If youÂ’re not a student of track and field history, you may not
recognize Lee Evans’s name – but you might remember the impact that
he and his teammates made on the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.
Political passions swirled around the Games that year. A shocked world
saw hosts Mexico preserve order for the Games with a massacre, just two
weeks before the opening ceremony, of hundreds of student protesters
and their supporters. The International Olympic Committee invited, then
un-invited apartheid South Africa to participate. And several African
American track and field athletes – including Evans – made a series
of medal stand demonstrations.
"We decided to make a protest in the Olympic Games to draw attention
to the plight of the black man in America. Our country was in trouble,
you know, in terms of race issues. So our protest was mainly about all
of that, all those problems and how we wanted change and equality,
desegregation, and get off my back."
Two of EvansÂ’s San Jose State University teammates, Tommy Smith and
John Carlos, protested first, and most famously, bowing their heads on
the medal stand and raising their fists in black gloves after place
first and third in the 200 meters. The U.S. Olympic Committee sent them
home immediately and banned them from future competitions. It also
warned other athletes, including Evans, against making a public display.
When Evans and his 400 meter colleagues took to the medal stand,
they wore revolutionary style black berets, but took them off during
the national anthem. Their gesture was too militant for many Americans,
but not strong enough for many supporters in San Jose. Bronze medalist
Ron Freeman remembers the homecoming.
"We did not go through what Lee went through. I came home and had a
ticker tape parade, had a day at the football stadium. I think that
when Lee came home, he came back to San Jose State as an Olympian and
Tommie and John came back to San Jose State as an Olympian, but in a
different level, because of the stand they took."
But Evans also came home with the kind of credentials – two world
records -- that can make young athletes sit up and pay attention. He
took those credentials on the road, teaching and coaching all over the
world, from California to Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kenya and
Cameroon.
These days he makes a home in Mobile, Alabama, where he coaches the
University of South AlabamaÂ’s track team. As a new recruit in 2002,
U-S-A runner Jeremiah Carter, from Semmes, just outside Mobile, was not
initially aware of his coachÂ’s past accomplishments.
"I never heard anything about Coach Evans before, really, so, when
we first talked to him I figured heÂ’s a regular, you know, good coach,
and it wasnÂ’t later until I found out what was going on. I was like,
wow! You know, I got me in a position where I could have a good coach
whoÂ’s got a couple gold medals under his belt."
"Course I remember Lee running the 400 meters and coming home, charging real strong."
Three time Olympic medalist Harvey Glance was a ten-year old in
Phenix City when Lee Evans and the other stars of Â’68 inspired him to
new heights. Glance is now the head track coach for the Crimson Tide.
"It showed a lot of his charater and he still carries that today. I
mean, heÂ’s a warrior. HeÂ’ll fight to the bitter end. And that will
always be Lee EvanÂ’s trademark, is that, you know, heÂ’ll never give
up."
(Evans)"The hardships I went through, growing up as a young man in
America, around people that didnÂ’t, was not the same color as me. It
just happened, you know, we lived in a rural area and we was the only
blacks around. My life, to me, was grim, growing up, you know. Even
though it was a lot of hard work, you know, farm labor work involved,
but you know, when I turned nineteen, you know, I, itÂ’s like I was
free. You know. I was a freshman in college. I was number one in the
world in the 400 meters. ItÂ’s a big difference, you know. I was in
Brussels, Belgium going to a track meet, or London or Paris. You know,
it was a big difference, from the cotton field to Paris, right?
Evans tries to impart his fighting spirit to his athletes, but he
sometimes worries that todayÂ’s athletes lack some of the drive that he
and his colleagues had years ago.
"My high school career, my university career, I never missed one day
of training. If I missed training, I would be, itÂ’s like I lost
something, you know? ItÂ’s like, wow, I missed a whole day of
preparation, many, IÂ’m not going to be as good as I could have been if
I hadnÂ’t missed this training!"
Evans still welcomes a good fight Â… and before the NCAA Regional
Meet this spring in Baton Rouge, Coach Evans and Assistant Coach Ron
Davis talked about the challenges of recruiting against powerhouses
like the meetÂ’s host, L.S.U.
"See, weÂ’re always watching our budget," says Davis. "They donÂ’t
have to watch their budget. Look! ThatÂ’s their weight room, right
there. Music. Top notch weights. And indoors, inside there, they have
an equipment room. They just go in there. ThereÂ’s a roomful of
equipment with Nike is their sponsor."
"All we can do is take ‘em to the Red Lobster and beg ‘em, you know!" jokes Evans.
But Coach Evans and Coach Davis can afford to laugh. Because they
have a recruiting network that no other school can boast of – the
fruit of more than forty years of combined coaching experience in
Africa and the Middle East, where they helped scores of athletes to
navigate the college admissions and student visa processes in the U.S.,
earning academic degrees while training to be starts for their own
national Olympic teams.
Ajoke Odumosu of Nigeria, now a South Alabama sophomore, recalls a
recruitment process that never even got to the Red Lobster phase. It
was strictly email.
"Some of his history was now mailed to me, in my box. So I read
about him, that heÂ’s an Olympic medalist, world record for twenty
years. I was like, oh, this is great. And heÂ’s like, world record in
the 400 meters. I said, oooohhh, that is my event!"
As a freshman, Odumosu surprised everyone but her coaches by
finishing second in the 400 meter hurdles at the NCAA regional meet to
AlabamaÂ’s Beau Walker. On a team with athletes from as close as
Satsuma, Alabama and from as far as Gulu, Uganda, Odumosu has reason to
be excited about the teamÂ’s future, under the guiding eye of her world
class and globe traveling coach, Lee Evans.
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