[This week, my amazing younger son Kyle turns 18! So I wanted to dedicate the week’s blog series to AmericanStudying some Kyle Contexts, leading up to a repeat of his excellent Guest Post on the OJ Simpson trial.]
In honor
of a track career which has faced way more than its share of setbacks (from all
of which Kyle has bounced back and then some), quick hits on five moments when
track & field stars fought the good fight.
1)
Jim Thorpe: Being a
Native American athlete brought up on a reservation who became known as the greatest
American athlete of the 20th century would be more than enough
to earn Jim Thorpe a spot on this list, as would his genuine successes at more
than a few distinct sports. But for a post on track & field fielders, I’ll highlight
the story—hard to confirm, but I’m very willing to believe it—that the
reason Thorpe is wearing two different shoes in pictures
from the 1912 Olympics is that his were stolen and so he found two mismatched
ones in the trash and wore them when he set hugely
longstanding records in the decathlon.
2)
Babe
Didrikson Zaharias: I wrote about Zaharias’s Olympic track & field
achievements at the 1932 Games
(when she was known as Babe Didrikson), among many other inspiring layers to
her sports successes, in that hyperlinked post. Her fight was against the kind
of sexism that led sportswriter Joe Williams
to write, as I noted in that post, that “it would be much better if she and
her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up, and waited for the phone to
ring.” Don’t hold your breath, Joe.
3)
Jesse
Owens: I don’t know that I can detail Owens’s track & field fights,
triumphs, and tragedies any more clearly than I did in that hyperlinked Saturday
Evening Post Considering History column. Check it out and c’mon back!
4)
Mexico
City: Like many other commentators have over the last decade, in that
hyperlinked post I linked Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s 1968
Black Power protest to Colin Kaepernick’s 2016 anthem protests. But while I
stand by that comparison, it’s important that we not minimize how much more
danger Smith and Carlos were putting themselves in—Kaepernick has faced countless
consequences for his courageous stand, but in 1968 (as throughout the decade) African
American leaders were being murdered left and right by white supremacist
domestic terrorists. There are few braver protests in our history.
5)
Caster Semenya: Semenya’s
story is far more multilayered than I can do justice to in this brief space, but
the simple and crucial fact is this: due to aspects of her specific human body,
ones that are no different from Michael
Phelps’s extra-long wingspan or any number of other quirks possessed by
great athletes, Semenya has been targeted time and again by both transphobic
hate and official sanctions. That she has consistently fought back and
continued to compete and to do so at the highest level makes her a fighter any
track & field athlete, and any human for that matter, should be inspired
by.
Last
context tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Lemme
know any bday wishes I can pass along to my not-so-young man!
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