Reichs Sports Field Berlin, 1936 . Hamza Ozmeral archives
Jesse Owens Ohio State years. By the "Horseshoe"
The 1936 Berlin Olympics were opened by Adolf Hitler on August 1, 1936 in the Olympiastadion. The Olympic torch was brought from Olympia Greece after a 3000 km journey which had changed hands by hundreds of athletes in six different countries. About four thousand athletes attended the games and it was the first Olympics with television coverage ; big screen TVs were scattered all over Berlin. The Nazi regime of the Third Reich tried to manipulate the games and prove the world the Aryan race's German supremacy but an African American athlete from the United States spoiled Hitler’s desire. Jesse Owens won a record four gold medals and Hitler had to exit the Olympiastadion in a hurry, to avoid shaking hands with the Gold medalist American athletes of the 4x100 meter rally.
For me, as a young boy at the time of the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia was the first time I had developed an interest in the Olympics. The success of the Turkish wrestlers in Melbourne and their supreme performance which had earned them seven gold medals during the Olympics in Rome in 1960, made me an immediate fan of the games. I started collecting stamps, reading books and getting to know gold medalists like Pauva Nurmi “the Flying Finns”, Emil Zatopek , “the Czech Locomotive” : the only Olympians of the pre- World War II era, with three gold medals each.
But soon I found out that no other athlete’s fame had come close to Jesse Owens, the black American athlete who had vanquished Hitler’s claim of the Aryan race’s supremacy, with four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Germany topped the medal count in Berlin, but Owens was the only athlete with four gold medals: 100m, 200m, long jump and 4x100 relay and he was not from the so-called “supreme race”. In the United States he was not allowed to travel and stay in the same hotels as the white athletes. During the Berlin Olympics he had enjoyed staying in the Olympic village with the other American athletes and while Hitler had publicly recognized Owen’s achievements, it is said that President Franklin D. Roosevelt failed to send him a congratulatory telegram. What was news to me in later years was that Jesse Owens, the “Buckeye Bullet” had attended Ohio State University and since he was black, he was not allowed a scholarship and had to support his education with part time jobs.
Jesse Owens House Olympic Village Berlin
Reichs Sports Field 1936
The room Jesse Owens stayed in the Olympic village
Jesse Owens brought home not only four gold medals from Berlin, but also a special gift from Hitler. All of the 130 gold medal winner Olympians received English Oak trees as gifts. The Führer who claimed Aryan race’s supremacy, had to accept a black athlete’s triumph, but rushed out of the Olympic Stadium and missed the medal and oak tree ceremony. I had seen the picture of one of these oak trees while researching the life of the wrestler Yaşar Erkan who brought the first gold medal for Turkey in the Olympics. Olympic oaks as they are known are the English oak trees grown from the year-old saplings given to the gold medal winners of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It is not known what happened to many of them and few have survived to the present day.
Jesse Owens brought back four oak saplings, one for each of the gold medals he won in track and field. He planted one of his olympic saplings at Rhodes High School, where he used to run at track meets, while he attended East Thecnical High School in Central Cleveland. Rhodes High school had the most modern track at the time in Cleveland. The second oak sapling was planted by his parents home, who he bought for them after the Olympics at East 55 th Street in Cleveland. The third one was planted at the Ohio State campus in Columbus, Ohio, where he was going to school at the time of the 1936 Berlin Olympic games. Nobody knows where the fourth one was planted, and if planted at all. It could be that one of the members of the 400x100 meter relay team had kept it. None of the Jesse Owens oak trees except the one at Rhodes High School survived to the present day.
The tree at Rhodes High School lived for eighty five years but at the end it started suffering from old age and in the spring of 2021 no leaves came back. The branches of the tree were cut in May so that high winds would not snap its large dead branches. Next step was to somehow give life to the dead tree so that Jesse Owen’s legacy and memory of his achievements keep living forever. Old Brooklyn Community Development Corparition, Cleveland Metropolitan School District started working with Holden Arboretum to genetically replicate the tree. The tree was genetically replicated by splicing through the bark and exposing the living layer beneath it, called the cambium, of both the new growth and a different rootstock, and then fusing the two together.
Jesse Owens on the winners stand with the oak tree sampling in his hand
Gold medal winners Tilly Fleischer(Germany) and Yasar Erkan (Turkey) with the Olympic Oak
Jesse Owens oak tree and the propagated sapling at Rhodes High School Photo by Mel Leibsla
A total of 12 Jesse Owens Olympic Oak trees have been propagated from the old tree of 1936. One of them was planted by the original tree at Rhodes High School. The second one was planted on Arbor Day 2021 at the Rockefeller Park in University Center by the Jesse Owens Memorial Oak Plaza, which was under construction at the time. On Monday, September 25, 2023, the team at University Circle Inc. in Cleveland Ohio dedicated the Jesse Owens Olympic Oak Plaza in Rockefeller Park just north of the Wade Lagoon. Artist Angelica Pozo designed the plaza surrounding the tree with colaboration from the Owens Family. The plaza is a 200-meter loop representing the length of Owens’ sprint and includes four markers, one for each of his gold medals. Decorative tiles display quotes from Owens, former President Jimmy Carter, and members of the Cleveland community about themes of resilience, perseverance, and the struggle against poverty and racism.
MY VİSIT TO JESSE OWENS OLYMPIC OAK MEMORIAL PLAZA ON MAY 19, 2020
Olympic Oak Plaza is located at Rockefeller Park in Cleveland just north of the Wade Lagoo
There are four markers, one for each of his gold medals.
In this marker Jesse Owens is seen on the winners stand with the oak tree sapling in his hand.
The plaza is a 200-meter loop representing the length of Owens’ sprint and his long jump.
The podium seat wall, that evokes the idea of a winners stand.
Decorative tiles display quotes from Owens, President Jimmy Carter, and members of the Cleveland community about themes of resilience, perseverance, and the struggle against poverty and racism.
On the winners stand
Sapling propagated from the original Jesse Owens Olympic Oak Tree at Rhodes High School
President Carter's quote upon awarding him the living legend Award in 1979
We all have dreams, but in order to bring dreams to reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline and effort. Jesse Owens
Photos from Columbus Ohio where Jesse Owens went to college at Ohio State University and coming home to Cleveland from Olympics.
Citation: Alan Cottrill, Jesse Owens, Ohio Outdoor Sculpture Ohio State Campus
Jesse Owens visit to the oak tree at Rhodes High School 1970s
Jesse Owens return home from the 1936 Berlin Olympics