April 2007:

	SL Interviews
	Tommie Smith, author of "Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith," discusses his 1968 victory-stand demonstration at Mexico City and its aftermath.
	Jeremy Schaap goes back farther in time, to 1936, to talk about his book, “Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics.”
	Publish or Perish
	Recent scholarship on 1) children, obesity, eating and exercise, 2) NASCAR fan reactions to the death of Dale Earnhardt.
	Mascot
	Meet Chabala, a cat who digs handball.

TOMMIE SMITH

The son of a sharecropper, Tommie Smith raced to athletic glory at San Jose State University. He held 11 world records (including indoor and outdoor marks) at distances up to 440 yards and was part of the university's vaunted "Speed City" contingent. Before the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, Smith joined the Olympic Project for Human Rights, a group that initially proposed a boycott of the Games by African-American athletes if its Civil Rights demands were not addressed. The boycott was called off after Smith and other black athletes voted to compete instead. In Mexico City, Smith won the gold medal in the 200 meters, defeating John Carlos (another San Jose State student) and shattering the world record with a time of 19.83 seconds. Hours later, Smith stood on the victory podium in his black socks, with a black scarf around his neck. As the National Anthem began to play, he bowed his head and slowly raised his black-gloved right fist in the air. He was joined by Carlos, the bronze medalist, who raised his black-gloved left fist in solidarity. (The silver-medalist, Australia's Peter Norman, wore a button in support of the Olympic Project for Human Rights.)

This book may be purchased at amazon.com

The photograph of the two athletes, their arms aloft, became a Civil Rights touchstone. Indeed, the image has come to symbolize the turbulent social upheaval that America was experiencing during the Vietnam War era. On the track, the fallout from the protest was severe. Smith and Carlos were sent home and banned from international competition. Afterwards, both struggled to jump-start their lives. Smith caught on with the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals for several seasons before earning his master's degree. He then taught and coached track and field, first at Oberlin College and then at Santa Monica College in Southern California.

Now, nearly 40 years after his stand in Mexico City, Smith (along with David Steele, a sportswriter with the Baltimore Sun) has written "Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith." The book is the debut volume in the "Sporting" series published by Temple University Press, edited by College of New Rochelle history professor Amy Bass. The book makes clear that Smith has been haunted by his gesture since 1968. As Elliott Vanskike, reviewing the book in the Washington Post, noted: "For good and ill, [Smith's] life has been defined by his iconic act of resistance. With that bold gesture, he burned his bridges with many in track and field, forfeited future jobs and endorsements and brought on decades of death threats."

Retired since 2005 — and a member of the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame since 1978 — Tommie Smith lives with his wife, Delois, in Georgia. SportsLetter spoke to Smith from his home.

--David Davis

SportsLetter: Why did you decide to write the book now?

Tommie Smith: I thought about it many a day, but it wasn't time. Actually, I started on the book some time ago, way back in the 1960s. I used to keep notes on everything. But I didn't have the time because I was teaching and coaching, and that was almost a 24-hour deal. Now that I'm retired and have slowed down, I had time to get my notes together and find a good co-writer. So, I'm setting the record straight after 40 years.

SL: You were raised as a sharecropper's son and later encountered segregation and racial discrimination. Which was more difficult to overcome: poverty or racism?

TS: Actually, both happened when I was young boy. I knew there was a difference, but I didn't know how to differentiate between the two. Poverty, you can work through with tenacity and with work ethic. With racism, I tried as a college student to read and learn and understand why people get treated differently. I thought we were all born equal. But during the civil turbulence that we went through, I saw that we aren't born free. You have to work to attain that. And, that's not according to the Constitution. Sad to say, a lot of people died so that laws could be written that equality exists.

SL: You went to school at San Jose State, which became known as "Speed City" for its many sprinters. What was it like to be around all that speed?

TS: It was almost like a normal thing. I just went out and trained with everybody else. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the speed portion of it. It was more about the camaraderie of people who were fast. That was the important part to me — the social part. Not how fast they ran, but the love that we had for each other.

SL: Was there any runner that you modeled yourself after?

TS: No, because my style of running was different from anybody else's. I was 6-feet-4 and 180 pounds, with this long stride. I also used the ankle flip, and so I worked on my own form. The only 200-meter runner that I used to like to watch was [1964 gold medalist] Henry Carr. Man, he was pretty. He was so smooth. But I couldn't model myself after Henry because he had a long torso and shorter legs. And, I was just the opposite.

SL: At San Jose State, Bud Winter was your coach. What was he like and what did he teach you about track?

TS: Actually, it was humility. Being truthful to yourself and your teammates and your work ethic. Coming out every day and working and having fun while you're doing it. When I say fun, I mean concentration on form, style and love for your fellow athletes. Not competing with others at practice or talking about them behind their backs. We were a team. That was because of Coach's background.

He was a very honest, down-home person. His humanitarian effect on me has been greater than any other person, except for my dad. He was not an in-the-stands coach. He would stand next to the track and watch us and yell out, "Tom-Tom, your knees." I used to be a very straight-up runner. When I first came to San Jose, I wanted to run before I got up to speed. That's very bad for your stride. He spent a lot of time with us and worked with me on the mechanics, step by step, so that my stride was pushing out and not pulling me back.

SL: You write about first meeting Harry Edwards at San Jose State. What was he like, as a person and as a leader?

TS: Harry, of course, was a sociologist. He was on a mission to get an education and to become somebody. Harry was an "A" student as well as an athlete, and he took the time to talk to athletes who would talk to him. He talked to as many as he could, but not everyone wanted to get involved at that time. Harry turned some people off because of his abruptness and his size and his candor in doing what he did. I spoke to Harry on many occasions and I found him very refreshing. He's a continual talker, and you have to stay mentally with him. Otherwise, he'd lose you and you'd lose interest in him. As I grew older, in my junior and senior years, I realized that everyone needs a platform to make others believe. Harry needed a platform. During the 1960s, there was a great opportunity for Harry to use what he had there at San Jose State — which was world-class athletes. Harry certainly worked for what he got, but he used his surroundings very well. Myself, John Carlos, Lee Evans, Ronnie Ray Smith — all of us were there for him to use. He pulled us aside and started letting us feel the need to become involved in social change of the '60s. He made us understand the need to get involved. He didn't make us do anything, but he started the Olympic Project for Human Rights as a platform.

SL: What was the purpose behind the Olympic Project for Human Rights?

TS: There were 10 points on our platform. Since we were athletes, we dealt with the athletic part of the system that, in general, did not represent black people equally. So, in that context, our platform dealt with such items as the hiring of more black coaches, the demand that South Africa be banned from the Olympics because of its apartheid policy, the boycott of all meets put on by the NYAC [the New York Athletic Club] for their racist attitudes, and so on. We weren't out to save the world. We were athletes, not politicians, striving for equality in our world.

SL: You and other black athletes discussed boycotting the Games. Were you in favor of a boycott or did you want to compete?

TS: I was a democratic athlete. I was ready to do what the group thought necessary. I wasn't just an individual out there doing my thing. This was a platform that I was a part of.

SL: If the vote had been to boycott, would you have sat out the Games?

TS: Sure. Look, the Olympic Project for Human Rights was started right there on the San Jose State campus. Would it not be appalling for me to have helped start a platform like the Olympic Project and then at the last moment back out of it? No, that's not Tommie Smith at all. I was ready to do what the group thought necessary, and we made the decision [to go to Mexico City] a few days before the Games opened. I was happy that I got that chance to compete, but I was willing to sacrifice for a cause if all the black athletes stood behind that.

SL: How important was it for the Olympic Project for Human Rights that you — or someone involved the Project — win the gold medal?

TS: It was decided in Denver, Colorado, where we met en route to Mexico City, that each individual athlete would participate according to their belief in the Olympic Project for Human Rights and their feelings about a system that did not represent them. I felt singularly that I had to perform to make a stand, and that that was necessary for me to feel that the Project was not a total waste. What happened on the victory stand was part of the platform, but it was not the platform.

SL: What was your relationship like with John Carlos?

TS: John Carlos is from Harlem, and he's very verbose. John can talk about anything, which I cannot, and that's what makes him such an item. Being from Harlem, and being a great athlete, he had it all. He had verbosity and he had the athletic prowess. Put those two things together, and you have a bomb.

He was exciting anywhere he went. Sometimes, when John and I went to a meet, I would walk half a step behind John just to watch people look at him. He was something. He got attention. And, he was one of the greatest athletes I ever competed with — a very powerful runner.

SL: In the book, you quote Carlos as saying, "I let Tommie Smith win" at Mexico City: Why do you think he said something like that?

TS: He told me to my face that he let me win. It's nothing I'm conjuring up. He had beaten me in the Olympic Trials [at the 200 meters], and I think that he felt he was going to win the race in Mexico City. Later, he said that he felt it necessary for me to win because the gold medal meant more to me, that he doesn't value tangible things like medals and trophies. By him saying this, it completely destroyed the camaraderie of competition.

Look, we were two of the greatest sprinters in the history of track and field. We shared something in history, and we have mutual respect for each other. I don't dislike Carlos at all. There are things about Carlos that I don't like. But it's that way with most people I know. You take the good with the bad.

SL: A lot of mythology has arisen about the meaning of your podium stand. To you, what did the black socks and the black gloves symbolize?

TS: Everything we did had a reason. We had the black socks to represent poverty. No shoes, poverty. The gloves represented freedom and power, togetherness. The Puma shoe [that Smith placed on the podium] was in reaction to how Puma backed me during a time when I had a six-month-old son and had no money. They helped me buy Similac and milk for my child.

SL: What about the black scarf you wore around your neck?

TS: It represented the lynchings that we as black people had gone through so that I could get up on the stand, the sacrifices of those who had gone before me. That's what I wore. Carlos had beads to represent the lynchings.

SL: Your upraised fists have often been mistaken for a Black Power or a Black Panther salute. What was your intent when you raised your fists?

TS: I was not a Black Power hate-monger. I was not part of the Black Panthers. I've only belonged to two organizations in my life: my church and the Olympic Project for Human Rights. I was a human rights person who happened to be black. People want to look at me as a militant: I was a black person with a black glove, with the fist raised in the air, so they look at it as Black Power. I look at it as power and freedom, that I am a man. Treat me as a man, and not as three-fifths of a man.

People who saw it, they knew I was doing it for some reason. Instead of my being belligerent and saying things that would upset people, I kept it as plain as possible. So, that was my stand in Mexico City — a cry for freedom, not a cry for hate.

SL: Why do you think that your motives were misrepresented?

TS: The times of the late 1960s were very tense. People believed that the changes of the 1960s were happening because of militancy and because of the Vietnam War. They were locked into this fear. Now, people realize that the victory stand was not what they thought then. Now, they see it and read deeper into what it did, not who did it.

SL: Jesse Owens spoke to the American athletes at Mexico City. What did you take from his speech?

TS: Without a doubt, he was speaking in support of the system. But that's what he knew. He competed in 1936, and his ideology was not about equality. His qualification was that he was the best runner that America had produced, period. Jesse was applauded by America because he defeated Hitler and Hitler's ideal of the Aryan race. He became an American hero by fighting another white man from another country. When he got back to this country, he was just another Negro. So, I felt that he was just caught up in the time back then, as a lot of people were. Especially black folks — they had to do certain things.

I admired Jesse Owens — you better believe it — because I understood what he went through. My father went through the same thing. I wrote Jesse a letter a few months before he died, when he was living in Arizona, telling him what a great man I thought he was.

SL: A lot of people remember your interview with Howard Cosell after the podium stand. What do you recall about that experience?

TS: Understand, I was just a 23-year-old kid. I was an athlete who was tired and who was afraid. He asked me how did I feel about people talking about what I did and how bad it was. I said something like, "No matter what good you do, someone will find something bad in it." I think that's pretty good.

SL: Harry Edwards didn't accompany you to Mexico City. Why wasn't he there?

TS: From his own lips, because of death threats. He felt that there was a threat of terrorists trying to kill him, and that the closer he got to John and me, the bigger the chance of that happening. Then, all three of us would be killed at the same time.

SL: Do you feel that Edwards abandoned you?

TS: To some degree, yes. The abandonment came from him not coming to Mexico City. I don't blame him for that. I just feel that he set us on our way, but he wasn't there behind us all the way. Harry was out for Harry, like we all are. He's no different from any one of us.

SL: Was it appropriate to make a political statement at the Olympic Games?

TS: That's why it was done — because it was a worldwide platform. If we did it at the Olympic Trials, they would've pulled the plug and no one would've heard about it. This was a human rights issue, and this was not only about America. We were saying, wherever there are human beings, we have a problem. In America, many of the problems were caused by race. People tell me all the time, "I'm color-blind. I don't see color." But what they're telling me is, "I don't have to work for a better nation because it can't get any better." We felt like America and the world could be, and should be, better.

SL: Do you have regrets about your actions?

TS: None whatsoever.

SL: You write about the heavy price you paid for your actions in Mexico City. How did that affect your running career and your life?

TS: Mexico City put a damper on my running career because I was banned from any further international competition. That hurt me, especially in Europe. At age 23, at the height of my career, I wasn't allowed to run anymore.

When I came back home, there was nothing. There were no friends, there was no job. I borrowed money from anybody so I could to pay the rent. I had to go to work. I had a family to feed, and track and field wasn't going to help me on that. There was nothing but a chance for an education. So, that's what I did.

SL: If you hadn't been banned, do you think you would have gone to the 1972 Olympic Games?

TS: I don't know. I know that I would have continued competing.

TS: Right after the Games, blacks were rather tenuous about even approaching me because they did not want to be seen with a militant. I'm not a militant; that was their misinterpretation. And, because of the blackness that was so apparent on the victory stand, whites didn't want to deal with me at all because they thought I hated white folks. So, they both shied away. Neither one would give me a job.

SL: From all that's been written about the events of 1968, what has been the one thing that you feel everybody has gotten wrong?

TS: The motive behind the Olympic Project for Human Rights. It was a platform of strength, and not of hate. It was about the social issues facing the black athletes, and it was no different than any other political platform. This is what I did for the betterment of the system. I wasn't there for reasons of hate or militancy. I never was a militant.

SL: What is the legacy of '68?

TS: The openness to society and the understanding of differences. I think the black athletes brought this up: that we are not just athletes. We're also human and we can also think. We're no longer just brutes or academically challenged. I think people are realizing now that athletes — not just black athletes — do have substance.

SL: What's your feeling about the statue that's been erected at your alma mater depicting the podium scene from '68?

TS: It's kind of scary because you walk up there and you look up and you see something that you caused to happen. And then you look away and look back, and it's still there. [Laughs.] It's very humbling to realize that the statue highlights a time in history that was profoundly hated when it was done. And, the idea for the statue didn't come from the NAACP or some other group. This was done by a white, male student who thought it necessary to highlight an event that started on the San Jose State campus. It was his project for a black history class.

SL: You coached track at Santa Monica College for many years after your career. What's your feeling about track and field these days?

TS: It's in trouble, of course, with the doping scandals. But I don't think it's worse than any other professional sport. Doping now is an issue because of the money — the contracts being paid to athletes to perform with their bodies. People are doing this because they know what steroids do. It's not natural, but the dollar bill can't tell the difference. If you win, you get paid. Steroids have been around for a long time. It's interesting that the most prominent athlete being accused of doping today is black, but back in the 1960s it was the weight people, primarily white athletes, who were doing steroids. A lot of Europeans, too. But nobody said anything back then.

SL: Finally, what's your view of today's black athletes? Should black athletes use their status to speak out about social and political issues?

TS: Are they doing something? Yes. Could they do more? Yes. They're using their status, but it's lopsided. They use it for personal fulfillment, but most of them aren't giving back.

Back in the 1960s, athletes like Bill Russell and Muhammad Ali spoke out against something, whether it was Vietnam or racism. Today, black athletes spend money on schools and programs, which is good, but they don't speak out about against the atrocities in the system, racial and political. They know that the more they speak, the more they're going to lose fans. They're taking a chance of being talked about because they don't take a stand rather than talking about something and losing finances. They should use their status to give back, not just with their money but with their support.

JEREMY SCHAAP

The 1936 Berlin Olympic Games remain among the most controversial in sports history. Both the summer and winter Olympic Games of 1936 were awarded to Germany in 1931, two years before Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. By August 1936, as the world descended upon Berlin for the Games, Hitler and the Nazis had consolidated power and had already instituted racist and anti-Jewish measures (including the banning of Jewish athletes on the Olympic team). Despite some opposition to "Hitler's Games," the United States refused to boycott the Berlin Olympic Games. The Games themselves were a sporting triumph for Germany, which easily won the medal count and offered several extraordinary moments: the marathon winner, Korea's Sohn Kee-chung, was forced to race for Japan; director Leni Riefenstahl used innovative techniques to craft the most arresting film of the Olympic experience; and it marked the debut of television at the Olympic Games.
		This book may be purchased at amazon.com

And yet, even as Hitler and his Nazi propagandists hid from the world their plans for world-wide domination, American sprinter Jesse Owens emerged as the star of the Berlin Games. His four gold medals — and his seemingly effortless running style — gave lie to Hitler's claims of Aryan supremacy. Indeed, Hitler was said to have been so upset by Owens' victories that he snubbed the sprinter and refused to shake his hand.

With "Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics" (Houghton Mifflin), ESPN reporter and anchor Jeremy Schaap revisits the 1936 Berlin Games. He examines the many myths that have surfaced, including Hitler's "snub" of Owens and Owens' own tale regarding the selection of the 4x100-meter relay team. What is clear, Schaap writes, is that "while the western democracies were perfecting the art of appeasement, while much of the rest of the world kowtowed to the Nazis, Owens stood up to them at their own Olympics, refuting their venomous theories with his awesome deeds."

This is Schaap's second book. Previously, he wrote "Cinderella Man: James J. Braddock, Max Baer and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History" (2005), a New York Times best-seller. SportsLetter spoke with Schaap by phone from New York City.

--David Davis

SportsLetter: Your first book was about heavyweight champ Jim Braddock from the 1930s. This one is about Jesse Owens and the 1936 Olympic Games. What has attracted you to write about the 1930s in sports?

Jeremy Schaap: I love that era in sports because it's the tail end of the golden age, when there's still so much romanticism about sports. It's before the advent of television — it's really the dawn of the radio era — and these figures were larger than life. At the same time, there was so much going on in sports that was situated at the intersection of cultural and political topics. "Cinderella Man" is a story set against the backdrop of the Great Depression. With Owens' story, the Great Depression is still in the backdrop economically, but there are racial politics involved, particularly in Nazi Germany, with the ascendant Third Reich. Coincidentally, these two stories are a year apart, but what they have in common is something beyond athletics.

SL: What did you think of "Cinderella Man," the film directed by Ron Howard?

JS: I really enjoyed the film. I thought Russell Crowe was great, and I thought Paul Giamatti was great. For the most part, I thought it was very well done and captured the spirit of the Braddock story. Like a lot of people who know the story, I felt that the Max Baer portrayal didn't have to be as harsh as it was. He comes off as an ogre, and I don't think that's what he was like in real life.

SL: What is the most difficult aspect about writing historical non-fiction for you? Is it the research? Finding the correct tone?

JS: I've been fortunate in that these stories kind of tell themselves. They're just great stories. I think I found the right way to tell "Cinderella Man," which was basically a dual biography of Braddock and Baer, who contrast with each other as they're on this collision course with the fight. With Owens, it was harder because the stories involving the 1936 Olympics are more disparate. The boycott story doesn't really have anything to do with Jesse Owens except in terms of the consequences of the boycott. The same can be said about the preparations in Germany for the staging of the Games of the 11th Olympiad. That's not about Jesse Owens. So, I had to find a way to weave those three stories together.

The hardest part is, you want to know more and you want to get it right, and the historical record is thin about some of these figures. Not so much about Jesse Owens, but about a guy like Larry Snyder, who coached the greatest athlete ever in Owens and who later became the U.S. Olympic track coach in 1960, which was one of the great track teams ever assembled. There's been no book written about Larry Snyder. There's very little about him out there. You have to really dig, which I enjoy. You gotta go through everything you can find, and then rely on your best judgment because nobody who was central to the story is alive.

SL: How do you handle the dual roles of reporting and broadcasting on ESPN and writing books?

JS: In terms of finding the hours, you can always find the hours. That's one thing I learned from my father [broadcaster-reporter Dick Schaap]. He had more fulltime jobs than anyone I know, and yet he was churning out almost a book a year. He wrote something like 33 books in 43 years. I don't think I'm going to be able to maintain that pace, but through his example I could see that if you want to do it, you can do it. You find the time. I spent a lot of time writing the book on airplanes. Sometimes, that's the best way to do it because, when I'm sitting at the computer, I find myself researching as much as possible, going into the archives, avoiding actually writing. When you're on the plane and you don't have access to the Internet and your mountain of clips, you have to focus on the writing.

SL: In the acknowledgements to the book, you note that your father nurtured your "enthusiasm for all things Olympic." How did he do this?

JS: My father always loved the Olympics. He wrote one of the definitive English-language histories of the Olympics — "An Illustrated History of the Olympics" — and I read that voraciously as a kid. From the time I was six-years-old, he was covering the Olympics for ABC: he was at Montreal, he was at Moscow, he was in L.A., he was in Lake Placid, he was at Sarajevo. I loved his stories about going to the Games, and I always watched the Games. I remember watching Bruce Jenner and Nadia Comaneci and Sugar Ray Leonard and the Spinks brothers in 1976, when I was six-years-old. In 1984, I sat at home and, even with the boycott, I think I watched all 145 hours of ABC's programming.

My father wrote other books about the Olympics: he wrote a biography of Bob Beamon [titled "The Perfect Jump"], and he wrote about Tom Waddell, the decathlete [titled "Gay Olympian"]. Then, when I grew older, we attended several Olympics together. We were at Albertville together, we were in Lillehammer together, we were in Barcelona together, we were in Atlanta together. So, I was very fortunate in the sense that this fondness for the Olympics was something that I got to share with my father.

SL: Do you have a favorite memory from those trips?

JS: There were a lot of great moments, but one of our best was in 1992. I had taken time off from my job at Sports Illustrated to work as an assistant for my father in Albertville. This was my first Olympics, and we went to do a story about the American curling team, when curling was a demonstration sport. We went to the curling venue in this beautiful Alpine town called Pralognan, and we got run off by the gendarmes as we were shooting practice because we weren't with CBS, the Olympic rights-holder at the time. So, getting run off by the French police was my introduction to the Olympics.

SL: What did your father teach you about writing?

JS: What he taught me more than anything was to write clearly and quickly, to avoid excess verbiage. He was a newspaper columnist. He came from the rat-a-tat-tat school of writing. He hated adjectives. More than anything else, he taught me respect for the subject, respect for history, and respect for the craft. He also always told me that good writing is re-writing. You write something, then you go back and re-write it. You re-write 'til you like it.

SL: What's your favorite book written by your father?

JS: I really love "The Illustrated History of the Olympics," and I love the Beamon book. But it'd be hard not to say "Instant Replay," which he wrote with [Green Bay Packers offensive lineman] Jerry Kramer. He considered that his best book.

SL: In "Triumph," you describe Avery Brundage as the "preeminent American apologist for Nazi Germany." What was Brundage's motivation for fighting the proposed boycott of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games?

JS: I think more than anything else — even more than his general fondness for Germany — is that as the head of the American Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage wanted to see an American team at the Olympics. I think that was his overriding motive. He also did not believe that politics and sports should mix. In his mind, you don't let a political situation in any way influence the question of whether or not to go to the Games. I think he was short-sighted on this because what he didn't recognize was that it was the Nazis who were politicizing the Games by not allowing all of their citizens to compete and by turning the Games into a platform for propaganda. Brundage was blind to that, and he allowed himself to be conned.

SL: How do you think the American Olympic Committee should have handled the 1936 Olympic Games?

JS: I don't think the United States should have been at the Olympics in 1936. With hindsight, that's easy to say. But if you did the vote [to boycott the Olympics] in 1946, instead of in 1935, I think the boycott would have won. Avery Brundage would have been the one holdout.

If you're asking me how would I have voted in December of 1935, that's a tougher question. I'd like to think that I would have done the right thing and that I would have been on the same side as the smart people: [Amateur Athletic Union President] Jeremiah Mahoney, [New York City Mayor Fiorello] La Guardia and [NAACP Executive Secretary] Walter White — the people who urged the U.S. to boycott the Games. At the end of the day, we should not have been taking part in anything that could have helped the Third Reich. No one can dispute that the way they carried off the Games of the 11th Olympiad, despite Jesse Owens' performance there, enhanced the prestige of Hitler's Germany and gave him the cover that he needed to formulate his plans and build up the military.

SL: Owens shined in Berlin at a time when Hitler was beginning to preach about the supremacy of the Aryan race. And yet, African-Americans in the U.S. (and, particularly, in the South) faced extreme prejudice and even lynching. How did African-American athletes like Owens reconcile this dichotomy?

JS: What Jesse Owens said — and what [sprinter] Ralph Metcalfe and [high jump gold medalist] Cornelius Johnson and [800-meter gold medalist] John Woodruff and [110-meter hurdler] Fritz Pollard Jr. said — was, "Look, how can you ask us not to go and compete because of the way the Germans treat the Jewish minority when we're getting treated in many ways worse here?" I completely understand and appreciate that rationale. But I think Walter White was correct when he said, "Bigotry anywhere is unacceptable, and we should not in any way condone it." White saw the big picture more clearly than the athletes did.

How different would the world be today if the United States and Britain and France had not gone to Germany? It's impossible to say. But the people who knew best — people like [U.S. Consul General in Berlin] George Messersmith and [British Ambassador] Sir Eric Phipps, western diplomats who had been in Berlin for years — said, "You guys are crazy. How could you possibly think about showing up here and lending credibility to this enterprise?" And, they were right.

SL: Both Owens and boxer Joe Louis achieved prominence during the 1930s, becoming two of the most influential African-Americans in the country. How would you compare and contrast Owens and Louis in their impact on American society?

JS: I think they're both very important in their own way: Joe Louis because of the length of his career, because he was a professional and could make that his career, which obviously Jesse Owens couldn't do as a track star at that time. Later in life, Jesse Owens is a much more effective public speaker. His story is more inspirational.

Jesse Owens basically has 10 days in which he shows the world how great he is. Joe Louis is heavyweight champion of the world for 12 years. So, there's a big difference there. One of the things that gets lost in the Owens story is how much more important it was for him to compete in Berlin because Louis had just been humiliated weeks earlier by [German heavyweight] Max Schmeling. And now, Schmeling is being held up as a token of Aryan superiority. The loss was particularly devastating to American blacks who thought Joe Louis was the great hope, and the loss definitely put more pressure on Owens. There was more at stake for him.

Owens' victories are very, very important. They mark the beginning of the ascendancy of the black athlete. He became the first great black American sports champion, with the exception of a few jockeys. By 1938, when Louis knocks out Schmeling in the rematch, Louis becomes a bigger hero than Owens because boxing is such a big sport and he's the heavyweight champion of the world and able to defend his title over and over and over.

SL: How were the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games different from previous Games?

JS: They were bigger. There were more athletes, there was more fanfare, the Olympic Village was more plush, the Opening Ceremony was more coordinated. You've got Richard Strauss composing the Olympic hymn. It's different, though, in that it's the first time that the Games are used for a political purpose. That was tangible everywhere in Berlin. It was a showcase not for the athletes, but for the host country. That's not the case in Amsterdam in 1928 — the Dutch had no universal message they were trying to get out to the world — or with the Belgians in 1920 or even the French in 1924.

SL: Hitler inherited the fact that Germany was selected to host the 1936 Olympics (both summer and winter). How did Hitler view the 1936 Games?

JS: Initially, after he comes to power in the winter of 1933, he's against the Games. Hitler was not a huge sports fan, although they say he liked boxing and gymnastics. But it's his nature to be appalled by any kind of spectacle that puts whites and Asians and blacks and Jews together, competing against each other, swimming in the same pool, handing batons off to each other. The fact that the entire world is going to come to Germany, including the Bolsheviks, disgusts him.

But [Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda] Joseph Goebbels is smart enough to figure out that these Games will be a tremendous propaganda opportunity for the Reich, and Hitler eventually comes to embrace the Olympics. There are moments throughout the three-year process when he questions it. He has second thoughts in 1935, because as the boycott movement builds momentum he recognizes that, without the United States and Britain, there's no point to having this spectacle. That worries him very much. But after December 1935, when it's clear that everybody's going to show up, he decides that he's going to make this a showcase. Ultimately he's the guy who decides to spend the money to complete the airport that all the international visitors are going to enter through, and he's the guy who decides to spend all the money on the athletes' village. He insists that the stadium be more monumental. By the time the Games roll around, he's completely on board.

SL: You write that, for Hitler, the Berlin Olympic Games "were the ultimate opportunity not to promote [his] agenda, but to hide [his] agenda under a cloak of hospitality, prosperity, and efficiency." Did Hitler succeed with this agenda?

JS: I don't think that there's any doubt that he succeeded, and he was able to convince everybody: titans of industry, foreign visitors, even diplomats who were there just for the Games. He needed that cover, and I think the Olympics ultimately gave him that. The Games were so well run, Berlin was so sparkling and clean, the city was so much different from the images that people had of it in the 1920s, with the wheelbarrows of cash and the debauchery of Weimar Berlin. The vast majority of visitors walked away from the Games saying, "You know, I don't think this guy's so bad. He just wants Germany to have a place of honor in European politics." He didn't seem like a guy who was going to invade Poland in three years or start a war that's going to cost 30 million lives.

Certainly, there were people who recognized in all of the fanfare and all of the bunting and all of the uniforms something sinister. What Thomas Wolfe wrote about the Games [in the novel "You Can't Go Home Again"] makes that clear, but he wrote that in 1938-39, as it was becoming clear what Hitler was all about. But I couldn't find anybody immediately after the Olympics writing, "This guy is really worse than I thought." It was the opposite.

SL: The story of Owens and the 1936 Berlin Olympics has been told several times previously. In the course of researching and writing this book, what did you discover that previous writers missed about the Berlin Games?

JS: I think that professor William Baker did a great job in his biography, "Jesse Owens: An American Life." But that's the most complete book that's ever been written about Jesse Owens, and Baker deals with the Olympics in about 20 pages. I think there's been a misunderstanding about the amount written about Owens over the years. There have been quite a few books written about the '36 Olympics, but with the exception of Baker's book, there are no real Jesse Owens biographies out there. So, a lot of the details — like, the things he had to deal with, event to event, in Berlin and how the selection of the 4x100 relay team came about — were new to me.

SL: Perhaps the most famous story involving Owens at the 1936 Olympic Games is that Hitler snubbed him. Did that happen?

JS: It's fair to say that Hitler didn't snub Owens, but it's also clear that Hitler could have found a way to recognize him, to afford him the respect he deserved after the way he performed in those Games. And, Hitler did not do that. But the whole idea of the snub, of Hitler singling out Jesse Owens by not congratulating him, is false. That's simply not what happened. What happened was, Count Henri de Baillet-Latour, the head of the IOC, became outraged at Hitler after the first day of the Games, when Hitler snubbed [high jumper] Cornelius Johnson, a black American who won the gold medal, after he honored the two German gold medalists from that day and the three Finns who finished 1-2-3 in the 10,000 meters. De Baillet-Latour told Hitler, "You can't do this. This is not what the Olympics are all about. You're just the ceremonial host. You don't have an official role in this Games. If you want to congratulate somebody, do it in your private apartment." So, Hitler does that from there on. That's not to say that he didn't congratulate people privately. He congratulated [100-meter gold medalist] Helen Stephens, for instance [in a room, away from photographers, in the Olympic stadium].

At the time, Owens said that he thought Hitler waved at him. If you go back and look at what Owens was saying during the Games of the 11th Olympiad and what he said in the months afterwards, they're completely at odds with what he later said. In 1936, Owens could say — and did say — that it wasn't Hitler who snubbed him, it was FDR. He said, "I don't know why everybody's picking on Hitler. He's Germany's man of the hour, and I thought he was quite a gentleman."

After World War II, his story changed. What he said most of the time was, "Hitler didn't shake my hand, he didn't congratulate me, but that's not why I went to Berlin."

SL: Sam Stoller and Marty Glickman, the two Jewish sprinters on the U.S. team, were removed from the 4x100 relay team at the last minute, opening the way for Owens to win his fourth gold medal. This story remains controversial, with Glickman writing in his memoirs that Owens actually offered to sit out the relay. What happened?

JS: I knew Marty a little before he passed away, and I have tremendous respect for Marty. But I don't think that Marty got the story right. Look, it was a very emotional time — it was the biggest moment of his life up to that point. But Ralph Metcalfe remembered it differently. Is Ralph a liar? Jesse Owens remembered it differently. Is Jesse Owens a liar? I just think if you look at everything that happened, it doesn't quite add up that Jesse would stand up and say, "Let Marty and Sam run."

In the material that I found, Jesse got up and said, "Let Sam run." Which makes sense, because if he had said, "Let Sam and Marty run," then he's kicking either [Frank] Wykoff or Ralph Metcalfe off the team, too. I don't see him kicking off Metcalfe, who to that point had never won a gold medal in his career. I don't see him kicking off Wykoff, who did have two gold medals already, because everybody always assumed that Wykoff was running in the relay.

I read everything that you could possibly read in the literature about Jesse Owens. The fact is, he wanted to be on the relay team, he lobbied to be on the relay team, and when he was told that he would be on the relay, he said, "Boy, that's great." The story that's been perpetuated for so long is that he only reluctantly accepted the assignment because he felt bad for the Jewish guys. I don't think there's any credible evidence to suggest that's what happened.

SL: Who was responsible for Glickman and Stoller being replaced at the last minute: Owens himself; the U.S. track coaches, Dean Cromwell and Lawson Robertson; or Avery Brundage?

JS: Jesse lobbied [for a spot on the relay team], but I don't think Jesse influenced their decision one way or the other. I don't think they cared what Jesse Owens thought. I think it's a combination of Cromwell and Robertson, probably mostly Cromwell. Ultimately, I think that Cromwell was looking out for his USC guys, Wykoff and [Foy] Draper. They were his guys. Remember, when a track coach dies, they write about how many Olympic medals his runners won. If Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller won gold medals, that doesn't count for anything with Dean Cromwell. With Wykoff and Draper winning, that counts when they tally how many gold medals Dean Cromwell's USC runners won. I'm sure that there was some latent anti-Semitism that influenced their decision. I think that they probably would have treated Glickman and Stoller better had they not been Jewish.

Do I think that Avery Brundage was displeased to see Glickman and Stoller removed from the team? No, not at all. Do I think that he actively participated is this decision, as Marty has said? It's possible, but there's no evidence.

What is indisputable is that the rationale that Lawson Robertson offered — first, that the Germans and the Dutch were going to spring a surprise on the U.S. — was ridiculous. His other rationale — that it's his job to put the best team out there — is also debatable. Why didn't he do that in the 4x400 relay, where the U.S. faced serious competition? In the 400 meters, Americans won the gold and the bronze [with Archie Williams and James LuValle], and the Brits finished with the silver and in fourth place [with Arthur Godfrey Brown and William Roberts]. So, you've got two of the four best 400-meter runners in the world on the British team. And yet, Robertson didn't put in the Americans who won the gold and the bronze, Brown and Roberts, on the 4x400 relay team. They happened to be the only two black 400-meter runners, and the U.S. loses by a full two seconds to Britain.

SL: One long-forgotten name that emerged in your book was Eulace Peacock, the Temple University sprinter-long jumper who beat Owens in four consecutive races before the Games, but was injured before Berlin. Do you think Peacock could have beaten Owens at Berlin?

JS: It's one of the great mysteries in the history of sports. If Eulace Peacock is healthy, does he dominate the Games the way that Jesse Owens did? Does Jesse rise to the occasion? You look at their history: Jesse Owens was not successful against Peacock head to head. But against the stopwatch and the tape measure, Jesse was better. His best times were better than Eulace's, his best long jump was better than Eulace's, but whenever they competed against each other, Eulace beat him. It might have ended up being a situation where, say, they both won gold in the relay, and Jesse won the 200 and the long jump and Eulace won the 100. Then, neither is really a superstar. Then, they're Eddie Tolan.

I think Jesse still wins those three individual events, even if Eulace Peacock is there and competing against him. That's just what I think. But who knows? Just knowing that Peacock was standing next to him in the finals of the 100 meters might have made him more nervous. Jesse Owens was in a state of athletic grace in Berlin. He had this remarkable sense of utter calm, and I think a lot of that was because he knew that he was better than everybody he was racing against. That includes Metcalfe, who was great but Jesse had beaten him and Ralph was older. But if Eulace was there, I don't know what impact psychologically that would have had on Jesse. I don't think that Peacock would have run faster times or jumped farther than 26 feet 5 ½ inches. I mean, Jesse won with the second-longest jump of his career, and Eulace Peacock never jumped within six inches of that distance. And, Eulace Peacock never ran faster than Jesse ran in that 200 or faster than Jesse ran in that 100. But what kind of impact would he have had, standing next to him? I don't know. My gut is that Jesse Owens still would have gone four-for-four, and Eulace would have won one gold medal in the relay and two silver medals in the sprints and a bronze in the long jump behind Luz Long. We'll never know.

SL: Why does Owens' story still resonate today?

JS: I think Owens' story resonates now — and will resonate forever — because I think in many ways it's the greatest sports story ever. Even at its most elemental, it's amazing: a 22-year-old grandson of slaves goes to Hitler's capital and rebukes Hitler's theories with these incredible feats. The pressure he was under, what was at stake, what he was fighting at home while also fighting the Nazis — it's just remarkable to think what he was doing, on that stage with all the pressure, and what it would mean in so many ways politically and socially. And, that's not even taking into account what he did athletically. It's the greatest performance in the history of the Olympics in track and field, including Carl Lewis. In fact, if you had to pick one athletic performance in the history of the Olympics, I think you'd still take Jesse Owens, even over Mark Spitz and Eric Heiden and Nadia Comaneci and Emil Zatopek.

SL: Leni Riefenstahl filmed the 1936 Games for her documentary "Olympia." How does that film influence the way we view the '36 Olympics today? Is it a paean to the Nazis?

JS: You have to watch to let it influence you. As well-studied as it remains in film schools and as iconic as many of the images are, the percentage of the population that has actually seen "Olympia" is miniscule. But the film is influential in that all sports being shot comes from that film or is inspired by that film. You watch the film of Super Bowl III produced by NFL Films, and it's like Leni Riefenstahl was shooting Joe Namath. I think the film is about the idealization of the Aryan physique and the creation of a mythology of the German people. And then, this guy crashes the party — Jesse Owens — and you come away with a respect for the beauty of his form, the magnificence of his performances. It celebrates Jesse Owens, but it does not celebrate him to the extent that it diminishes the propaganda value for the Germans. You have to remember, the Germans had a great Olympics. They won the medal count. Ultimately, Riefenstahl's film was propaganda, but it is at least somewhat tempered by the magnificence of the images of Jesse Owens.

SL: What's your next book project — and will you stay in the 1930s?

JS: I've gone from 1935 to 1936 with "Cinderella Man" and "Triumph," so now I'm looking for something good from '37. No, seriously, in all likelihood I'm going to get away from heavy, research-intensive sports history and write something about my relationship with my father through the prism of sport. It's a challenge because it's hard to write about yourself, but that's what I want to do.