COLUMN: Triumph, Tyranny and the Rest of the Owens Story

Once again this week, the sports world will recall the inspiring performance of American sprinter Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The occasion is the world track & field championships that begin next weekend in Berlin. The meet will be held at the Olympic Stadium – the site of Owens’ triumphs almost 73 years ago.

Built by Adolf Hitler in celebration of his Third Reich, the stadium was meant to showcase Nazi claims of Aryan supremacy. But Owens demonstrated otherwise, becoming the first American track athlete to win four Olympic gold medals.

During the meet next week, USA Track & Field, the IAAF and the Berlin Organizing Committee plan to pay tribute to Owens, who died in 1980. The U.S. squad will wear a uniform that sports Owens’ initials.

His achievement – Owens won the 100 and 200 dashes and the long jump, and he was a member of the winning 4-x-100 relay team – is worth honoring. It was a brilliant and courageous individual effort, one of the defining moments of the tumultuous 20th century.

But there is an unfortunate aspect to this story that few people know: It involves how Owens, who was scheduled to compete in only three events, got the opportunity to win a fourth gold medal. 

It is a side of the story that in all likelihood, no one will mention during any ceremony honoring Owens. After more than seven decades, the sordid details would only get in the way, because they would have to be explained. It also would complicate what is – in the history books, at least, and in many of our memories – a simple story of one man’s triumph in the face of tyranny.

But, to paraphrase the late radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, the rest of the story is more than worth knowing.

It is a tale of bigotry and discrimination. No, it had nothing to do with Owens nor his African-American teammates. Instead, it was instead directed at the two Jewish members of the
U.S. track & field team, Sam Stoller and Marty Glickman. And it came, not from any Nazi official, but from the two coaches of the U.S. track team.

You might recognize Glickman’s name, because he went on to become a national radio and television sports announcer. But you probably never heard of Sam Stoller; although, because of his boyish good looks, he did have a brief fling as a bit Hollywood actor.

Competing for the University of Michigan, Stoller was one of the two fastest sprinters in what is now the Big Ten. He didn’t get more attention as a track athlete because the conference’s other top sprinter was Owens, who ran for Ohio State.

Stoller often was overshadowed by his rival. For instance, at the 1935 conference track & field meet in Ann Arbor, Mich., Owens set three world records and tied a fourth.

But Stoller was easily fast enough to earn one of the spots on the U.S. 4-x-100 relay team for the Berlin Games.

Glickman, who would play football and run track for Syracuse, was fast, too – he beat the best German sprinter head-to-head in a meet not long after the 1936 Games – and he earned one of the other spots on the relay team.

Yet once in Berlin, in one of the saddest chapters in U.S. Olympic history, neither was allowed to compete for his country.

In 1986, when I first began to research a story for the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Games and Owens’ part in them, I knew nothing about this story. I was familiar with Glickman as a broadcaster, but knew nothing about his athletic career. I had never heard of Stoller.

Searching through the University of Michigan’s athletic department archives, however, I ran across the sketchy details of what had happened to the two Jewish sprinters during those ’36 Games.

Though I set out to report a story of triumph about Owens, I had found a tale that was much more compelling – and very troubling.

Stoller had been dead for 11 years by the time I started my research, but I was able to track down Glickman at his home in New York. When I told him what I was calling about, it was as if a floodgate had opened. Memories and emotions came pouring out, as fresh as if the incident had occurred the day before.

Stoller and Glickman had trained to compete in the 4-x-100 relay, one of the final track events. A relay demands precision in passing the baton as much as speed. For instance, the
Dutch team that finished third in the finals was disqualified for passing out of its lane. The U.S. team of Stoller, Glickman, Foy Draper and Frank Wykoff was flawless in this critical aspect of the event.

The day the U.S. quartet was scheduled to run in qualifying heats, U.S. assistant coach Dean Cromwell and head coach Lawson Robertson called all seven of the U.S. team’s sprinters into a meeting.

Robertson opened by saying he’d heard strong rumors that the Germans were hiding their best sprinters and planned to use them to upset the American team in the relay. Because of that, the coach said, he was benching Stoller and Glickman in favor of Owens and Ralph Metcalfe.

The athletes were stunned.

Though the two black sprinters were faster than Glickman and Stoller, neither had practiced passing a baton in some time. The sprinters knew that a missed exchange was more likely to derail the Americans’ gold-medal hopes than anything the Germans could muster.

Glickman, then a brash 18-year-old, said as much to the coaches: “Coach, you can’t hide world-class sprinters.” The coaches dismissed his observation.

Stoller, too stunned to say anything, would later call the incident “the most humiliating episode” of his life. And for Glickman, even 50 years later, the anger and disappointment was every bit as evident as it must have been that day in Berlin.

Glickman told me in 1986 that he’d expected to encounter anti-Semitism from his German hosts. But, he said, he never expected to be the target of it from Americans, particularly his own coaches.

Glickman said that both Cromwell and Robertson admired what the Nazis had done to rebuild Germany and were sympathetic to Hitler. Recognizing that Hitler was uncomfortable every time Owens or a black teammate stepped to the podium, the coaches wanted to spare the German dictator the further embarrassment of having two Jewish athletes stand on the victory platform.

Stoller and Glickman were the only two members of the U.S. team who did not get to compete in the 1936 Games. Glickman said he believed that at no other time in the modern history of the Games has a fit and uninjured American athlete not been allowed to compete.

After Glickman made his point that morning meeting with the American coaches, Owens spoke up to support him: “Coach, I’ve won my three goals medals. I’m tired. I’ve had it. Let Marty and Sam run. They deserve it.”

Cromwell pointed a finger at Owens and angrily told him: “You’ll do as you’re told.”

Glickman later recalled: “In those days, black athletes did as they were told, and Jesse was quiet after that.”

Next weekend, when Owens’ athletic heroics are recalled, the rest of the story ought to be told. It is, after all, a part of his history, too.

It also should be mentioned that Owens stood up for his two teammates.

That, as much as anything else he did that year in Berlin, took a lot of courage.

JIM CNOCKAERT is sports editor of the Bristol Herald Courier. He can be contacted at and at (276) 645-2572.