Sound one-oh-one.

Alice Coachman-Davis, we usually like to start this by talking about where people grew up, and what their family life as youngsters, children were. Perhaps you could start that way, tell us a little bit about your, your early life.

Well, there were ten of us, five girls and five boys; and I was about the fastest one in the family. So now—it's just four of us now; four girls that are left; but we came up, where you had to pick cotton; you had to pick peaches, pick up pecans, shake peanuts and everything. Sometime, I was taken out of school to do that. But when I look back at that now, I'm glad that I learned those things, but I wouldn't want to go back to that stage again. [laughs] And my father was very, very strict on us. We had to be in the house at, on the porch, when the sun went down. And I, ten o'clock at night—when you got of age to go out, at ten o'clock at night you had to be in the house. He would have this Big Ben alarm clock that, when it went off, then you were locked out.

When you were, when you were growing up in, in the south, there really weren't many opportunities to, to involve yourself with formal athletics, I think. You sort of had to learn pretty much on your own.

Yes, I had to coach my own. During the segregated days there were track fields, but you couldn't go to the, blacks couldn't use the track field. So I had to run up and down the road and all to train; and before that, I didn't know anything about track, I just start skippin' and jumpin' and playing ball with the boys and making them—they said that I could not jump them, and I said I could, so we would take a rope, or either tie some material together and put it over the rope, make a rope out of it, and jump over that; and the one that I would win, I would come out winning. So from there, the coach, one of the coaches, football coaches, Harry Lash, that worked at the Madison High School—he saw me; his friend saw me jump and told him about me. So he came over and he saw me jump. Then he went back to the, to the coach at the high school and asked him if he would take me to Tuskegee, and the coach, he said, No, because I was in the seventh grade, and at that time it was from eight to twelve, but I was going to the eighth grade. So finally he went through a lot to get me to be, go to Tuskegee with the Madison High track team. Now after gettin' there, I broke the high school record in the high jump—and the high school record in the high jump, and that was in 1939. So then I went to Tuskegee. Coach Cleve L. Abbott came over and asked me if I would join, asked my parents, if I would join the team to go to Connecticut—Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1939. So I went there and set a new American record in Waterbury, and from that day on, they came over and asked Mama if I could go over there to stay and work my way through high school and college; and she said no, Papa said no, but I said yes. And that's what I did, I went on anyway. Around there they had all kind of grass that you had to run on, but I had gotten a taste of the, the—

Yep. Mark it.

Sound one-oh-two.

There were ten of us in the family, and five girls and five boys.

Just one second.

Five girls and—

No—

—five boys.

—you have start over from the beginning. [laughs] I'm sorry.

Mm?

You have to start over, he was focusing.

There were ten of us in the family and—

Hold on, I'm sorry, Clayton.

That's the box.

Speed.

Is that the box there?

Yeah, that's the Olympic medal. I can put it behind me. Can you see behind me?

No, no.

No.

OK, that's good.

Stick it, please,

Sound one-oh-three.

We'll start again, growing up.

There was ten of us in the family, the five girls and five boys. And I was the fastest one, so I got a lot of whoopings by slippin' off goin' to practice and jump with the boys. They had a rope and we would bet each other who could jump the highest; and, of course, first thing Mama said was stay home and do this and do the other. So we did, but I would still jump over the fence and go on out to the playground and jump with the boys, and play with the boys. And then after that my fifth grade teacher, Cora Bailey, saw me jump and she told one of the coaches at Madison High School, Harry Lash; and he came over and saw me jump. And when he saw me jump, he went back and told the coach that, said, well, you need some field events; said, why don't you just look at this girl; said, she'll be in high school next year; said, come on over and look at her. And of course I don't think he wanted me to go on this trip with them. They had gone to Tuskegee relays th-, the year before. So finally he convinced them to let me go, and I went to Tuskegee and I broke the high school record. I broke the, set a, a new record in the high jump and broke the college record. And then during the summer of 1939, Coach Cleve Abbott asked me to come over and join the team to go to Waterbury, Connecticut. So I went over there and I set a new American record in Prov-, in Waterbury, Connecticut, at the national AAU. And the next, that summer, I went back with Tuskegee and I jumped. And then he asked my mother and father if I could come over and stay at Tuskegee and go to school there and, on a working scholarship, and that they would take care of me and I would be living on the dorm, and be well taken care of. And Mama and Papa said no, but I said yes. I said, well, I'm goin' anyway. So finally they gave in and I want to Tuskegee. Harry Lash is the one that took me to Tuskegee. And he told me that, he said, you got a great future. He kept telling me that I had a great future, but at that time I couldn't understand what he was talking about and I wa-, really wasn't caring because I just wanted to get a' jumping, skipping, running, and play with the boys. And I think my mother had other ideas about playing with the boys, but it was just bettin' each other that we could jump over higher than the other, catch a ba-, better softballs than the other ones, you know. But after I was at Tuskegee, then I hated to run. So finally I wouldn't let Coach Abbott know that I could run. So finally he put—we went to a track meet in Ocean City, and I won the high-jump there. And he needed two relays, so he put A there, which was always a national AAU relay team; and then he decided to stick a B-team in there. And he put me on that second leg of the B-team, slow team, and he was having a fit because he didn't know whether the A-team was coming in first, or the B-team. We had all the slow girls on the B, [laughs] on the B-Team. So since that time he put me—

—the fifty; he put me on the relay team—

We're out. We're just gonna change camera rolls.

You were telling us about your coach at Tuskegee. Perhaps you could continue that story.

Oh, Coach Abbott. Cleve L. Abbott went to one of the schools in Dakota, and he was a four letter man. But he was the type of person that was a mother, a father, nurse, or doctor, coach. And he didn't allow his, any fellows at all to talk to his track girls. If you wanted to, if you wanted to say anything to the girls, he would call them in and tell them to leave my track girls alone. And we would use Doctor Carver's peanut oil—whatever kind of oil that he'd mixed up for massaging all the time. But he was very, very strict and I, now that I look back at that, I can see why, when I see kids now that, with great possibilities, and yet they are ruined by going out, and doing something that, that's, isn't right. So I can see why he kept a strange and a tight rope on us now.

In 1939 you were at, at Tuskegee and obviously, looking forward, I would, I would guess, to the 1940, what were scheduled to be the 1940 Olympics.

Well, they were—during that time, we were just USA—you were junior USA girls, because everything was—the war was going on, and we had the soldiers on the campus, as you know about, the ninety-ninth pursuit squadron. So we were trying to entertain them, and I had no idea—matter of fact, I didn't even worry about the '39 or '40 Olympics. And when I heard about the Olympics was in '44, and they said, well, you got to train for the other. But no one told, really explained it to me; and maybe I didn't ask, I don't know. But I knew nothin' about it. When next thing I knew, that I was going to '48, that I was going to the tryouts. And from the tryouts, then we caught the boat right on from the next day on over to England. And we were on the, on the Atlantic Ocean for six or for seven nights and seven days. But I was, I had, I had to train by myself where there was still no track field available for any, for me in Albany. So by that time I had finished the course I was taking in dressmaking and tailoring and I had, I was back home. But I had no one there to train; so they let me—Aaron Brown, President of Albany State College, let me go back to Tuskegee where I could get some competition. So I went back there and they had the tryouts. And my coach got angry with me because I wouldn't try out for but, nothing but the high jump, where I had been All-American team for three or four years consecutive. I had been in, I won the high jump for seven or—1939 up until '47, which was going into '48. And I had won the national at [unintelligible] the AAU records. Well, actually I was the fastest thing in the United State [sic] and Canada except Stella Walsh. She beat me twice in the hundred meters and I beat her twice in the hundred meters. And I'm sure you, people found out what happened to her in a parking lot some years ago. What I didn't want—the first time I beat her in the hundred meters, I didn't know what was going on. But experienced jumpers and coaches are very, very necessary in track and field, to me.

How did you, how did you perform in the tryouts? W-, I mean, were you—this was a, obviously a big event. I mean you were going to try out to go to the Olympics. Were you very nervous? How, how did you react to that?

I was never nervous, because I didn't talk. I just had a lemon and stretched out. And sometime they would call for the fifty, and I had to go to the fifty; and then by time I get to the high jump, they'd call for the high jump. I leave the fifty, go to the high jump, and then they called for the trials in the hundred. I go to leave the high jump and go to the hundred. And then they called, and callin' back for the finals in the fifty. I leave the high jump, go back to the fifty, and from there, high jumpin' about over with then. And then I had to go by for the, where I had to run against the stiff competition in the hundred meters. And that's the way it was, about three or four years. But I, I've have always had a determination; as my mama said, that I'm stubborn, but [car drives by] maybe I am—

—in determination. I, I like to win. If I wanna do somethin' I like to do it right. [car drives by] And when it came to the tryouts and all the rest of the girls was nervous and whatnot, didn't bother me. I would sometime win the national AAU in my warm-ups. It was nothin' to me. The only competition I had from 1939 up until 1948 was at Providence, Rhode Island, at the trials.

And then I had competition at the Olympic game. And the only way that I had to do that, because I remember what coach told me. I was using the Western roll, coming from our, our left. And Ostermeyer's from France, and Tyler from England was on the right. So we had these flags for our takeoff. And he said, now remember the higher you get, the more you have to move your flag back. So after I moved my flag back, after he was givin' me so much competition in going over on the first jump, I moved my flag back, but I moved it back so that they could hit the, my takeoff, and that I would remember where my takeoff was by just a scar and making the line on the ground, and that's how I won that. Because Tyler and I tied for the first place, but she went over on her last jump and I would always go on my first jump. And then frankly speakin', I didn't even, I didn't know that I had won. I was walkin' around there, and the coach was cussin' me before I got ready to go on the field— oh, who you think you are? You won't even practice before the jump; 'fore, 'fore, a, a bi-, big thing like this, and you think you're too good to practice. Well, I had been with her at All-American team, so I knew her; and I had been with [laughs] Coach Abbott, and know his cussin', so I just didn't say anything. But my event was the last event in the '48 Olympics. And when I walked outside, there was 85,000 people out there waiting. And when I walked out there, I said Lord, if it's your will, it will be done. And I didn't worry about nothin' else. But she was the one havin' the fit then, but she had to cuss me out so. But I didn't—

[missing frames] —worry about anything because I say, if I can do it, I do it. And I had guts enough to do it. I didn't like for anyone to beat me—

—if I, if I could.

You said a moment ago that you had a lemon. Tell us about that.

Yes, I, I had a lemon from the time I started in 1939. Every time I went to a indoor meet, a high jump—a, a high jump, or I had the high jump, indoor or outdoors, always had a lemon. Kind of superstitious, you may say. And first time I didn't have it, I lost my fifty yard dash. And I, from that day on, then I started carry [sic] my lemon again.

You mean you actually carried it in your hand as you ran?

Yeah I carried it. Where a lot of people drink a, Coca-Colas and drink other, a Gatorade. This lemon, to me—all I had to do is to get it soft. And when my mouth in my, got tired and dry on the inside, I would just squeeze a little of that lemon and it kept me light. I didn't have that heavy water and syrup and stuff, so that I couldn't go over the bar; because I had to jump up and go over, and you had to be light to go over it. So I always had a lemon.

You were the first black woman to win a medal, a gold medal, in the Olympics. How did people react when you came back home?

They were very elated over my winnin', but it was just the thing. I was just their Alice, that's all. You know, they didn't, they didn't, it wasn't anything, you know, exciting about it, just a parade that had never been in Albany before, before small town like that. And of course then they named a school and a street after me and a, a housing project. But as a whole, when I go home now, I'm just old Alice.

When your parents learned—I've, I read a piece that said your mother was so excited; and, and then thought maybe somebody was trying to play a joke [laughs] on her when, when she received word. But did they ever think that; perhaps they thought ba-, back and said, hey, we didn't want her to go over there in the first place. Now she's come back with a gold—

Well—

—medal.

Well, my father died when I was a sophomore in college, so before that time, every time I would go somewhere, I was winnin' two and three gold medals at the national AAU. So they kind of got to the point where, let her go on—she's gonna do it anyway, so don't bother. When I would come home they were very, I will walk with my father and talk with him for, for blocks and blocks. And my mother, she was one that—I didn't tell you this, but I used to get three whippings a day. One in the first thing in the morning, for my math. The next thing, I would get a whoopin' for fighting during noon hour, at recess; and the afternoon for jumpin' over the fence, not getting permission to go and practice basketball or track. So they just got to the point where they just got tired of whoopin' me, I—

Slate it.

Miles Educational Films, Black Champions. July 14, 1985. Alice Coachman. Sound roll one-zero-one, camera roll one-zero-two. Sound one-zero-six.

The nineteen forty-eight Olympics were held in London. Was that your first trip out of the United States?

No. We, as I said, mentioned before, that I was on that All-American team to-, at, we, we had dual meet between United States and Canada. But any other, I, that was my first time out of, except Canada. As a matter of fact, we—the kids can go out now and they know where their competition overseas, but we didn't go. We went beside a stone wall. We didn't know who or where. But I knew one thing, that if s-, anyone was jumpin', I was gonna be right there jumpin' too. And after I won the gold medal, King George awarded me this medal—Queen Elizabeth's father—and now that's something that I c-, I can remember—

—for a long time, because reading in history about the King and the Queen, I got a chance to be awarded my gold medal by the King.

Then I met Lord and Lady Astor. They took us out for a tour at her house, and Buckingham Palace; and we went out to Pinewood H-, Studios to see them make _Christopher Columbus_. So, England was just pretty. And then when we got to France, we had a dual meet between the United State [sic] and France. And I only jumped in England. And when I put, I, they put me in the hundred, the fifty, the anchor the relay team, and the high jump, and I ran all, won all four gold medals. Then they started wonderin' what in the world happened to this girl at the Olympics? Why wasn't she in, in this relay at the Olympics? But it was just that I didn't want to, and whatever you try for at the Ol-, at tryouts, that's what you do. But I won four gold medals in the dual meet between the United State [sic] and, and France. Then I was the only one to go on a tour—only woman to go on the tour—in southern France, and not—in Lex Baux France, to demonstrate the high jump, how I won the high jump.

You had to be, I would guess, on the ocean for, for about ten days. You, you went over on the SS America. What was that like?

Well, that's why I think the kids now are missing a lot, because we went over on the SS America knew, really you find it's international and it's just like a city, and you meet so many different people. And then when we, they, it's—oh, although you get seasick. I didn't get seasick going over but I did get seasick coming back. And now they're missing a lot because by six hours overseas in a plane, now you just on there with your own teammates, but here you have certain decks you play cards, you meet different people. It's just wonderful. I wouldn't take anything for—I would rather be on the boat any day, than be in the air.

You tell a story of how your coach prevented you getting seasick going over.

Coach told me, said, whatever you do, you keep a lot of chocolate with you, and apples; and said, every time you think you gettin' sick, so just chew on it. Just chew on that apple hard [unintelligible]. So I didn't get seasick going over; and I didn't get airsick flying —some of the kids got airsick flying from England to France, but I didn't. But coming back, they said that they had, they had not had a storm in about twenty-five years. We ran in a storm from France to the United State [sic]—to Ireland, I think it was. But they said they had not had a s-, had a storm like that, s-, in about twenty-five years. Well, as a whole, it was just so much to see; and in England when we kids had passes to go to Piccadilly Circus—I d-, I went to Picadilly Circus several times, but I was, as my mother said, one of those little fast ones. I would take my pass and go to other little towns nearby, and see what was going on. I guess being nosy, in fact [laughs]—and buy ice cream and we had one girl that got sick. She didn't, she couldn't stand the food. So I would go into Putney and get this ice cream for her, and this milk, and make a milkshake for her. This was Anne-Marie; she was from Tennessee State College. But other than that, I would go. I went to a little place call Hammersmith, and first time I heard American music—sounded like American music anyway, and I wanted to go in there and start dancing, because that was one of the things I got a lot of whoopings about—dancing. Having four preachers in the family and all, the deaconess—was Sunday school, church, and Sunday school again, and my, my wanting to dance and I still wanted to dance because I wanted to be, my ambition was to be tap-dancing like Shirley Temple, and blow saxophone like Coleman Hawkins. And neither one did I get. [laughs] I can't blow an instrument, I can't play one. I can't tap dance. I teach all the other dances, but I can't teach tap dancin'.

After the '48 Olympics, of course you had to miss two possible Olympics. And you, I think you said that you really were not at your peak in the '48 Olympics, and you didn't really have a career after the Olympics. But you coached. And I often wonder how people who have been champions, as you have been, respond to the, to the atmosphere that is provided for you as a coach. What was it like for you, coaching after you had had this trip to England where won a gold medal?

Well, it was fine for me, because I'm a very determined person. I got a lotta guts, and the kids, all the kids that came through under me, they wished I had been harder on 'em. My own kids say that, but, and after they get a little older, then they come and tell me they appreciate it. But as a whole, I never had any problems. I'll, I would get out there myself and show them if they didn't understand. And I can tell them so many things that will have you, you—nobody looks at the [stutters]—one of my coworkers say all the time, say, nobody looks at a second-place person, they look at a winner. If you're not number one, they don't see you; but say, in second-place, they don't see you at all; say, they only look at that number one. So I'm kinda like, I thought about that for a long time, and said, you're right about that. No one cares anything about a second-placer. They wanna see the winner, number one.

If we were to give you this question, and ask you to finish this line. The line began with the words, to be a champion, how would you say all that?

Hard work, determination— Interviewer: Start with the, with the words, to be a champion?

To be a champion, you got to have determination, you've got to have guts; you have to train and let nothin' come between you and what you want, that goal you want to reach.