Jesse Owens' high school is trying to revive its track team

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

One of the most closely watched events at the upcoming Olympics is track and field. Athletes will run sprints, jump hurdles and more, hoping to emulate or even surpass track stars of the past - stars like Jesse Owens. In 1936, he won four gold medals in Berlin. Inspired by that history, the high school where Owens got his running start is working to revive their boys' track and field team. Gabriel Kramer from the Ideastream Public Media in Cleveland reports.

MICHAEL HARDAWAY: Three. This is three...

GABRIEL KRAMER, BYLINE: In the basement of East Tech High on Cleveland's East Side is a once-state-of-the-art indoor track. These days, the finish lines are fading. On the infield is a weight room where the benches have frayed upholstery, and the dumbbells are mismatched.

HARDAWAY: We're going to put some pride back into our school.

KRAMER: Michael Hardaway is the head coach of the East Tech boys' track-and-field team. When it comes to weightlifting, he knows it doesn't matter how old the barbells are. Fifty pounds is 50 pounds.

HARDAWAY: This is the beautiful part, the humble beginnings, building the coaching.

KRAMER: The team is facing hurdles. The roster is still pretty bare. The team lacks standard racing shoes and practice apparel, and many are still unfamiliar with track strategy, understanding the lanes and using starting blocks.

HARDAWAY: Jump out of that four-by-two and head right to the 400, all right?

Certain things that are going to stump you for a minute, but you got to get back on your horse, and you got to keep going. I preach that all the time.

KRAMER: Decades ago, East Tech was a dominant force in track and field. The school won 27 conference titles from 1931 to 1964 - a streak of greatness started by Jesse Owens. He then ran track for Ohio State and later went on to win four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics, held in Nazi Germany.

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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Ohio State's phenomenal Jesse Owens again takes the spotlight as he sprints for the takeoff in the broad jump.

JESSE OWENS: The competition was grand, and we're very glad to come out on top.

KRAMER: East Tech's Coach Hardaway says what he wants to instill in his students is the courage and activism Owens showed in addition to his athletic prowess.

HARDAWAY: Having probably the greatest Olympian ever to come from your high school - there's nothing like it. So I'm always going to preach the gospel of Jesse Owens.

KRAMER: It's been a hurdle to revive the team. The school is in an impoverished part of town, and COVID-19 wiped out sports districtwide. An effort to bring the boys' team back in 2022 was short-lived.

HARDAWAY: I was like, where the boys at? They're like, we don't have a boys' team. The coach - he coached for, like, a couple of weeks, then he quit. I said, at the home of Jesse Owens, that's unacceptable.

KRAMER: People in Northeast Ohio idolize more contemporary sports stars, like basketball's LeBron James and 1960s football great Jim Brown. But Owens, who broke barriers for Black athletes during Jim Crow and stood up to Nazism along with other Black and Jewish teammates, isn't as celebrated. That's changing. The city made the Olympian's childhood home a local historic landmark this year. And student athletes, like freshman Zikei Harris, are especially buying into the revival of the sport that Owens loved.

ZIKEI HARRIS: It's just amazing 'cause, like, he was here. He started from here and ended up there. So now I got to start from here and end up where he was at - try to just improve on what he did and make another legacy behind his.

KRAMER: And with that, Harris steps back and joins his teammates as they pass batons and run relay races. This is the start of East Tech's boys' track-and-field team revival, and the students honor Owens with a silhouette of him on their brown-and-gold uniforms.

For NPR News, I'm Gabriel Kramer in Cleveland. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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