Background

Wilma Rudolph was born on June 23, 1940 in Saint Bethlehem, Tennessee (now part of Clarksville), United States. She was the twentieth of twenty-two children of her father's first and second marriages. Her father, Ed Rudolph, was a railroad porter, and her mother, Blanche (Pettus) Rudolph, was a domestic. Their home had neither electricity nor indoor plumbing. Rudolph born two months premature and weighed only four and a half pounds.

Education

Rudolph was a premature infant, who suffered many childhood diseases. With her mother, she often rode the segregated bus to Nashville to receive medical treatments. She was unable to walk until fitted with a leg brace at the age of eight. But her condition improved rapidly, and by eleven she was playing basketball barefoot. She studied at the Cobb School for Negroes, where her teachers gradually transformed Rudolph into a self-confident person, encouraging her to excel in life without any excuses. At the new all-black Burt High School, Rudolph participated in basketball and track. At the age of thirteen, six feet tall and weighing only eighty-nine pounds, she won all her races at 50, 75, 100, and 200 meters. As a basketball player, she scored over 800 points during her sophomore year of high school alone.

In 1958, Wilma enrolled at Tennessee State University in Nashville. There she continued to compete in track. In 1963, Rudolph graduated from the university with a Bachelor's degree in Education.

Career

Defying all odds, Rudolph began her stellar athletic career at the age of twelve. Finally free of the leg brace she had worn for support after her bout with polio, she participated in school sports. By the time she was in high school, Rudolph was winning every race she entered, yet she knew she needed expert training. At the end of her sophomore year, she had been selected to compete against the top runners in the South at a track meet in Tuskegee, Alabama. She expected to win, but to her horror, she lost every race, which caused her to conclude she needed intensive training to reach the competitive level she envisioned for herself.

That summer Rudolph attended coach Ed Temple's high school girls' track program at Tennessee State College. The team trained five days a week and ran twenty miles a day. The goal was for the team to win the junior division championship at the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) national meet in Philadelphia. At the end of the summer, Rudolph and the team were the national junior champions. Rudolph won the 75-meter and 100-meter races and the 400-meter relay. That day she competed in nine races and won all of them - yet there was no mention of these achievements in the newspapers because at the time the public had little interest in women's track and field events.

Under Temple's coaching and through her hard work, Rudolph qualified at the age of sixteen to become the youngest member of the 1956 United States Olympic women's track and field team. At the Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, she lost in the 200-meter race but won a bronze medal as part of the 400-meter relay team. She dedicated herself to doing even better at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

Rudolph's career was almost sidetracked when she became pregnant in fall 1957, her senior year in high school. So Rudolph could attend college, her family offered to raise her daughter while she pursued her academic and athletic careers. In 1958, Rudolph graduated from high school and received a full scholarship to attend Tennessee State University as a member of Coach Temple's Tigerbelles track team. At the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) national meet in Corpus Christi, Texas, just before the 1960 Olympic trials, Rudolph set a world record, 22.9 seconds in the 200-meter race; the record stood for eight years. At the Olympic trials in Emporia, Kansas, she easily qualified in three events, the 100- and 200-meter races and the 400-meter relay. To her delight, Temple was named coach of the 1960 United States women's Olympic team.

Rudolph was a slim and graceful sprinter with amazing speed. At the 1960 Rome Olympics, she won the 100-meter race in a world record time, 11 seconds; however, because of a strong following wind, the record remained unofficial. She set an Olympic record in the opening heat of the 200-meter race with a time of 23.2 seconds and went on to win the gold medal with a time of 24.0 seconds. In the 400-meter relay, despite a poor baton pass, she caught up with and passed the German runner to take the gold. The 44.5-second time was one-tenth of a second over the teams' semifinal time of 44.4 seconds, a world record. Rudolph became the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympics and the most celebrated female athlete in the world.

After the Olympics, the team had an audience with Pope John XXIII, then competed in the British Empire Games in London. Rudolph won the two events in which she competed, the 100-meter race and the 400-meter relay. The United States Olympic Committee arranged for Rudolph and three of her teammates to tour several European cities.

In 1962, Rudolph retired from track and field, explaining she wanted to be remembered at her best. After retiring, Rudolph served as United States representative to the 1963 Friendship Games in Dakar, Senegal, and visited Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and Upper Volta, where she attended sporting events, visited schools, and made guest appearances on television and radio broadcasts. She shifted to a career in teaching and coaching after her retirement from track competition. Wilma also began as a second-grade teacher at Cobb Elementary School, where she had studied as a child, and coached track at Burt High School, where she had once been a student-athlete herself, but later left the position.

In addition, Rudolph worked for nonprofit organizations and government-sponsored projects that supported athletic development among American children. She was involved in the federal Job Corps program, and in 1967 served as a track specialist for Operation Champion. In 1987, Wilma joined DePauw University in Greencastle as director of its women's track program and served as a consultant on minority affairs to the university's president.

She hosted a local television show in Indianapolis and was a publicist for Universal Studios as well as a television sports commentator for ABC Sports during the 1984 Summer Olympics. In 1992, Rudolph became vice president at Nashville's Baptist Hospital (now Saint Thomas Midtown Hospital).

Achievements

• Wilma Rudolph was the first American woman to win three gold medals in the track and field competition. Rudolph's brilliant accomplishments were all the more remarkable because she came from modest circumstances and endured a childhood of sickness and disability.
  
  At the age of 16, at the 1956 Olympic Games at Melbourne, Wilma won a bronze medal in the 4 × 100-metre relay race. In 1960 she set a world record of 22.9 seconds for the 200-metre race. In the Games themselves, she won gold medals in the 100-metre dash (tying the world record: 11.3 seconds), in the 200-metre dash, and as a member of the 4 × 100-metre relay team, which had set a world record of 44.4 seconds in a semifinal race.
  
  Rudolph received many honors. In 1960 European sportswriters voted her Sportswoman of the Year, and both United Press International and the Associated Press named her Female Athlete of the Year. In 1961 she received the James E. Sullivan Award for the top amateur athlete, and in 1962 the Babe Zaharias Award. In 1987 she became the first female to be given the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award, and in 1993 then-President of the United States William J. Clinton presented her with a National Sports Award.
  
  Rudolph was inducted into the Black Athletes Hall of Fame in 1973, the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1974, the Afro-American International Hall of Fame in 1980, the United States Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983, and the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1994. Following her death, her alma mater, Tennessee State University, established the Wilma Rudolph Residence Center in her honor.
  
  Rudolph overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles, including poverty, racism, sexism, and a crippling bout with polio, to achieve athletic excellence. Her life serves as a model of courage and dedication for all Americans and proof of the veracity of the American dream.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Wilma: The Story of Wilma Rudolph 1977

Religion

Rudolph's family had a deep Christian faith, and her parents taught her that God had a purpose for her life.

Politics

Wilma is credited with elevating women's track to a major presence in the United States. She was also known for her social activism and regarded as a pioneer in civil rights and women's rights.

Views

Rudolph made a month-long trip to West Africa as a goodwill ambassador for the United States State Department. In 1981 she established and led the Wilma Rudolph Foundation, an organization that trains youth athletes.

Quotations: "The triumph cannot be had without the struggle. And I know what struggle is. I have spent a lifetime trying to share what it has meant to be a woman first in the world of sports so that other young women have a chance to reach their dreams."

"Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us."

"I loved the feeling of freedom in running, the fresh air, the feeling that the only person I'm competing with is me."

"No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you."

"Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday."

"Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle."

"My doctor told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother."

"I believe in me more than anything in this world."

"I ran and ran and ran every day, and I acquired this sense of determination, this sense of spirit that I would never, never give up, no matter what else happened."

"When the sun is shining I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome."

"The triumph can't be had without the struggle."

"It doesn't matter what you're trying to accomplish. It's all a matter of discipline. I was determined to discover what life held for me beyond the inner-city streets."

"I don't know why I run so fast. I just run."

"The feeling of accomplishment welled up inside of me, three Olympic gold medals. I knew that was something nobody could ever take away from me, ever."

"Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life."

"My mother taught me very early to believe I could achieve any accomplishment I wanted to. The first was to walk without braces."

"I had a series of childhood illnesses; scarlet fever, pneumonia, polio. I walked with braces until I was at least nine years old. My life wasn't like the average person who grew up and decided to enter the world of sports."

"They say things like they don't want men opening doors for them anymore, and they don't want men lighting their cigarettes for them anymore. Big deal. Black women have been opening doors for themselves and lighting their own cigarettes for a couple of centuries in this country. Black women don't quibble about things that are not important."

"I'm in my prime. There's no goal too far, no mountain too high."

Membership

Wilma Rudolph was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

Personality

Wilma Rudolph demonstrated the characteristics of a hero by her determination not to give up. She struggled with disabilities early in life. She worked hard to overcome great obstacles. Wilma was a very honest person and was an inspiration to all young people to never give up.

Physical Characteristics: Rudolph was born prematurely at 4.5 pounds (2.0 kg). She suffered from several early childhood illnesses, including pneumonia and scarlet fever. At the age of five, she contracted infantile paralysis (caused by the poliovirus). Wilma recovered from polio but lost strength in her left leg and foot. She wore a leg brace until she was twelve years old. Later, Rudolph was able to overcome the effects of polio and learned to walk without a leg brace or orthopedic shoe for support.

In July 1994, Rudolph was diagnosed with brain cancer. She also had been diagnosed with throat cancer.

Interests

• Sport & Clubs

  basketball and running

• Athletes

  Jackie Robinson

Connections

On October 14, 1961, Wilma Rudolph married William "Willie" Ward. He was a member of the North Carolina College at Durham track team. The couple divorced in May 1963. In the same year, Rudolph married Robert Eldridge, with whom she already had a daughter, Yolanda, born in 1958. Rudolph and Eldridge had four children - two daughters (Yolanda and Djuanna) and two sons (Robert Jr. and Xurry). They divorced seventeen years later.

Father:

Ed Rudolph

Mother:

Blanche (Pettus) Rudolph

(April 9, 1909 - May 12, 1994)

ex-spouse:

William Ward

ex-spouse:

Robert Eldridge

Daughter:

Yolanda Eldridge

(born 1958)

Daughter:

Djuanna Eldridge

(born 1964)

Son:

Robert Eldridge Jr.

(born 1965)

Son:

Xurry Eldridge

(born 1971)

colleague:

Martha Hudson

(born March 21, 1939)

Martha Hudson is a retired American sprinter. She won a gold medal in the 4 × 100 m relay at the 1960 Olympics.

References

• Wilma Rudolph In this book from the critically acclaimed, multimillion-copy best-selling Little People, the readers will discover the life of Wilma Rudolph, the remarkable sprinter and Olympic champion.
  2019
• Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman This dramatic and inspiring true story is illustrated in bold watercolor and acrylic paintings by Caldecott Medal-winning artist David Diaz.
  1996
• Wilma Rudolph Victoria Sherrow tells how Wilma Rudolph's determination led her to the 1956 and 1960 Olympics where she gained fame as a champion runner. Larry Johnson's rich illustrations help to capture this true story of heroic strength and fearlessness.
  1994
• Wilma Rudolph: Track and Field Champion This book shows how young Wilma used her inner strength to overcome physical disabilities caused by polio to win three gold medals for the United States in track and field at the 1960 Olympics.
  2016
• Wilma Rudolph A biography of the woman who overcame crippling polio as a child to become the first woman to win three gold medals in track in a single Olympics.
  1988
• Wilma Rudolph: Athlete and Educator The book describes an early life of poverty and illness which the athlete overcame to graduate from college and become an award-winning Olympic runner.
  2000
• Wilma Rudolph: Olympic Runner The inspiring story of American track-and-field athlete Wilma Rudolph, who overcame childhood polio to win three Olympic gold medals.
  2004
• Wilma Rudolph: Olympic Track Star A biography on the life of Wilma Rudolph, hero of the 1960 Rome Olympics.
  2006
• Wilma Rudolph: Fastest Woman on Earth Wilma Rudolph wanted to run and jump like other children, but she had a serious disease that kept her leg from growing well. She did not give up and went on to one day win Olympic gold medals.
  2020
• What's Your Story, Wilma Rudolph? When did Wilma begin to run? What was the first important race she ever won? Cub Reporter interviews her to find out! Learn how Wilma overcame polio and became the first American woman to win three gold medals at a single Olympic Games.
  2015