by Wyomia Tyus
We wanted equal rights for women—not just for women to have a playing field, but also for women to have the motivation and leadership to do well on that field. By that time, they had passed Title IX,[23] which made it so that programs with federal funding had to take steps to make sure that girls and women were not discriminated against when it came to playing sports. For me, this never meant that, for example, a school should have a women’s baseball team even if there were no women who could play or wanted to play, because that would just lead to more negative stereotypes about women and sports. There has to be merit to what is going on. I think everybody pretty much felt that way, but in my mind that was the main thing. So if they asked me about it, I would say, “I’m not here to demand that just because you’re a woman and you’re at a school and they have a men’s baseball team, then you’ve got to have a women’s team.” Why would you use resources for that? But there are plenty of sports that women want to be involved in, and the money should be there for them. They should have the opportunity to train and play and learn to excel even if they’re not turning out the crowds. Because there are a lot of men’s teams that, when they started to play, couldn’t play well either. Nobody came to see them, but they still got that chance.
As time went on, I was amazed by how many people spoke up about it. And I noticed that, for many people, it wasn’t so much, “I couldn’t do it,” but more, “I didn’t do it because no one encouraged me” or “No one ever wanted to see what I could do” or “There was never a program there for me.” And however it had gone down for them, for people my age and even younger, they were all together on one thing: “That’s not going to happen to my daughter.” That’s what made the Women’s Sports Foundation grow and grow: “I’m not going to let this happen to my child. And I’m not going to let it happen to my grandkids or my neighbor’s child, either.”
Slowly, slowly, people’s minds started to change, at least partly thanks to our work. I was at an event recently, and one of the sponsors, a woman, came right up to the podium and said, “I just want to thank Wyomia Tyus because the Women’s Sports Foundation and the passing of Title IX helped me so much.” She was like many of the women I had talked to since starting the WSF: there had been no sports opportunities for her, and she was never encouraged, so she did her best on her own. Then, by the time she got some encouragement, it was too late for her dreams and desires, and she couldn’t continue. But just knowing about the organization had affected her.
I cannot tell you how many women came to me afterward to tell me similar stories. And I kept thinking, Gosh, that was so many years ago, but how they remember. That feeling of being cheated. It made me think about how many women could never finish their dreams or do what they wanted to do. And it also made me appreciate how amazing it was for me and the other Tigerbelles to be able to have done what we did when it was truly not fashionable, not at all encouraged, particularly for Black women.
Living it, you don’t think about it; you just do it. I was one of those people who, when facing obstacles, thought, No, that doesn’t apply to me. And I have had several women say to me, even recently: “If I could have been as strong as you and just not cared—just kept on doing what I loved and cared for—things would have been so different.” I believe them. And it makes me feel grateful—for my father, always encouraging me to be myself and be comfortable with myself; for my mother, understanding what I was capable of and not letting me come home that first summer; for my brothers, pulling together to support my mom and support me and leave me free to go to Tennessee State; and for Mr. Temple, seeing my potential at that meet in Fort Valley, Georgia, back when I was fifteen, and always making me believe I had something to contribute. Trying to make it so that every woman has that kind of support is what the WSF is all about.
I am still committed to the work of the WSF, and there is still plenty of work to be done. These days, the WSF gives out a lot of scholarships and puts on a lot of events so that young girls can be introduced to and become involved in all different kinds of sports. It has gotten very big, and I’m not involved in it as much as I used to be because I appreciate the fact that they need new blood. They need the people of today, people who can travel, young people who young women can identify with. That’s what’s supposed to happen, in my opinion. I figure it’s enough to be the pioneer, get something started, and then, as long as they don’t forget you, let it fly.
* * *
When the WSF first began, I was very involved, both because of what I wanted to do for others and because of what the WSF did for me. It let me know that I was not alone, that the fact that I had accomplished all that I had accomplished and wasn’t getting much recognition wasn’t about me. It wasn’t personal. It was bigger than any one person—much bigger.
And of course it’s not true that I didn’t get any recognition. I got gigs here and there that honored my achievements and let me show off what I knew—like in 1976 when I worked as an announcer for the Olympics in Montreal. That was very different from the experience of being at a track-and-field meet as a participant. For one thing, they didn’t present the events in the order that they happened; it was all about highlights, all about television. At that time, the announcers were people like Keith Jackson, O.J. Simpson, Frank Gifford, Bill Russell, George Foreman, and Chris Schenkel, and they would work with athletes to add expert commentary to their reporting of each event. The athlete was never the lead; there was always someone else with you. You would go in the studio after the event was over—someone else would have called it live—and then they would edit your comments into the tape. They would guide you, ask you what you thought about something they had noticed. And this was not just for me—not something that they did to make up for the fact that I was so quiet. They did it with everybody, and I was glad because I never thought it could happen—I was shocked they even asked me because of my reputation of not being much of a talker. But I guess that showed that I can talk when I have to, if it’s part of a job. I mean, at least I knew what I was supposed to do. Nowadays, I’m more in tune with the fact that you’ve got to speak up if you want to do that kind of work, but back then I was still comfortable with being quiet.
I also had one or two people in my corner, so to speak, for the long haul. One was Howard Cosell. He was always backing me, trying to get me involved, trying to get my name out there. He was the one who would always announce—any time he had an opportunity to anyone who would listen: “This young lady has won back-to-back 100 meters!” He knew his stuff. So he was one of the people who helped me out.
I can remember in 1984, when they had the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, they had Olympians bring in the Olympic flag, and I was one of them. But Howard had pushed for me to be the person who passed the torch to Rafer Johnson, who won the gold for the decathlon in 1960 and was chosen to light the cauldron at the opening ceremony. The people in charge didn’t want to commit to using me. They wanted me to try out first. “We have to know,” they told me, “that you can run around the track.”
That was a bit much for me. I mean, can I run around a track and carry a torch? I don’t understand. But Howard said, “Just do it. Just let them see that you can do it because I’m pushing for you to be the one.”
Anyone could see that I could do it; I was only thirty-nine. If I had to prove that I could do it, to me that meant that they were saying, “We’re not going to let you do it.” Because I never thought they would let a Black person pass to a Black person. That was my first thought, anyway, but I was wrong. In the end, they got Gina Hemphill-Strachan, the granddaughter of Jesse Owens, who wasn’t even a runner, which made me feel like they really didn’t want me. But Howard kept pushing for me to do it because even though I already had the spot for the flag, he thought that would be the best thing to do—the most prominent thing. I did eventually get to carry an Olympic torch many years later when it came through Griffin before the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, but that was not until after Howard had passed a
way.
Howard Cosell was someone who understood what I had done and wanted me to get my accolades, and he tried to set things up so I could get them. But most of the time it was a lot more random than that. There were so many jobs! Although I didn’t get to carry the torch at the 1984 Olympics, I did work for Sports Illustrated during the LA Games. They hired athletes to sit in the stands with their biggest patrons and fill them in on what was interesting about the athletes, what the main rivalries were, answering any questions they might have, and improving their experience of the events. Sports Illustrated had rented a ship that was moored in San Pedro, just outside of LA, and we all stayed on the ship, the athletes as well as the patrons, and every three days or so they would take us out onto the ocean for wining and dining. It was good work—I got to meet a lot of different people and had a lot of fun—but it wasn’t long-term.
Around that same time I also did work for Coca-Cola; they hired Nancy Thies Marshall, who was a gymnast, Jennifer Chandler, a diver, and myself to do a women’s tour, traveling around and talking about our experiences and encouraging women to get involved in sports. We would go into a city, and they would book us on as many TV and morning radio shows as they could. Also, if a big sports event was happening, they would book us just to show up, be seen, talk to young girls about sports, and speak with the press if the opportunity arose.
I appreciated those kinds of jobs as experiences—not to mention the fact that they helped to put food on the table—but I knew that I had still not found my place. I had so many different jobs, and at each new job I would meet new people, and later those people—and this still happens—would call and say, “I heard you do this or that. Can you do that for us?” A lot of my jobs came that way, from word of mouth, through chance encounters: you meet people, they offer you work, you analyze the job, and if the job is not something that’s going to intrude on your values, you take it. So I did all kinds of things. I even coached track for a school year at Beverly Hills High. After that, every time I sent out my resume, the people who saw it would say, “Oh, you were at Beverly Hills High! How was that?” And I would have to say that it was not much: I was not a teacher, and I was not in the classroom. I went there at three o’clock every day and helped them work out at the track. It was an after-school program, and I wasn’t even making a full salary. It didn’t matter to them that I was an Olympic champion; they weren’t going to give me any more money to stay there. I was only doing it because I had bills to pay, and I could never figure out why everyone thought it was so great. But I guess it did look good on a resume. And that was a good thing, because I needed work.
* * *
Although being an Olympic champion didn’t lead to steady employment, I was recognized in other ways, like when I was inducted into the US Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1980 and then into the US Olympic Hall of Fame in 1985. I’m proud of all my inductions; they all have special meaning even if they didn’t change the course of my life. They were just moments: you go to wherever it is, introduce yourself, tell what you have done, and then they give you your plaque and send you about your merry way.
These days, they may do some more hoopla for some people, but not at that time. I mean, they really want to honor the athletes; that’s genuine. They respect the athletes and want to show that they appreciate them. But it’s not as if they see the events as a way to launch people into new careers or boost their old ones. And even if the organizers saw things that way, they can’t force the companies to take anyone on.
But if being an Olympic champion did not make my life easier—or at least not very much easier—I’m okay with that. Because at the end of the day, I got to have that experience. I got to see things that I never would have seen otherwise and meet people I never would have met and try to understand who they were, their culture, their ethnicity. I got to go to the Olympics twice, and grow as a person, as a human being, into who I am today. And I am very appreciative of that.
And I got to run. The running was wonderful. In some ways, it was a means to an end, but I still enjoyed it, all of it, the whole process, the part of winning and the part of losing. The part of practicing was not my favorite: the preparation, the drills, all the stuff leading up to the running. But there were times when I really enjoyed that too. I liked to sweat, and I liked to see the progress I was making. For example, I didn’t always have a great start—’68 was an exception—so if one day I did have a great start, I would feel very good about it. It was almost like I had little mind games I would play so that I could always notice what I did well.
I have never thought of myself as someone who needs things to be perfect, who needs for things to always work out, but people keep telling me I’m like that, so I guess I am. I used to argue with people, used to say, “It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be right for me.” And I would think: I just want to get out of the blocks like everybody else. That’s not perfect. That’s just being there with them. I don’t want to be left behind. It’s all about being there with them.
Chapter 11.
Getting Out of the Blocks (Like Everybody Else)
Proud to be recognized by my hometown. (Photo by Duane Tillman.)
One way or the other, I was able to make ends meet—because I worked hard at it. Because I was always out there. Sometimes I took jobs I did not want, and sometimes I took jobs that I shouldn’t have taken because they set the wrong precedent. For example, in the beginning when I would do speeches and appearances, I would do them for free, thinking that would be a way to get in the door. As it turns out, when people hear that you’ve done something for free, they don’t want to pay you to do it ever again. And if they do pay you, they only want to give you a little bit of money. That was not going to work for me. I was not living high on the hog, ever, but I had to live. And after my divorce, I still had to live, and I had a kid to raise, and although I got child support, that money wasn’t for me; that was for Simone to do things that she needed to do, to go to the school that she wanted to go to, to do whatever was best for her.
So I did the work I needed to do. I didn’t do things that would harm me or that I would hate later on in life; I always tried to look at each job as a step in the right direction: if I do this, then it will get me closer to someone who’s going to see that I can be an asset to them, a person of value. It’s very difficult, promoting yourself, and by nature I am not the one to do it. But there was nobody else willing to promote me, no one who wanted to say, “Hey, look, I could represent you. We could do this.” I was just flying by the seat of my pants. But I was also always trying to learn. When I went to an awards dinner or a WSF event, I would listen to people and think, I need to be a little more outgoing. I should be saying that. I remember being at one dinner, sitting around a table with three or four people just talking about a lot of different kinds of things, and after a while this one lady said, “Those women, those other athletes, are all trying to figure out how to get ahead, and you’re just sitting here talking to the common people. You need to be over there talking to those folks!”
And I thought: I like it here. I don’t want to be over there. And that was another growth lesson: That was just not going to be me. I was not going to be the person talking to people I didn’t want to know just to get ahead. The corporate world was not the place for me. And once I figured out what I wasn’t going to do and who I didn’t want to be, I needed to find where I should be. Around that same time, I also decided that if anyone wanted me to speak or make an appearance, they would have to pay me.
But since no one was tripping over themselves trying to get me to do either of those things, I had to find more regular work, and that’s how I came to be employed by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The first job I had with LA Unified was as a facilitator in a student integration program that started after they ended mandatory busing. At that time, LA had a so-called Black area and a Latino area, a white area and an Asian or Pacific Islander area; although all of them were actually prett
y mixed, the schools were not fully integrated. The student integration program would pull schools from as many of the different areas as they could to make it as diverse as possible. Four schools would come to the camp—high schoolers, junior high schoolers, and elementary school kids, but not all at the same time—and they would stay for two and a half days, doing hikes and, if they were high school or middle school kids, talking about racism and sexism and what they thought their roles were in making change.
When the kids first came, we would split them up into racially mixed hiking groups and cabin groups. Then we would spend the better part of the first day and the next morning doing team-building activities. Once we had done all that work bringing everybody together with people who were different from them, we would divide them back up for a discussion about racism: white here, Black there, however they classified themselves—although if you were a white person you couldn’t say, “I’m Black and I’m going to sit here in the Black group.” But people of mixed heritage could choose where they wanted to go. When they were all in their groups, we would spend a whole hour just talking about them, asking them questions like: “How do you feel about being who you are? What’s it like to be a member of your group?” And we would write everything they said down on a chart.
After that chart was done, we would say: “Okay, that’s how you feel about yourselves. How do you think society sees you? When people see you, what do you think they think of you?” And then all the stereotypes would come out, and we would write those down too. We wouldn’t have enough paper.