by Wyomia Tyus
Don’t think so, I would say to myself. Why do I need to run that far?
Still, he tried to get us to do it all. In the fall, we ran a lot of cross-country—a lot of hills—because when the snow came we would be stuck running around the gym. Mr. Temple had certain times he wanted us to be able to run before the indoor season started: if we had to run a mile, he had a time for us to do it; if we had to run the 400, he had a time.
For me, the 400 was too far. I wasn’t going to do it. So let’s say he told us we had to run the 400 in under sixty seconds. I would run 59.9. Edith and I would run that race together, and he would yell at us: “You’re not going to make it! Pick it up, pick it up!” But we could pretty much pace it and know that we would make it fine. “You can run better than that!” he would say. But we knew: if we ran any faster, that was going to be a part of our race. So we paced ourselves and ran our 59.9. All those five years I was at Tennessee State, I never ran the 400. Every year I would run 59.9. I would never do fifty-eight; I would not do fifty-seven. Same thing with the 200. I would say, “You tell me what you want, and I’m going to give that to you, and then I’m done with it.” And that was it.
A lot of times at practice he would say, “We’re going to have time trials, and if you run eleven flat for 100 yards, you don’t have to practice anymore.” I’d run the eleven flat and go home. I didn’t want to do anything extra, ever. I just wanted to be done with that track because while I loved to run, practice was just work.
All the years that I was there, though, I never missed a practice. That was also a big part of the program. If you were sick, you still had to show up; Mr. Temple would determine whether you ran and what kind of practice you did. The only way you could not be at practice was if you were at the hospital. And you could not be late. If you were late, you had to meet with him afterward and do an extra workout. I was never late. I think one person was late once; she did not want to be late again.
It certainly wasn’t true that all of us always did what he said. Some people claim that Mr. Temple controlled us, but I don’t think so. I think he tried to create a safe place where we could learn our own minds. Just like my parents. And I think that what helped to propel me into running was the fact that I was going to be under Mr. Temple. He was so much like my father—a man of wisdom, in my eyes. Nobody was ever going to take my father’s place, but at least I could listen to some of the things that Mr. Temple had to say and know that he cared about my future. He was clear about what he thought, and it helped me to be clear about what I thought. I didn’t fully accept a lot of the things he said. Not so much that I didn’t believe in them; I just thought that he was a little bit harsh. Yet his harshness was for a reason: he had all these girls on his team, and he had to be that way. As time went on, I learned to really appreciate him. He gave me the opportunity to break out of my reclusive state and see what I could do. He gave me the chance to become a Tigerbelle.
Funny thing is, I don’t know what year I got my Tigerbelle T-shirt. I probably got it that summer when I was fifteen, after I won in the meet in LA. I think I got one to practice in, then. But I didn’t race in one until after Tokyo—or maybe just before Tokyo. Maybe just before I went to the Olympics.
Putting up a win for Tennessee State. (Photo courtesy of Tennessee State University Athletics.)
Chapter 4.
First Gold, New Growth: The 1964 Olympics
Going into the ’64 Olympics, I had no idea that I would win a medal or break the record for the 100-meter sprint that Wilma Rudolph had set at the previous Olympics in Rome. I wasn’t even thinking about it. In fact, Mr. Temple had told me, “Tyus, we really don’t expect much from you. Your year is ’68.”
Which was fine with me. People would ask me, “How can you even let him say that to you?” But I knew it wasn’t a derogatory thing. Mr. Temple liked to bring us along deliberately. He felt that if you got exposed to top competition too quickly, you would get a “big head”—as well as a lot of pressure to do interviews before you were mentally ready. He wanted us to be exposed to the track aspect of competition, but he also wanted us to know how to handle the press: to be able to talk to people, to be able to make an impression, to be able to do all the things that an athlete needs to do to be successful. You have to be able to manage all sides.
It wasn’t just me; he groomed all his girls that way. You took baby steps: first you would maybe run a relay and trail an older girl who was being courted by the press. Then you would try out for events and maybe not make the cut but still get to see who was there. Only after all that, when it was time, would you start to have your own races and do your own interviews. I can remember him saying, “Well, Tyus, we’re going to take you to the Olympic Trials. I’m not expecting you to make the team, but this way you’ll get a feel for how people get themselves ready—so you know what I’ll expect from you over time.”
That’s all Mr. Temple expected, so that was the attitude I carried into the Olympic Trials, both the semifinal in New York on Randall’s Island and then the Trials themselves in Los Angeles. Going to Randall’s Island, I just thought, Edie’s going to do this; she’s definitely going to make the team, but I’m just here to have fun and do my best. When I made it to the finals, Mr. Temple kept to the same line: “Tyus, you made it to the finals. That’s really good. Still not expecting much from you. Just go out there and do the best you can do.”
Then, in the finals, I placed third in the 100. They only take three: Edith was first, and then Marilyn White, who ran for the Los Angeles Mercurettes, and then myself. There’s always been a rivalry between Tennessee State and the Mercurettes. Marilyn is short, about five feet—I’ll give her five two—and Edith and I used to say, “Look at those little-bitty legs—we can’t let somebody that short beat us!” But when Marilyn came to those trials, she was on. She always had a great start, and at the trials she was coming out of the blocks and just eating everybody else. All we could say then was, “She is really ready for the Games.”
When the gun went off for our race, Marilyn White came out like a rocket. She was so far ahead of us that I thought, I can’t catch her, but Edie can. And Edie did. I was coming on, but it was late, so I got third.
Mr. Temple was really happy. “Look at that, Tyus,” he said, “you made the team—first time out! That’s okay, though. I don’t want you to start thinking that you need to do this. I want you to be very comfortable and learn as much as you possibly can about being in major meets and have the experience of going to the Olympic Games and being in a different country for a long period of time.”
At that point, Edith and I thought we were going to be having that experience without Mr. Temple because they had not yet agreed to let him be the coach. Mr. Temple coaching the Olympic Team in ’64 was unprecedented. Because he had coached the 1960 Olympics team, he was supposed to sit out ’64. After the Trials were over, Edith said to him, “Mr. Temple, I would like for you to be the coach of the team.”
“Somebody else needs to do it,” he told her. “I’ve already been there.”
“But you have all the girls on the team!”
“That’s all right. We have to give somebody else a chance.”
In the end, they made an exception because, as Edith had said, Mr. Temple had all his girls on the team.[14] The Tigerbelles were the US team, basically. But even after Mr. Temple found out that he would coach the team, he never changed his tune with me: I would be there for the experience. His whole thing, the whole time, was, “Tyus, we’re just happy you’re on the team. Now we’re going to go home and train like we always train.”
So we went back to Tennessee, and then Edith and I got on the train to Georgia together to go back home and prepare ourselves to travel. You had to make sure you had your passport in order, let everybody know that you had made the Olympic team, and say goodbye to family. It wasn’t like it is today when the whole community comes out and gives you a big send-off—that didn’t happen. The sendoff was just your family,
and for me that was my mom and my brothers. They had a sense of what the Olympics was, sure, but mostly they felt: This is what you wanted to do, and now you’re going to do it. They didn’t make a big hoopla. I was not the one to do something like that for anyway because I was too quiet and barely spoke. So if they asked me, “How do you feel?” all I would say was, “Okay. Fine.”
“But it’s the O-lym-pics!”
“Okay. Fine. I’m going to the Olympics.”
That was just me, and my family knew me, and they knew: not getting anything out of that girl. They wanted to know a lot more than I would tell them. But for me that was just my life. Nothing to talk about. I went out there and did what I did, and if that meant going to the Olympics, so be it. I trained to do it, I was asked to do it, so that’s what I did. I was still just a girl of few words.
Everyone was really happy for me, even if there was no sitting down at meals and talking about what I was going to do and how great it would be. It was more like, “You’re going to the Olympics, you’ll need some spending money.” At first, we didn’t know where that was going to come from. But then people started stopping by to wish me luck—because my mom had told everybody in the world—and before they left, they would say, “Here’s a piece of money, bring me something back!” It could be a dollar, it could be five dollars, but it added up, and in the end I went to Tokyo with thirty dollars in my pocket.
After we had said goodbye to our families, Edith and I got back on the train and headed to Nashville to meet up with Mr. Temple, and from there we went to Los Angeles to get fitted for our uniforms. The track-and-field team and the women’s swimming team were all about the same size, which was a problem because the swim team got their things first, and we got what was remaining. They had enough for most of us, but they didn’t have anything that fit Earlene Brown, who was a shot putter—a big shot putter—and they refused to give her a men’s sweat suit because that’s how they were about all of that. What Mr. Temple had to go through just to get Earlene a uniform was ridiculous. Still, the rest of us got fitted with a workout uniform and a uniform to compete in, not to mention luggage and a little bag with everything you needed to travel, including toothpaste, which was welcome to me—I’d never gotten that much stuff at once before. We were also given a traveling outfit with a blue straight skirt, a white shirt with a tie, a blue sweater with red piping, a red blazer, and a big cowboy hat: Lyndon Johnson was president at the time, so they had a Western theme. For the opening ceremony, we each got a white dress, a little red bag, gloves, and a pair of high-heeled shoes. And raincoats—capes, actually, checkered red and white. Nothing I would ever wear again although I probably still have it, somewhere.
After we were fitted out, we stayed at the training camp for a couple of weeks before heading off to Tokyo. That was another long ride, but I remember enjoying it because we got to travel with other athletes. Not all the athletes came over at once; they would fly us in so that we had time to adjust to the time zone before we competed, and different athletes competed in different weeks. Track and field went all together, something like a month ahead of time, and I think we had all of the men’s track team and all of the women’s track team on the same plane.
In ’64, everybody participated in the opening ceremony—everybody who was there and wasn’t competing the next day—even though for us that meant standing in heels for hours and then having to go out and run. At that time, there were close to one hundred countries competing, and all those people had to march in, and other people had to speak. So it was a lot of standing and waiting. Mr. Temple had told us that marching in the opening ceremony was the best part of being in the Olympics, but I didn’t see how it could be until I participated in it, and then I understood. To walk into the stadium—and that stadium was so full—I can’t find the words for how it made me feel. I was just totally in awe. And to be out there with so many people, representing so many countries, some in uniforms like ours, and some in uniforms based on their traditional clothing—like traditional African garb, for example—just to be able to see that was mind-blowing for me as a nineteen-year-old, something that I never in my life thought I was going to see. And then to be a part of it, and a big part at that, was just amazing.[15]
It was also the first time I had really seen all the people that were on the American team, and it gave me a different outlook on the whole event. I was only used to being with the track team, but in Tokyo, athletes I had only heard about and read about were suddenly right there in front of me; it had never crossed my mind that I was of their caliber, that I belonged on a team with so many great athletes—it was just like meeting your favorite author and finding out that he or she is just a regular person, a person like you.
That wasn’t the only time on that trip that I was blown away; I was also amazed by the sheer number of people in Tokyo. We came in at dusk, and just seeing all the lights was almost overwhelming for me. I had never thought about what it would look like to have so many people all in one place. And then getting on the bus to travel to the Olympic Village through all the tall buildings and cars—so many cars! The honking horns reminded me of New York City, and after I had been to a few different places in Tokyo, I started thinking: It’s not too much different from New York. The only difference was that it was bigger—that, and the friendliness of the people. Even though they didn’t speak our language, they were still very friendly, which reminded me of being down in the South. People would always look at you and say hello as you approached them instead of glancing down like they do in New York. I appreciated that about the Japanese. Still, it was a lot of people, very close together. And it was a long way from Griffin, Georgia.
* * *
The Olympic Village was an old army barracks, and at that time athletes had to stay in the Village, not like some subsequent Olympics when a number of the athletes have stayed in fancy hotels.[16] Personally, I don’t see why you would do that, because staying in hotels, you don’t get to meet anyone, you don’t get to eat in the Village dining halls or go to the Village parties. In the Village, you could eat in your own country’s dining hall or you could be adventurous and sample foods from other countries—taste what they eat in Japan or Mexico or Jamaica.
In the American dining hall, we had a lot of potatoes—potatoes and rice and bread. I gained weight there, and Mr. Temple was highly upset about it. Before that, he had been highly upset because I was too thin, and he told me that I needed to eat more—I was such a picky eater. His dietary recommendations for me up to that point had been, “You need to eat more! You have to be stronger!” Then, in Japan, I gained weight, and it was: “Now you’re too big!”
I was at around 125 pounds when we arrived, and I think I went up to 130. “I gained five pounds at the most, Mr. Temple. I mean—”
“That’s just too big! You’ve never been this big, and here it is, the most important race of your life. We’re going to have to do something about that. You need to push away from the table. You need to push away from those potatoes, you need to push away from the rice, and you need to push away from that bread.”
That was pretty much everything I was eating. And it wasn’t as if I was eating all the time. I was a breakfast person, so I would eat in the morning, but at lunchtime I just showed up to see who was there. That was the main reason I went to any of the meals besides breakfast: you never knew who would be there to sit next to or talk to or connect with. In the barracks where we stayed, most of the US women’s track team was on the second floor, the volleyball players were on the third floor, and the swimmers were on the first floor. You would pass people from other teams on the stairs and in the hallways and going to the showers—it was just like being in a dorm at college. But at meals, you got to actually sit with people from different teams who you never would have met otherwise.
Walking to practice was another great way to meet people. Each country had its own dorm building, but they were right next to each other, and when you went to practice, you walk
ed through a whole international community. And even though the dorms were not coed—they had the men on one side and the women on the other—whenever you walked through the Village, you would run across all kinds of people. I met Flo Hyman, the volleyball player who died so young, and Joe Frazier—I still have pictures of how he looked in ’64. He was a lot smaller and much younger, of course, and he was always talking. We got to be friends with a lot of the boxers because Martha Watson, who was on the team with us, was a very outgoing person; she was great at telling jokes and making everybody laugh. So it was not so much that I got to know the boxers, but because of Martha, the women’s track team always had a relationship with the boxing team, both in ’64 and in ’68. We went to a lot of their matches, and they came out to the track-and-field events.
For me, it was wonderful just to be in the Village. I was like a little sponge, seeing all those people every day. Before that, we only saw the US men’s track team, and we already knew most of them: Bob Hayes I had known years before the Olympics—he went to Florida A&M, and they and Tennessee State were rivals, both in football and with their marching bands—but at the Olympics I got to know him a lot better. He was a carefree guy, a really nice person. Henry Carr and Ulis Williams, who went to Arizona State together, were also there. Bob and Henry are no longer living, though I still talk to Ulis based on that connection. And of course there were Ralph Boston and Richard Stebbins—people on the men’s team that we had known before the Olympics.
We would go to the track, and one group, say the Polish group, would be practicing here, and another group, say the Japanese, would be practicing there. We all had specific times to practice because they only had a certain number of tracks, and if you wanted to practice at other times you had to go off into the city to find another track. But Mr. Temple always had us train at the track in the Village, so we got to see a lot of different people from a lot of different countries and cultures. It made me appreciate them and want to learn more about them. It’s not that I made friends with them—there was often a language barrier. But people would come up and ask me questions as best they could in English, and I would try to put my answer back to them as best I could, and just having that interaction, that contact, was new.