Wilma Rudolph
From Hoopedia
Wilma Glodean Rudolph (June 23, 1940 – November 12, 1994) was an American athlete, and in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field during a single Olympic Games, despite running on a sprained ankle.
The powerful sprinter emerged from the 1960 Rome Olympics as "The Tennessee Tornado," the fastest woman on earth. The Italians nicknamed her "La Gazzella Nera" (the Black Gazelle); to the French she was "La Perle Noire" (The Black Pearl). Her high school basketball coach called her "Skeeter."
Wilma Rudolph was born in St. Bethlehem, a part of Clarksville, Tennessee, twentieth of twenty-two children of Ed and Blanche Rudolph. At an early age it was discovered that she had polio. In 1947 her mother took her to Nashville's Meharry Medical College, a hospital for blacks, 50 miles from their home twice a week. Because of the expense and difficulty of obtaining professional medical care, Wilma's mother usually treated her ailing child at home. Rudolph remembered that during her youth, "my mother used to have all these home remedies she would make herself, and I lived on them". Many nights her mother, herself tired after a long day's work, would sit on Wilma's bed and massage her daughter's leg well into the evening hours. Blanche Rudolph kept telling her polio-stricken daughter she would one day walk without braces.
In 1952, 12-year old Wilma Rudolph finally achieved her dream of shedding her handicap and becoming like other children. Wilma's older sister was on a basketball team, and Wilma vowed to follow in her footsteps. She played well, once scoring 49 points in a game.
While attending Burt High School, Rudolph became a basketball star, setting state records for scoring and leading her team to the state championship. By the time she was 16, she earned a berth on the U.S. Olympic track and field team and came home from the 1956 Melbourne Games with a Olympic bronze medal in the 4 x 100-meter relay.
Rudolph became the starting point guard on her team as a sophomore. That year Burt High won the Middle East Tennessee Conference championship and, hence, a trip to the state tournament.
She was spotted at 14 playing basketball by Tennessee State track and field coach Edward S. Temple when he refereed her game. Being discovered by Temple was a major break for the young athlete. The day he saw the tenth grader Wilma Rudolph for the first time, he knew he had found a natural athlete. Wilma had already gained some track experience on Burt High School's track team two years before, mostly as a way to keep busy between basketball seasons.
At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome she won three Olympic titles; the 100 m, 200 m and the 4 x 100 m relay. The temperature climbed toward 100 degrees, 80,000 spectators jammed the Stadio Olimpico. Rudolph ran the 100-meter dash in an impressive 11 seconds flat. She also won the 200-meter dash in 23.2 seconds, a new Olympic record. After these twin triumphs, she was being hailed throughout the world as "the fastest woman in history." Finally, on September 11, 1960, she combined with Tennessee State teammates Martha Hudson, Lucinda Williams and Barbara Jones to win the 400-meter relay in 44.5 seconds, setting a world record. Rudolph had a special, personal reason to hope for victory--to pay tribute to Jesse Owens, the celebrated American athlete who had been her inspiration, also the star of the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin, Germany.
Rudolph retired from track competition in 1962 after winning two races at a U.S.-Soviet meet. In 1963, Rudolph was granted a full scholarship to Tennessee State University where she ultimately received her Bachelor's degree in elementary education. After her athletic career, Rudolph worked as a teacher at Cobb Elementary School, coaching track at Burt High School, and as a sports commentator on national television.
