Sound ninety-nine.

Wilma Rudolph, I wonder if we could begin by having you tell us a little bit about where you grew up.

Well, I grew up in Clarksville, Tennessee. It's a very small southern town about forty-five miles north of Nashville, Tennessee. I had a wonderful childhood there. My mother still lives there. I came from a very large family in Clarksville, Tennessee, but there's not very many of us left there now.

Hm. As a youngster you contracted scarlet fever and double pneumonia, and lost the use of one of your legs.

Right, well, in the research of trying to find out the, the end result, there was really a series of childhood illnesses and they began, of course, with scarlet fever and pneumonia and the end result was really polio that was the last finding, and I wore braces until I was about nine years old.

I think it's really remarkable to read about that, because so much went into your recovery from that; your mother, your, some of your siblings, the whole therapeutic aspect of it; your mother on her day off would take you to Nashville to the Meharry Medical Center; had to massage your leg regularly. Could you talk about that?

Well, I think when we want to talk about a fun aspect of it, I can think about, you know, the wonderful sisters and brothers that I had that, each time a different one went with my mother or my aunt, they took me to the hospital so that they in turn could learn how to give me the exercises and the massages, also. So it really became a household ritual. Everybody in the household sort of pitched in and made sure that I got everything that I needed. I think the wonderful things about those trips was the forty-five mile bus ride, when you're young and excited about just making a trip. So I sort of took it in stride from the standpoint of the illness. I think the thing that was disturbing about it, more than anything else, was being teased by the kids th-, that I grew up with.

When you were going through all of this, did you really feel you were going to recover? Were you worried that this would be something you'd have to carry with you the rest of your life?

Well, being nine, I really never thought about it. My household was so positive—not so much the doctors, but, I mean, my mother, she always told me that one day that I'd walk without braces. And I had begun to believe it. I believed of her early. My father was just the opposite. He was a lot more protective. He didn't really want me to take the brace off that often, so I didn't really get to take it off. But as I always state, that was a good form of cheating for me, because I used to sneak and take it off; and they would help me, and they would massage me. And I did that for about a year and a half before the doctors actually knew that I was taking the brace off. But, no, I never once thought that I would not walk, because I was surrounded by people who that positive about it.

When you were a youngster, did you, had you thought much about athletics, you know, as a very young—

[laughs]

child, or was this something that sort of came to you in school?

I knew absolutely nothing about sports. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know that young girls were allowed to participate in the world of athletics. It was a foreign word to me. I think I discovered girls in athletics about thirteen years old, and my sister Yvonne that was two years older than I, was playing basketball. And my first discovery was really basketball.

You were an outstanding high school basketball player. Is it Burt? Burt High School?

Burt High School. I really thought that I was the greatest basketball player, but when it comes down to reality, I wasn't. My girl-, my best girlfriend was far better than I. And I lost her early in an automobile accident, but when we were very young, about juniors in high school. But she was terrific. And I was probably second best in basketball in my small high school in Clarksville, Tennessee.

How did you make the transition from basketball to, to running track?

Well, it wasn't so tough. It wasn't tough because the whole aspect of athletics was new. First of all, it was a fun thing. It was where we had fun, more so than we knew anything about the discipline. So while you're having the fun, you continue to have fun. And I was actually discovered for track and field on the basketball court, because my referee of all of my high school games was the world famous track coach, Edward Temple, at Tennessee State. So he discovered me very young. I didn't have any experience, but I took the challenge of trying to beat my best girlfriend that was playing basketball, and I think that was the incentive that I needed. And I went out there and it was a fun thing. I discovered I could beat her; and then after I discovered I could beat her, I discovered I could beat all the s-, girls at my school. And then from there I was on the state level; I discovered I could beat all the girls on the state level. And I discovered it was a home for me. I had develop-, developed a great love for something, and I felt free. It was the individual aspect of it from the standpoint of, of my own single performance, of, of being involved. And it was up to me to work to be the best. And I think that I liked that better than the team concept, because, you know, you have a lot of help there. I was just learning those different concept of sport very young. I was very young when I went to Tennessee State; I was thirteen years old when I first went to the university, and I ran with the college team, but they ran underneath the name of Tennessee State University Club so that I could qualify to run with them.

In other words, you would not have been able to run for the regular university team? I'm not clear.

Right. Well, from the standpoint of your amateur sta-, status, you have to be with your high school or a club, so he would go as a club during the summer months, so that he could take all the young girls in and train us, and we would spend the entire summer there. And if we were good enough, he would take us to the outdoor nationals, and that was the biggest event for, in women's sports, es-, especially track and field.

Did Coach Temple ever tell you why he thought you'd be a good runner?

Not in so many words, but he wasn't one that spoke very often about the whys with his athletes, but I gathered that it was because of my height; I wa-, was always six feet. I was so thin and I will whisper this on your camera—eighty-nine pounds, when he first met me. He felt that I had potential. I was very quick. When I played basketball I was everywhere, and I could play any position that the coach put me in.

How did, how did you feel about going away from home, and going off to the University of Nashville? Of course, pretty good sized city, you were from a [missing frames] country environment.

[laughs]

Was that a big—

I loved it. I loved it. I mean, you would have thought that I was going to Europe. I was only going forty-five miles away from home. I think every young girl that really never has the chance to go out for summer camp because we couldn't—there was no such thing as summer camp for, for young black girls in my home town. If you traveled, you traveled with your family. If you were lucky enough to make a basketball team, that was the only other exposure that you had a chance to get. So I was the happiest young lady that you would ever meet. I think the only disappointing thing was that I wanted to appear as a college student, at thirteen years old.

You grew up in an environment that many people today are completely unfamiliar with. You went to a segregated high school. Tennessee State, at the time you went there, was, was an all-black university. Did that have any affect on you? Did you think very much about that, when you were coming along? Was that an issue at all?

Oh, no—

—When you look back on it [unintelligible] make it an issue, but—

It wasn't an issue; it was a way of life. It was accepted. I didn't know anything else. It was wonderful to be able to be away from home. I mean, you were away, and you were with the, the, the, I would say the grand-ness, or the greatest people. You met people from all over, small Tennessee State; I mean, we had students from New York City, all around the country, so I mean, it was really diversified from the standpoint that you could find people to talk to, find people to share experiences with; I always had something to share when I went back to my small home town. So no, I didn't think of it, I couldn't th-, I couldn't have had but one thought, and that was [Rollout on Camera Roll] being able to obtain the education.

[unintelligible] Cut.

Sound one hundred.

We'll go back into the question we were talking about. I said that you grew up in an environment and in a time that many people today are not familiar with. It's surprising, but some Americans don't know that there was a segregated environment in America at one time. You went to a segregated high school; you went to college during a time when many colleges and universities were segregated. Did that mean very much to you? Were you affected at all by it? Or was it just something that you accepted as the way things were?

Oh, I, of course I accepted it because there was no such thing. And you accept what is. All of my life I knew I was going to go to a university; I didn't [missing footage] know how, but in the back of my mind, I always tried to work toward education. Coming from this very large family and knowing that out of twenty-two brothers and sisters, that I was the first child to have a chance to go to school. And the grandest aspect was that I could trade off my athletic ability for the scholarship; and that was how I thought of it. And, but I thought it was a wonderful experience. Even with my children; I, I have four, I have two, one that have gone behind me; my oldest daughter, she went to Tennessee State University. And of course the first daughter always wants to follow Mommy. Now my second daughter is at Indiana University at Purdue. And the experiences have been different for both of them, but they share the concept of how important she felt it was that she attended a black university. And my youngest daughter feeling that it didn't, it wasn't as important that she attend a black university because she's always been in a segregated situation. So it's, it's interesting when you compare the two from the standpoint of their own philosophies and their experiences. But I would say for me, it was the grandest thing that had ever happened.

When you were, when you were running in high school, you, you of course could only compete against other black high schools, I, I would assume.

Yes. The thing that made it so great with our programs in the south was that we had extensive programs in basketball and track. They were all black, but they were really good programs. I mean, we traveled around the state of Tennessee, we went out of the state of Tennessee; I even traveled as far as Tuskegee, Alabama to the relays. All around, just high school, gaining experiences. The segregated situation was great for us because we had some of the top kids in the world from everywhere. Georgia produced the best, and I was always in Georgia, but it was just the opposite when I started with Tennessee State University because that led to the exposure of being in an integrated situation for the first time in my life.

Was that, did that jar you a little bit? Were you a little bit s-, what was it like [high-pitched noise] suddenly— [unintelligible] What was it like suddenly, now you're at Tennessee State University and that seems like the other side of a coin, that you're now not c-, just competing against black athletes but athletes perhaps from all around the world?

It didn't bother me from the standpoint of—I, I think I sort of always defied tr-, the traditional segregated aspect of Tennessee. I think I always did things [laughs] I wasn't supposed to do; if there was a sign that said you're supposed to go to the opposite door, I, I went in the door that you're not supposed to go in. I think it was always a challenge. Things changed an awful lot for me after the Olympics, but before that I would, I would not think that I was not supposed to do this because I was a black girl. I would do it anyway. I think I was just lucky that I never suffered any consequences from defying orders. When I met the kids for the first time on, in an integrated situation, from the standpoint of track and field, it was as smooth as it was with me going in those doors I was n-, I was not supposed to go into. I met wonderful people; I think the, the biggest problem was not the kids that were participating, but it was their parents that had brought them to participate.

In nineteen fifty-six, you went to Melbourne, Australia. A lot of people—

[laughs]

remember you from 1960, in Rome—

Right—

But you as a sixteen-year-old, went to the Olympics in, in Australia, 1956. Tell us something about that.

Oh, my goodness. I was frightened, of course, because I had not flown that far away from home. But I was not frightened enough to stay home. I always wanted to gain experiences, as many educational experiences as I could get, very young. I think the grandest aspect was making that Olympic team, and then going to Hawaii, and then from there, for my, for the first time in my life, landing in an all-black country, which was the, the Fuji Islands. It was a wonderful experience; I'd never seen anything like that. You know, to see black people run their own government, and, and, and to see the all-black policemen; all-black everything. The only thing that I couldn't take was the weather. It was, the weather was a lot different. Being gr-, born in Tennessee, I suffered the consequences, because I was able to run in any kind of, of situation from the standpoint of the weather. And from there to Australia. Now that was quite different. The language was different; the people were different. I had seen whites all of my life but I had not seen whites that were that color, so, of course, I stared as much as they did, because they were as foreign to me as I was to them. They would ask me if I was an American and I would say Yes and a lot of time they would want to know why the different colors of, of American blacks; and that I didn't look like all of the blacks. At that time I was, had been running for a long time and I was in the sun a lot, so that means that I had red hair. And I wasn't used to the [laughs] idea of having red hair either, but you know, you explain the history and you go back, and they are all sharing experiences. I think if I had an adjustment to make it would have been the weather, not the people. They were always grand. They didn't know if I was a champion or not; but in 'fifty-six, I mean, I couldn't walk down the streets, I was signing autographs all the time, and that was new for me, and I think everybody sort of wants to sort of live in that dream world once. And for th-, for me, being the first time, of course, I didn't think there would be ever anything in my career that would top that. But of course there was.

You won a bronze medal, I think a hundred yards—

Four by one hundred meter relay.

Relay—

Yes.

Do you remember that race?

Oh, yes. I remember that race vividly as if it happened yesterday, because it was the first time that I was in the realm of winning something. I had been eliminated very early and, and I was so upset because I was just getting my feet wet; I mean, I was only at the tip of the iceberg and here I was thinking, "My God, I'm the world's—I'm going to be one of the world's greatest, and I'm going to go here and I'm going to win something, and I didn't win a thing. I was eliminated in the second round so I was lucky enough to be one of the four facets that the United States still had produced at that time, so I was on that relay team. And the wonderful person that I shared that with, that I will always remember, her name was Mae Faggs, she was really my protege; she was the person that I loved the most in the world of athletics because when I met her at Tennessee State University, she shared the Olympic experience with me. She had gone to the Olympics, she knew what it meant; she told me all the things that she saw in Helsinki, Finland, and I was excited. We were like Mutt and Jeff. She was very tiny, and I was six feet, but I wanted—she was my role model. I wanted to be just like her, and she taught me an awful lot, and she was on that relay team with me. And from the standpoint of, of teaching me at a very early age, and me being able to go to the Olympics with her and win something, was really a grand moment in my career.

Who won the race?

The Australians won the race. Of course, I don't know who was second. You always remember first place [laughs] and of course you remember third place because the United States of America won a bronze medal.

Were you very disappointed?

Oh, no! I was excited. All those kids that wouldn't play with me; I had something to show when I got back. All the ones that teased me when I wore a brace. I used to think, "My goodness, now I have something to show for my own accomplishment. When I get back, all those kids that wouldn't play with me are gonna be very sorry. Of course, I forgot that as quickly as I returned to my school, but all of those years, that was the motivation behind me was because of those leg braces.

Nineteen-sixty, of course, is a very significant year for you and your career. You go to Rome; you win three gold medals, which must have just been an extraordinary—

[laughs]

feeling. Can you, can you describe some of that for us?

I mean, you're always frightened. There's never a moment that you're not frightened. I think the thing that took most of the fright away was, my coach was the Olympic coach that year, my coach from Tennessee State University, and that was history. And with him being with me, I never had to leave him from the moment I started with him at thirteen years old. So that was my first plus. And I think, I still didn't believe it, although I believed it inside. [rollout on Camera Roll] That moment of being there at the starting line—

Cut. We're out. We'll come back.

[laughs]

_Black Champions_, April eleven, nineteen eighty-five, Wilma Rudolph. Sound roll thirty-three, camera roll sixty-seven, sound 101.

Nineteen sixty, the Rome Olympics. Talk to us about that.

Fascinating. My coach, Ed Temple, at Tennessee State, that I had been with since I was thirteen years old, was named the United States coach for the women's track and field team. [missing footage] So of course we rejoiced, because it's not very often that you have a chance to have your coach with you. That is something that is so very rare and so very special. So he was there, and I had never ran a race anywhere without him sitting in the stands. And I didn't always see him, but feeling his presence was the most important aspect, walking out in front of all of those people. And he would always stay with me until the very moment that I had to go through [missing footage] the tunnel to get into the stadium. And then he would run to this one special seat; and by the time I came underneath the tunnel into the stadium, I could look and see him. And that was all I needed. I mean, that was the motivation that I needed. I think the first one, you have to be mentally tough. I mean y-, sprinters have to be mentally tough all of the time, because it is something that is not planned. You can work a lifetime and it might never happen. But being mentally tough means that you're willing to go back again and again and again and again, until you accomplish it. And knowing that he was there on that first one, being mentally tough for me sort of eased it a little bit by the time I got over to the starting block.

You mentioned earlier that you're always afraid. There's always a fear involved [unintelligible]. What is it exactly you're afraid of? Of losing, of performing badly, of falling down maybe?

Well, I think every sprinter that goes to the starting line, that moment is afraid of losing. That is always there. [missing footage] But the fear that is in the pit of the stomach, it is more of a nervous reaction than anything else. If it is not there for me, that is a day that I might as well not run, because everything is off; there's no adrenaline. When it's there I know that I'm on target, that I'm listening, that I have that keen sense of looking for that, of listening for that sound [missing footage] and I always had the worst start in the history of any sprinter because of my size. And I was the tallest sprinter that ever came through the United States, and everything was off. So by the time we really got it down pat ... I never mastered it, it always mastered me, and if you watch any of my film clips, my first thirty to forty-five yards, I was never in the race [missing footage]. So I was always happy they didn't have a thirty or forty yard races. [laughs]

[laughs]

But it, the farther I ran, the faster I became; and I could always accelerate in the end. And that was the key to the successes of Wilma Rudolph, never the start. And I always smile when I say that, because they always talk from the standpoint of a champion, and I think my philosophy has always been a true champion n-, is never able to master, but he or she is always willing to continue to try to master it. And that is what separates the champion from the other athlete.

You had extraordinary achievement in the Rome Olympics in nineteen sixty in the relay race. Your teammates were teammates from Tennessee State—

Mm-hmm—

I believe.

Yes. It was the first time in history of the United States of America, and it's still now the only time, that four young girls from one university represented the United States of America. And I had started with Martha Hudson that started the relay team, we both had started with Ed Temple when we were thirteen years old. Barbara Jones and Lucinda Williams were already there, so we came underneath them; we were sort of the neophytes, I would say, of the track team. So we had worked together for years and never in th-, all of the same positions that you saw on television, but Coach Temple taught every young girl to be able to pass a baton and to receive it. And that day, he had put together that combination. We won the national championship with that same combination and we, Lucinda and I had been passing for years, the baton. I would always take the blame because for the first time I was lackadaisical. I didn't take off as fast as I should have. My mind was not totally on what I was doing and she missed my hand the first—we had a, a sort of a little boggle there; and it sort of slowed us down a couple seconds, which meant that I had to catch up. But then I was a better runner from behind than I was being out in front. So enjoyed the idea of being able to catch up.

It was an extraordinary race because you just did, by maybe half a stride, beat, I think it was the West Germans?

West Germans—

At the, at the wire. You had to be a little bit—I mean, after that boggled baton exchange, you had to be a little concerned of whether you were—

I think—

Going to catch up.

The concern was getting the baton, because you just can't go anyplace without it. I never had a concern about whether I would catch her or not. You know, even if it's half of a centimeter, once you catch her, you know, you have the race. I had that same feeling when I retired, in the last race that I ran. It was from behind and I decided that day that, you know, this is history, and you should retire.

Tell us about that last race you ran.

It was Palo Alto, California, Stanford University, Russia versus the United States, and I had decided, I, I was running well, but I was, the heart wasn't there anymore. I mean, what do you do when you win all of it? T-, to keep yourself motivated, you have to be a little bit hungry, to be there, and stay there, and to stay on top. The, I think the most difficult thing, once you get to the top is staying there. The climb is the easiest portion. Staying there is the most difficult thing that you've ever had to accomplish. And this particular day, I looked—we were on, we were running a relay. We were behind when we started off [missing footage] and you always think on a staggered start, and you know on a staggered start, that, ok, she's, gonna catch her in the turn, and by the time the baton is passed we are gonna be even. Well, that didn't happen. And then when they passed it the next time, I said, well, by the time they get to the next person we will be even or we will be one step ahead. It didn't happen. And by the time it got to me, I saw that we were behind. And I made myself a, a promise that day, I said if you catch the Russian, it's history, retire. If you do not catch the Russian, you will have to run another four years for the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. I caught the Russian. [laughs] I retired, it became history; it was the fastest single race that I'd ever ran in the history of my career and, to get a standing ovation in my own country, outdoors, which I'd never had before, I think was the grandest moment in my career. I retired that day, and I have never regretted it.

What do you say to youngsters who may speak to you about their own aspirations in, in athletics, or youngsters that may come to you and say, "I want to be a champion. What do I have to do? What do I need?"

I say to them, "Believe it. [missing frames] The most important aspect about anything that one wants to be is that they have to believe it first. And as long as they believe it and start working toward it then they can walk away with whatever happens and feel good about whatever the accomplishment is. I also let them know that the m-, most important aspect of being in the world of athletics is being able to trade it for a sound, solid education. The key is education, and when you build that foundation together, you have it made, because you take that discipline and that determination that comes from the world of sport and you apply it to the world of education [missing frames]. It works for young people. And that is what we advocate at the Wilma Rudolph Foundation. [wild sound] I miss it; I don't know why—

Stick it.

Sound one-oh-two.

Wilma Rudolph, tell us about your early years. Tell us about growing up.

Oh, I had wonderful years of growing up. Wonderful years with a very large family of twenty-two children, and I'm the twentieth of those twenty-two children; a wonderful world because they protected me and they showed me a lot of love. [missing footage] A lot of determination came out of that for me. I grew up a lot different from most kids; I grew up with a series of childhood illnesses; the beginning for me was scarlet fever, pneumonia, and the end result was polio; and I wore braces until I was nine years old. I think the most difficult moments growing up was being teased by my peers and not being accepted to play and do all the things that one wants to do growing up. But then, when you have a large family like that, you're protected. I think I regretted missing my first two years of school because I had a home bound teacher, so I wasn't free to be out like the average child. [roll-out on camera roll] I was overly protected by my father—

I think we got it.