voted Most Valuable Player and emerged as the leading League catcher. However, a quarrel with the Giants’ owner that year led Campanella to decamp for the Mexican League’s Sultans of Monterrey where he played in 1942 and 1943. He would eventually be inducted into the Mexican League Baseball Hall of Fame.

With his return to the Giants in 1944, Campanella distinguished himself with superior hitting records as League leader in doubles that year, and Runs Batted In (RBIs) in 1945. That same year he remarried, to Ruthe Willis, with whom he would have three children, and played with an African American all-star team in an exhibition series against white Major League players. His exceptional performance led to a meeting with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and in 1946, to his signing with the Dodgers’ Class-B farm team in Nashua, New Hampshire. This was part of a strategy to gradually integrate the rigorously segregated Major League, premised on the notion that Nashua would be a tolerant place to begin the process with Campanella.

Nashua’s Class-B thereby became the first professional baseball team in the United States with an integrated roster. When Campanella temporarily took over managerial duties for the team, he became the first African American to manage professional white baseball players, and led Nashua to an upset victory with his choice of pinch hitter late in a losing game. As catcher, he achieved a .290 batting average and led the league in assists and putouts, earning Most Valuable Player (MVP) status. The Dodgers advanced him to its International League team in Montreal, Canada, in 1947 where he again was named MVP and called by a competing team’s manager “the best catcher in the business.” That same year, the Dodgers officially shattered the Major League color barrier by fielding Jackie Robinson. In 1948, Campanella was made part of the Dodgers’ Major League organization, but was deployed first to their American Association team in St. Paul, Minnesota. Over the course of 35 games in that season, he achieved a .325 batting average, 39 RBIs, and 40 hits. Brooklyn finally issued the call that year.

Major League Action

On April 20, 1948, Campanella began a career with the Dodgers as the team’s starting catcher that would last until 1957. He was among the first Blacks (along with Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, and Don Newcombe) to play a Major League All-Star Game in 1949, and played every All-Star Game until 1956. Popularly known as “The Boys of Summer,” the Dodger teams of this period won the National League Pennant in 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1956, and claimed the World Series for Brooklyn in 1955. Campanella played no small role in this illustrious record. He caught for a predominantly white pitching roster with distinction while achieving a .312 batting average in 1953 and setting a Major League catcher’s record for home runs. He was named MVP five times during his tenure with the Dodgers.

Injuries bedeviled Campanella, including a chipped bone in his left hand that led to nerve damage in 1954, affecting his performance that year and again in 1956. But the end of his athletic career came with a tragic automobile accident in 1958. Driving home to Glen Cove, New York, from the liquor store he owned and ran in Harlem during off-season periods and between games, Campanella lost control of his car on icy pavement and crashed into a telephone pole. Damage to his spinal cord and fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae deprived him of motion below the shoulders. He nevertheless pursued a long-term course of physical therapy, which eventually returned some use of this hands and arms, although he would remain confined to a wheelchair. He separated from his second wife in 1960, and after her death, Campanella married Roxie Doles with whom he would remain for the rest of his life.

Campanella continued working with the Dodgers organization after recuperating from his accident, acting as assistant scouting supervisor, special coach, and a mentor to young catchers beginning in 1959. He was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969, joining Jackie Robinson as the second African American inducted. He relocated to California in 1978, and began working as assistant to the team’s director of community relations. Campanella died on June 26, 1993, of a heart attack, in Woodland Hills, California.

Posthumous distinctions included his listing as number 50 in The Sporting News’ 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, his nomination for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team, and his inclusion in a postage stamp series honoring great baseball hitters in 2006. That year, the Dodgers created the Roy Campanella Award, designed to recognize the team member who best exemplifies Campanella’s spirit and leadership, a fitting tribute to the legacy of this exceptional athlete and integration pioneer.

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