Herb Douglas remembers the last time the Olympics was postponed like it was yesterday. It was 76 years ago, and the Invasion of Normandy had begun in France. Douglas, a 22-year-old from Pittsburgh, was about to start his freshman year in college. His country was fighting the war, and he didn't know when it was all going to end.
Douglas practiced his long jumps and foot placements twice a day. The 1944 Olympics, which he'd dreamed of and trained for, were canceled. He didn't know when he could compete for his country again. So he trained harder.
The people in his life taught him how to reshape dreams and adjust to uncomfortable circumstances. His father, who went blind at 5, found a guide dog for himself and then ran a successful business for 30 years. His mother rearranged the house so his dad wouldn't trip on the furniture. His grandfather, who was a mason, bought a house in a white neighborhood in 1918. Douglas would play with white kids in his neighborhood, then walk over to the street six blocks over to play with black kids. He never heard the N-word uttered by either of the races. It taught him how to balance himself in both worlds.
Jesse Owens, the four-time gold medal winner at the 1936 Olympics, changed his life, when at 14 Douglas' mother took him to see Owens speak at Watts Elementary School in Pittsburgh. After the speech, Owens met Douglas and placed his arms around his shoulders. Owens asked Douglas about himself. "I run the 100-meter dash and do the long jump," Douglas said.
"That's more than what I did at your age," Owens responded.
"Go get a college education," Owens said to Douglas, and his words stuck. Soon after, Douglas worked for his father, but he dreamed of college. If Owens could do it, he could do it, Douglas thought.
Douglas starred on the University of Pittsburgh football and track teams from 1945-48. The year he graduated, he placed second in the Olympic trials. A few months later, he won a bronze in long jump at the '48 Olympics in London, which was also the first time he saw himself performing on video.
Douglas remained friends with Owens for decades. They co-founded the Jesse Owens International Trophy Award and the Jesse Owens Global Award for Peace. Whenever Owens and Douglas spoke, they primarily discussed the social problems plaguing the world. They rarely mentioned track and field.
Douglas, 98, is the oldest-living African American Olympic medalist. He shares what it was like to live through an Olympic postponed, how today's coronavirus pandemic reminds him of World War II and how he thinks Olympic hopefuls can stay motivated during this time.
Here is Douglas, in his own words:
I have never seen the world shut down like this today where there's no communication with other people. We have to stay 6 or more feet away from people. This is unprecedented, even for someone who has lived almost a century. Back in 1944 we were not quarantined, we were not confined.
There was a war, and we couldn't go [to the Olympics] because countries were siding against one another and fighting. We were patriotic with our country, and we listened to what our administration said. We could still train and prepare ourselves and look forward to the next Olympics. When you finish an event, you'd grab one another and hug one another. Back then during that time, there wouldn't have been the contagiousness between people.
But [coronavirus] is a condition that we don't know when it's going to get over because we don't have a vaccine. We don't have anything to combat the virus. This is not just about athletes now, this is people -- working people, people in business, people around the world.
When the Olympics were canceled in 1944, those of us who had a strong desire to make the team handled it in different ways. Some athletes would lay back and wait until they heard something when the Olympics would be held. I was a little different. I continued training -- harder than I ever trained, twice a day. You have to adjust yourself to the conditions if you wanted to make the Olympic team, stand on the podium and win an Olympic medal. You adjust yourself to train harder. I had been praying every night that I make the Olympic team and score a medal for the United States.
In 1948 when we got to compete at last, it was huge. It was individually huge, because those of us of color, we wanted to go over there and show the world what we could do. It enabled us to get better conditions in the next Olympics, so we could go over there and show the world that African Americans could compete like anybody else in the world. We could run, jump and throw as well as anybody, not just in the United States, but in the world. Harrison Dillard won the 100 meters, Willie Steele won my event, long jump -- it was indescribable satisfaction that we could prove to the world that we could compete.
If I were one of the Olympic hopefuls today, I'd keep training. This will give me ample time to get in better shape. You can always get better by training, by concentrating on what you did right and what you did wrong, because we have the technology today. I have the video help and I can say, "Oh boy, I should have done this," or "I should have gone higher there," or "I should have gotten my arms a certain way to propel me up in the air," because now I can see my mistakes, because of technology. And who knows with all the training now, I could have done a 29-footer [in the long jump], too.
I don't think it will ever be back to the way it was before. I believe this is created by the supreme being to bring people closer together and understanding one another and this is God's mission to bring us closer together where we can relate to being apart and why we have to become closer together to survive this.
I get a prayer every morning from a friend of mine. And this person shared, "How can I believe in God when I can't see him?" And they responded, "How can you believe in the virus when you can't see it?" So it works both ways, and I feel this is going to bring the world closer together after it subsides. Just as the Olympics brings people closer together. There is no place I know that I could go where someone doesn't recognize me. That's what the Olympics is about -- it enhances togetherness. And for the world, that's perhaps what we need, more togetherness.