May 25: Jesse Owens, Willis Ward and Gerald Ford
Today is the 88th anniversary of one of the greatest days in Ohio State history, Michigan history and American history. And what happened on May 25, 1935, had ripples far beyond that day.
The Big Ten track meet took place on May 25, 1935 - 88 years ago today - at the University of Michigan's Ferry Field track. Ohio State sophomore Jesse Owens set three world records and tied a fourth in the span of 45 minutes, an accomplishment that many people consider to be the greatest single-day performance in sports history. The feat was so great that years later, U-M Athletic Director Don Canham (himself a track man) had a memorial erected to Owens on the Ferry Field track. That's right - there's a memorial to an Ohio State athlete on the Michigan campus.
But when you consider the wider story and what happened later, May 25 is an even more remarkable day in history.
The Big Ten track meet happened in the same school year - and on the same campus - as the 1934 Michigan-Georgia Tech football game, in which Willis Ward was benched because Georgia Tech refused to play against a Black man. It was one of the worst days in college sports history.
So consider that - one of the worst days in college sports history and one of the greatest days in college sports history both took place on the University of Michigan campus just seven months apart, in the same academic school year. Historically speaking, that's remarkable.
Many people forget that on the track, Jesse Owens and Willis Ward were equals. They raced against each other five times in March of 1935 during the indoor track season. Jesse won three times, Willis won twice. Everybody was looking forward to seeing them go head-to-head at the Big Ten outdoor track meet on May 25 in Ann Arbor, but Willis Ward had a slight leg injury and couldn't do the running races that day. He did compete in the high jump, winning it, and in the long jump, finishing second to Jesse Owens.
One of the people in the Ferry Field crowd that day was a graduating senior named Gerald Ford, who had come to watch his good friend Willis Ward compete. He was amazed not just at his friend Willis, but at the speedy guy from Ohio State.
In 1936, following the Berlin Olympics, President Roosevelt invited all the U.S. Olympic athletes to the White House. All the white athletes. Jesse Owens and the other Black athletes were not invited. Owens remained bitter about that until the day he died.
Forty years later, when Gerald Ford was in the White House, he righted that wrong. He invited the 1976 Olympic team to the White House, along with Jesse Owens, and in a surprise ceremony, he presented Jesse with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In his speech, President Ford talked about what he had witnessed on May 25, 1935, at the University of Michigan. And the picture was priceless - a Michigan Wolverine honoring an Ohio State Buckeye.
So on May 25, 2023, let's say a toast to these three great men.
(Pictured here - Eddie Tolan, Willis Ward and Jesse Owens at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor; President Ford presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jesse Owens in 1976.)
Had a memorial... erected... heh.. heh.. heh...
All kidding aside, this was a good read, thank you.
My great uncle competed for Michigan against Jesse in one of these events. At the same time, future M track runner, my grandpa, was winning the state championship. It was a championship filled day for my family.
As with many leaders, people were willing to overlook FDR's many faults due to his leadership during the Great Depression and WWII.
His four terms have largely been whitewashed in a way not even Lincoln or Washington legacies benefitted from.
If people looked at the entirety of FDR’s tenure they would find much to like and much to hate. A deeply complicated man whose historical legacy is…knotty.
Good point about the whitewashing and that he has many great qualities as well.
Just going from memory here, some cons on FDR as a person: saying Jews needed to be spread thin across the country, returning Jews to Europe, Executive Order 9066 aka Japanese Internment Camps, saying that 9 out of 10 times when a white person and Asian person have a child it's a bad outcome, saying he admired fascism before WW2, saying he admired Benito Mussolini, appointing former KKK members, etc.
A guy with this platform might be able to beat Trump for the Republican nomination next year.
Except it was Progressive explicitly borrowing from FDR. Bernie and his big government Green New Deal is very Rooseveltian.
A guy with that platform could win both parties nominations.
It goes much further than that. Expansion of the power of Hoover’s FBI including the ability to spy on citizens, creation of atomic bomb, strategic bombing campaign, served four terms instead of two including the last one where he was seriously ill.
The worst thing he ever did by far was having scientists create the atomic bomb. He gave Mankind the ability to wipe itself faster than almost any other conceivable possibility including climate change.
He gave us a radioactive Damocles Sword that probably in time annihilate most of humanity if history is any guide to human behavior.
I say this as grandson of a Marine who was saved from going into Japan by the use of the bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Probably both of my grandfathers actually.
So much of our modern identity as a nation comes from that period of time that it will be sometime before there is a serious movement to re-evaluate FDR. He beat the Nazis and that makes him good.
Right - because it would've been much better had the German's created it first and used it on everyone else.
He also thought highly of and trusted the Soviet Union and, particularly, Uncle Joe Stalin. Consequently he did not believe that the USSR/Stalin had murdered 10s of millions of the USSR's citizens or that Stalin and Hitler had agreed to the Molotov - Von Ribbentrop Pact dividing Eastern Europe between them. He also put together an administration riddled with Communist spiles that passed the secrets of, among other things, the the Manhattan Project, to the USSR.
He was a good war leader.
I was unfamiliar with the third gentleman in the picture, Eddie Tolan. Given his accomplishments, that's pretty shameful. Here's his wikipedia page if anyone else needs to brush up on the life story of a great Wolverine and Michigander. (Who like Ward, could've been treated far better by the athletic department.)
Link was not working
This one should - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Tolan
Thank you! I think I've repaired mine as well.
Eddie Tolan was THE MAN!
Awesome point. Eddie Tolan doesn’t get the recognition he deserves
Thanks for this....Great read and important history.
Owens befriended a German during those Olympics by the name of Luz Long. Long and Owens spirited battle in the long jump is captured in Riefenstahl’s “Olympia”. Long and Owens would leave the field that day locked arm in arm as friends.
Long would later be killed in Sicily while in service in the Wehrmacht.
I saw a video clip of the German athlete working WITH Owens on the long jump(?) setup. Impressive sportsmanship. I still wonder how much grief he caught from the “authorities “.
Great post BursleyHall82! The photos are also great. Learned something new about Willis and Owens competing head to head.
This was a great post.
And while the beloved University of Michigan is far from a perfect institution, I would argue it has lead the country in championing minority rights & treating all people with dignity across all groups.
Go Blue.
Willis Ward and Jesse Owens became lifelong friends and had a relationship that extended well beyond the track. Upon graduation, Willis was hired by Henry Ford himself to work at the Ford Motor Co. as a liaison between the company and its Black employees. In his mid-20s, he was one of the highest-ranking African-American business executives in America. When Willis left the job a few years later to go to law school, the man who replaced him was Jesse Owens.
Here are Willis and Jesse at the Ford Motor Co. in 1942, as Willis gives him some training about the job.
It would be prudent not to oversimplify Ward's role at Ford Motor, within the notorious Service Department. Unlike Owens, he was not well liked by fellow Black workers and was known for actively keeping them out of more preferable jobs at Ford. Also, I think Owens joined Ford when Willis temporarily left for military service.
While I knew about Owens and May 25th, I'm ashamed to say that I didn't realize that it was in Ann Arbor! Thanks for putting this together.
Great read, thanks for posting this.
Thanks for this. There are some nice articles around the web about it, too, if people are interested.
Fantastic post, OP.
Once again, the "Michigan Difference" at play here on the MGoBoard; I highly doubt there's many other college sports blogs where you would find such a high quality post.
I should have also mentioned that despite Jesse's four world records, Michigan won the meet (and the Big Ten championship) that day. Go Blue!
I've known about Jesse's fantastic "four records in 45 minutes" accomplishment since I was a kid, but it never occurred to me to find out who actually won the meet. Thanks!
Incredible and inspiring story. Thank you for the post.
Pretty crazy Gerald ford was able to invent the car and play Michigan football at the same time. Probably one of the greatest humans ever.
Great read
The Sept-Oct 2021 issue of Michigan History magazine had a great article about Willis Ward's career. The benching against Georgia Tech was a soul-crushing moment for the young man. He wasn't even allowed to attend the game in order to head off any protests. Ford threatened to quit the team but was talked into playing by his stepfather, Harry Kipke and Ward himself. It also gets into the Ward/Owens rivalry.
You can access the article at the Michigan Electronic Library (MeL) but you need a MI drivers license to log in. It's a great read.
If you haven't read John Behee's Hail to the Victors - A History of Black Athletes at Michigan, you should:
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/g/genpub/AEN3524.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
Sorry I'm too much of a homer. Now I am thinking if Ward wasn't injured would he have been the one who would have planted Hitler on his Aryan ass in '36?
I park behind the IM building for gameday. I always make it a point to visit the monument to Owens.