In a little less than a month the 2024 Summer Olympics begin in Paris. There is no global sports spectacle quite like them, although the World Cup comes close. But the difference is the Olympics offer topflight international competition in a host of sports. Track and field, gymnastics, swimming, even sports that you normally wouldn’t think of as Olympic events like baseball, golf, tennis and soccer, are part of the 2024 Summer Games, as well as longtime popular staples like basketball and volleyball. There are 40 sports in this edition, and some like Flag Football and Softball are recent additions.
This is the ideal time for a new book that celebrates some local Olympic legends. Author and historian Aime Alley Card’s latest volume “The Tigerbelles: Olympic Legends From Tennessee State” (Lyons) tells the amazing story of how legendary coach Edward Temple brought international glory and fame to the university in the 1960 games held in Rome,. Over 24 chapters, Card recounts multiple stories of individual triumphs and team glory achieved during an era when Jim Crow hadn’t quite been eradicated, and opportunities for Black women as well as HBCU athletes in general were far fewer than their white counterparts.
But coach Temple didn’t waver in the face of institutional racism, nor did he let his athletes be crushed by it. Card documents how he continually pushed and strived for excellence, always telling the Tigerbelles they were capable of more, even when it didn’t seem possible. Despite operating on a shoestring budget with minimal (to put it mildly) facilities Temple still turned the Tigerbelles into the world’s finest group of women track athletes.
The name that most people immediately remember and recognize is Wilma Rudolph, and there’s plenty in the book about her individual brilliance. But she doesn’t overlook the achievements of the others on the team like Barbara Jones, Willye B. White, Shirley Crowder, Martha Hudson and Lucinda Williams.
Of course Ed Temple’s magnificent career didn’t begin with the 1960 Olympics. He’d already been TSU’s track coach there for six years, and had coach several bronze medal winners in the 1956 Games. But Rome represented the beginning of a legacy that eventually resulted in the Tigerbelles winning 23 Olympic medals. Temple, who also coached the men’s team, would eventually get more than 40 athletes in the Olympics. His teams would win more than 30 national titles. Rudolph won three gold medals at the Rome Olympics, becoming the first American woman to get that many in track and field. At those same Olympics, Ralph Boston also won a gold medal in the long jump.
A nine-foot bronze statue of Temple was unveiled at First Tennessee Park in 2015. He passed in 2019 at 89, but his impact within the sport still resonates. There’s a TSU exhibit at the Smithsonian that includes Temple’s Olympic jacket, replicas of gold medals, and other artifacts or memorabilia, as well as a city street named in his honor.
The extensive list of Temple’s achievements include being a member of nine Halls of Fame, and having eight Tigerbelles inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame. He also was Head Coach of the U.S. Olympic Women’s Track and Field Team in 1960 and 1964, and Assistant Coach in 1980, as well as a member of the International Women’s Track & Field Committee and the U.S. Olympic Council. Temple’s legacy is maintained today by current Director of Men’s and Women’s Track and Field at TSU Chandra Cheeseborough-Guice. Another former Tigerbelle star, she’s also a four-time Ohio Valley Conference Women’s Outdoor Coach of the Year (’01, ’02, ’08, ’15).
Aime Alley Card’s “The Tigerbelles: Olympic Legends From Tennessee State” is a worthy addition to valuable and important sports histories and journalistic accounts. It joins Dwight Lewis’ 2019 “Temple’s Tigerbelles: An Illustrated History Of The Women Who Outran the World” (Matthis DBA Big Moon Marketing) as the definitive chronicles regarding the Tigerbelles and their Olympic impact, as well as the overall impact and importance of Ed Temple as a track coach and mentor.
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