All Day I Dream About Sprinting: Jesse Owens

Do you know what ASICS stands for?  It's an acronym for a Latin saying, "anima sana in corpore sano" and it means "healthy mind in a healthy body."  I think the Latin grammar and the translation are both a little off but that's really not important to this post.  Do do you know what Adidas stands for?  Is it All Day I Dream About Soccer?  Maybe it's All Day I Dream About Sports.  Actually, it's the nick name of some German dude, Adolf (or Adi, thankfully for him, don't think too many people would be rocking their Adolfs at track meets...) Dassler.  Adidas was derived from the first three letters of his nickname and his last name.

Dassler made a wonderful business decision when he decided to go to the Olympic village in Berlin in 1936 and offered a shoe sponsorship to Jesse Owens, making him the first male African American athlete to receive a sponsorship.  Owens went on to win four gold medals and embarrassed a different Adolf, Hitler, in his own city.

But this wasn't really the greatest athletic achievement of Owens' career.  At a Big Ten meet in 1935, Owens broke three world records and tied another, all in 40 minutes... The 100 and 220 yard dashes, the long jump, and the 220 yard hurdles.  If this guy had specialized in the sprints (whether you want to believe it or not, hurdling hurts your sprinting, sorry Jamiee), had the training of today, as well as the apparel, not to mention the drugs that these guys are on?  Oh my God.  Usain who?  This guy went 20.3 over 201.2 meters.  In 1936. In dirt.  This man literally dug a hole to put his feet in instead of using blocks.  And not on a scholarship! Goodness!

My point is, fast is relative.  The fastest man in the history of the world may have only run 20.3 in the 201.2 meter dash.

This post, and really this is the beginning of a series of posts, was inspired by a few former teammates of mine from UB.  An unnamed very good female sprinter at UB didn't know who Michael Johnson was.  So, I hope that I touch on all of the important people that all sprinters should know about.

I'll leave you with Owens' self proclaimed reason for speed, "I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible.  From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up."