Racing into history

Jesse Owens proved the lie of Hitler's racial theories at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin

The year was 1936. The place was Hitler's Berlin. The man was Jesse Owens, the African-American track and field star from rural Alabama who won gold in four events and broke records in all but one (that would be the 100 meters, in which his record time wasn't allowed because the judges concluded the tailwind must have aided him). We all remember that he rolled over Nazi racist propaganda like a freight train and secured a place as one of sports most enduring figures.

Those are the familiar facts. The story behind that performance is considerably richer, though, as Jeremy Schaap reminds us in his new biography, "Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics."

Now, I'm not sure how much of this story is truly "untold." There have been numerous Jesse Owens books over the years, including a few written by the man himself. Schaap, an ESPN anchor, largely refers to published newspaper accounts, interviews and other books. Little of the material in the "Triumph" is new, but Schaap has a mission in retelling the "greatest sports story ever" (from his Today Show interview). Fast behind his conviction that Jesse Owens is the greatest Olympic athlete in the history of the games comes the contention that many of the myths surrounding Owens are inaccurate.

The book's opening chapters jump back and forth in time, from an interview late in life with Edward R. Murrow, to Owens' record breaking Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1935 -- where he set three world records and tied a fourth representing Ohio State -- to his humble beginnings. Schaap introduces his devoted coaches -- white men who spotted Owens in junior high and nurtured his talent -- and he builds early suspense by chronicling the rivalry between Owens and his greatest competitors: Eulace Peacock and Charles Metcalfe, also African-Americans. Peacock, in fact, racked up a record of consistently besting Owens before an injury ruined his Olympic dreams. Strange to imagine it now, but it's quite possible that a healthy Peacock would have been the hero of the Games instead of Jesse Owens.

As the narrative progresses, the controversy around whether the U.S. team should take part in the Berlin Olympics takes center stage. It may surprise readers to learn how close the United States came to boycotting. Schaap himself has said in interviews that the United States shouldn't have legitimized the Third Reich by participating. Ironic, of course, as that idealism would likely have rendered Owens little more than an obscure college star.

Indeed, it was nothing like idealism that fueled Avery Brundage, the president of the American Olympic Committee, in his successful fight for participation. Schaap writes, "If not for Brundage's pigheadness, cunning, Germanophilia, anti-Semitism, and deep-rooted bigotry, Jesse Owens would never have become an Olympian." True enough, and Aryan supremacy would have escaped the beating we know to be history.

The results of the Owens events are well-known. No surprises there. The behind-the-scenes jostling with his fellow athletes, however, provides glimpses of athletic intrigue.

Owens may not have been as magnanimous as believed in regards to his participation in the relay event that won him his fourth gold medal. Instead of sincerely offering his place on the relay team to one of his Jewish teammates -- as has long been the storyline -- Owens lobbied to get into the event. The notion that he had been willing to demure in favor of a teammate may be a nicety developed after the fact.

And what of Hitler? Schaap argues that the Führer's famous snub of Owens may be little more than a myth developed over time. At the time, Owens said he wasn't snubbed. (Not by Hitler, at least. He did remark, however, on getting no acknowledgement from President Roosevelt.) It was only in subsequent years, Schaap argues, that Owens accepted and perpetuated the myth of his own insult, essentially telling his audiences what he knew they wanted to hear.