Black Champions; Interview with Alice Coachman

Sound 101 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. Sometimes 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. And my father was very, very strict on us.

We had to be in the house on the porch when the sun went down. And at 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 bin, alarm clock, that when it went off, then you were locked out. Yes, I had to coach my own during the segregated days. There were track fears, but you couldn't go to the blacks, you couldn't use the track fear, 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 started skipping and jumping 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, either tie some material together and put

it over the rope, make a rope out of it and jump over there, and the one that 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 coach at the high school and asked me if he would take me to Tuskegee, and of course 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 go to Tuskegee with the Madison High track team. Now after getting 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 Clea Valley, I 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 mommy 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 grades that you had to run on, but I had gotten a taste of the... Sound 102.

There were ten of us in the family, and five girls and five boys. Five girls and five boys. There were ten of us in the family, and... Yeah, that's so limp and mellow, I can put it behind... Can you see it behind me? No, no, no. Okay, that's good. Sound 103. We'll start again. There was ten of us in the family, five girls and five boys, and I was the fastest one, so I got a lot of whippings by slipping off going 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, say, why don't you just look at this girl, say, she'll be in high school next year, say, 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 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 a new record in the high jump and broke the college record, and then during the summer of 1939, Coach Cleve Aber 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 Waterbury, Connecticut, at the National AAU, and the next summer, I went back to 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 on a working scholarship, and that they would take care of me and I would be living on the dorm, be well taken care of, and mom and papa said no, but I said yes. I said, well, I'm going anyway, so finally they gave in and I went to Tuskegee, Harry Lashes, the one that took me to Tuskegee, and he told me that, he said, you got a great future. He kept telling me about I had a great future, but at that time, I couldn't understand

what he was talking about, and I really wasn't caring because I just wanted to get a jump and skip and run and play with the boys, and I think my mother had other ideas about playing with the boys, but it was just betting each other that we could jump over a hide and catch a better soft ball than the other ones, you know, but after I was at Tuskegee, then I hated to run, so finally I would let Coach Albert know that I could run, so finally he put, we went to a track meet in Ocean City, and I wondered how to 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 team,

so since that time, he put me in the 50, he put me on the relay team. Coach Albert, Clearwell Albert, 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, doctor, coach, and he didn't allow his any fellows at all to talk to say anything to the girls. He would call them in and tell them to leave my track girls alone, and we would use Dr. Carver's peanut oil, whatever kind of oil that he mixed up for massaging all the time, but he was very, very strict, and now that I look back at that,

I can see why. When I see kids now, it was great possibilities, and yet they are ruined by going out and doing something that isn't right, so I can see why he kept a strange and a tight rope on us now. In 1939, you were at Tuskegee, and obviously looking forward, I would guess, to the 1940, when you were scheduled to do the 1940 Olympics. Well, ever during that time, we were just U.S.A., we were junior U.S.A. girls because everything was, the war was going on, and we had the soldiers on the campus, as you know, about the 99th or super squad, so we were trying to entertain them, and I had no idea. Matter of fact, I didn't even worry about these 39 or 40 Olympics, and when I heard about the

Olympics, it 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 nothing about it. In 1948, that I was going to the trout, and from the trout, then we caught the boat right on, from the next day on over to England, and we were on the Atlantic Ocean for seven nights and seven days, but I was, I had to train by myself. There was still no track field available for me in it, so by that time, I had finished the course I was taking in dressmaking and tailoring. I was back home, but I had no one there to train, so they let me, Eric Brown, president of Auburn 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 nothing but the high jump, where I had been an All-American team for three or four years consecutive. I had been in, I won the high jump for, since 1939 up until 47, which was going into 48, and I had won the national net friendly with AAU records. Well, actually, I was the fastest thing in the United States in Canada, except Stella Walsh. She beat me twice in the 100 meters, and I beat her twice in the 100 meters, and I'm sure you people find out what happened to her in parking lot some years ago, but I didn't, when the first time I beat her in the 100 meters, I didn't know what was going on, but experienced jumpers and coaches are very, very necessary in track and field to men. How did you perform in the tryouts? This was obviously a big event. You were going to try out

to go to the Olympics. Were you very nervous? How did you react to it? I was never nervous because I didn't talk. I just had a lemon and stretched out, and sometimes they would call for the 50, and I had to go to the 50, and then by the time I get to the high jump, they call for the high jump. I leave the 50 and go to the high jump, and then they call for the trials in the 100. I go to leave the high jump and go to the 100, and then they call them back for the finals in the 50. I leave the high jump, go back to the 50, and from there, high jumping right over with them, and then I had to go back where I had to run against this stiff competition in the 100 meters, and that's the way it was for about three or four years. I've always had a determination, as my mama said, that I'm stubborn, but maybe I am in determination. I like to win. If I want to do something, I like to do it right, and when it came to the tryouts

and all the rest of the girls was nervous and whatnot, it didn't bother me. I would sometimes win the National AAU in my warm-ups. It was nothing to me. The only competition I had from 1939 up until 1948 was at Providence Road Island at the trials, and then I had competition at the Olympic Games, and the only way that I had to do that, because I remember what coach told me, I was using the Western Road coming from our left, and Ostermeyer's from France, and Tyler from England was on the right. So we had these little flags for our takeoff, and he said, I remember how you get there, all the more you have to move your flag back. So after I moved my flag back, after he was giving me so much competition and going over on the first

jump, I moved my flag back, but I moved it back so that they could hit my takeoff, and that I would remember where my takeoff was by just scarring 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 frankly speaking, I didn't know that I had won. I was walking around there, and the coach was cussing me before I got ready to go on the field. Who do you think you are? You won't even practice before the jump, before the big thing like this, and you think you're too good to practice? Well, I had been with her with the All-American team, so I knew her, and I had been with Coach Abbott and those cussing, so I just didn't say anything, but my event was the last event in the 48th Olympics, and when I walked out there, 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 nothing else, but she was the one having to fit there, but she had to cuss me out, so I didn't worry about anything, because I said if I can do it, I had guts enough to do it. I didn't like for anyone to beat me if I could. Yes, I had a lemon from the time I started in 1939. Every time I went to an indoor meet, a high jump, where I had to high jump, indoor or outdoors, I always had a lemon. Kind of superstitious, you may say, and the first time I didn't have it, I lost my 50-yard dash, and from that day on, then I started carrying around lemon again. You mean you actually carried it in your hand? Yeah, I carried it where a lot of people drink

Coca-Cola and drink other Gatorade. This lemon, to me, all I had to do was to get it soft, and when my mouth and I 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 lemon. How did people react? They were very elated over my winning, but it was just a thing. I was just their Alice, that's all. It wasn't anything exciting about it, just a parade that had never been in Auburn before, a small town like that, and then they named a school and a street

after me and a housing project, but as a whole, when I go home now, I'm just old Alice. When your parents read a piece and said your mother was so excited and then thought maybe somebody was trying to play a joke on her when she received word, but did they ever think that, perhaps they thought back and said, hey, we didn't want her to go over there in the first place, now she's come back with a new medal? Well, my father died when I was a sophomore in college, so before that time, every time I would go somewhere, I was winning two and three gold medals at the National AAU, so they kind of got to the point, well, let her go on. She's going to do it anyway, so don't bother. When I would come home, I would walk with my father and talk with him for blocks and blocks, and my mother, she was one that, I didn't tell you this, but I used to

get three whoopings a day, one in the first thing in the morning for my math. The next thing I would whoop for fighting during the noon hour, at recess, and the afternoon for jumping 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 whooping me out. Miles Educational Films Black Champion, July 14, 1985. Alice Coachman, sound roll 101, camera roll 102, sound 106. The 1948 Olympics were held in London. Was that your first trip out of the United States? Uh, no. We, as I said, mentioned before that I was on that All-American team. We had dual meet between United States and Canada, but any other, that was my first time except Canada. As a matter of fact, we, the kids can go out now and they know where they have

competition overseas, but we didn't go. We went up beside a stone wall. We didn't know who or where, but I knew one thing, that if anyone was jumping, I was going to be right there jumping too. And after I won the gold medal, King George awarded me this medal, of Queen Elizabeth's father, and that's something that 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 Queen. Then I met Lord and Lady Esther. They took us out for a tour at her house and Buckingham Palace, and we went out to Pinewood 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 States and France, and I only jumped in England, and when they put me in the 100th, the 50th, they anchored the relay team in the high jump, and I ran all one, all four gold medals. Then they started wondering, what in the world happened to this girl at the Olympics? Why wasn't she in this relay at the Olympics? But it was just that I didn't want to, and whatever you try, that's what you do. But I won four gold medals in the dual meet between the United States and France. Then I was the only one to go on a tour, the only woman to go on a tour in southern France, in Nantes and LaBarre, France, to demonstrate the high jump, how I won the high jump. What was that like?

Well, that's why I think the kids now are missing a lot, because we went over on SS America, and really you find it's international, and it's just like a city. You meet so many different people, and then although you get seasick, I didn't get seasick going over, but I did get seasick coming back. And they're missing a lot, because about six hours overseas in a plane, now you're just on there with your own teammates, but here you have sitting decks, you play cards, you meet different people. It's just wonderful. I wouldn't take anything for it. I would rather be on the boat any day than be in the air. Could you tell a story of how your coach prevented you getting seasick going over? Coach told me, saying, whatever you do, you keep a lot of chocolate with you and apples, and so every time you think you're getting sick, say, let's chew on it, let's chew on that apple, get some of the candy. So I didn't get seasick going over, and I didn't get ass sick flying,

some of the kids got ass sick flying from England to France, but I didn't. But coming back, they said they had not had a storm in about 25 years. We ran in the storm from France to the United States, to Ireland, I think it was. But they said they had not had a storm like that in about 25 years. But as a whole, it was just so much to see. And in England, when we kids had passes to go to Piccadilly Circus, I went to Piccadilly 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 towns nearby and see what was going on, I guess being nosy, and buy ice cream. And we had one girl that got sick, 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. It was Emma Reed, she was from Tennessee State College. But other than that, I would go, I went to a little place called Hammond Smith, and the 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 with Sunday School Church and Sunday School again, and my mind wanting to dance, and I still want to dance because I want it to be, my ambition was to be tap dancers like Cheryl DeTemper and blow saxophone like Coleman Hawkins, and neither one did I get. 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 dancing.

You didn't really have a career after that, but you coached, and I often wonder how people who have been champions have responded to the atmosphere that is provided for you as a coach. What was it like for you coaching after you had this trip? Well, it was fine for me because I'm a very determined person. I got a lot of guts, and the kids, all the kids that came through under me, they wished I had been hard on them. My own kids say that, but after they get a little older, then they come and tell me they appreciate it, but as a whole, I never had any problems out of them. I would get out there myself and show them if they didn't understand, and I can tell them

so many things that will happen. One of my co-workers say all the time, nobody looks at a second place person, they look at a winner. If you're not number one, they don't see you, but in a second place, they don't see you at all. They only look at that number one. I thought about that for a long time, and I said, you're right about that. No one cares anything about a second place. They want to see the winner, number one. If we were to give you this question and ask you to finish this one, mine began with the words, to be a champion. How would you say it? Hard work, determination. To be a champion, you got to have determination, you got to have guts, you got to train, and let nothing come

between you and what you want to go, what you want to reach.