Hero of the Week 106

 Welcome back viewers

This week's hero is...

Alice Coachman 

Alice Coachman was born on November 9, 1923. She was the fifth of ten children raised in the city of Albany, Georgia. Despite growing up facing severe racism and sexism, Alice was determined to break barriers. Whenever she wasn't at school, she trained herself by running barefoot on dirt roads and jumping over raised obstacles. After receiving some encouragement from her aunt and a teacher, Alice joined her high school's track team in 1938. She quickly excelled at the sport of high jumping.

After she graduated high school, Alice attended Albany State University. She graduated from college with a degree in dressmaking and home economics. During this time, she continued to compete in the sport of track and field for her college. By the time she graduated from Albany, Alice had already won numerous races for the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) national championships. Her growing skills at the High Jump event eventually caught the eyes of the American Olympic Team. 

Although the Summer Olympics for 1940 and 1944 had been canceled due to World War II, Coachman successfully tried out for the 1948 Olympics in London (despite suffering a back injury). On August 7, she found herself on the race track competing in the High Jump event. On her very first attempt, Alice leapt 1.68 meters (5 ft 6 in) into the air (an Olympic Record). Although Dorothy Tyler (of the United Kingdom) was able to match her jump, she did so on her second try. 

Since none of her opponents were able to overtake her score, Alice was declared the winner of the gold medal. Dorothy Tyler of the UK took the silver and Micheline Ostermeyer of France took the bronze. The crowd watched in awe as King George VI walked out to the podium on the track and presented the gold medal to a woman of color. For a brief moment, the eyes of the world were all on Alice Coachman. She was the first African-American woman to win a gold medal at the Olympics and the only American woman for that year.

Due to the back injury she had suffered, Alice Coachman's career came to an end when she was only 24. She spent the rest of her life working in education. In 1979, she was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. In 2004, she was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame. She passed away on July 14, 2014, at the age of 90. Today, Alice Coachman is remembered as a woman who faced challenges head on and broke barriers. She serves as a major inspiration for thousands of black athletes around the world. Her story is definitely one that deserves to be remembered.

http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2021/may/27/sports-historian-explores-how-racism-impacted-fema/

https://kiss951.com/2021/02/15/black-history-month-heroes-you-should-know-alice-coachman/

https://www.cbssports.com/general/news/cbs-sports-honors-alice-coachman-with-animated-vignette-for-black-history-month/

https://www.ajc.com/sports/high-school-sports-blog/for-a-generation-black-georgia-women-dominated-womens-track-and-field/6NZRB3PAO5GZHMZIZO3DQFN5N4/

https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/sports-outdoor-recreation/alice-coachman-1923-2014