The 2024 Olympics opened last week in Paris, but a lot of history has taken place during the last century that is worthy of note. Here are two stories I told you about in past columns.
Ralph H. Metcalfe was four-times elected Chicago alderman (city council), an eight-year serving U.S. congressman, a Legion of Merit medal-holder as a U.S. Army 1st lieutenant during World War II, and a successful college coach. But it was a 10.4-second space of time in his life that probably haunted Metcalfe more than anything. He ran one-tenth of a second behind Jesse Owens in the 100-meter dash at the historic 1936 Berlin Olympics as dictator Adolf Hitler looked on in shock.
There were many races to come. Twenty years later in 1955, Metcalfe won the first of four elections as an alderman representing the South Side of Chicago. He broke ranks with Mayor Richard Daly after a series of police brutality incidents. In 1970, he easily was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Congress.
But it was that eye-blink of a second back in 1936 that kept Metcalfe awake at night. Jesse Owens won a gold medal and equaled a world record that summer in Berlin running the 100-meter dash at 10.3 seconds. Metcalfe was right behind Owens for the silver medal at 10.4 seconds. Ironically, Metcalfe broke or equaled world records 16 times at various distance track events. However, only five of them were ever officially ratified by the international governing body, the IAAF, now known as World Athletics.
Metcalfe won four Olympic medals during the previous 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. He was regarded as the world’s fastest human in 1934 and 1935 after running at the world record time of 10.3 seconds. Metcalfe was convinced to the end of his life that the 100-meter event in 1932 should have been awarded as a dead-heat tie between him and Eddie Tolan. In all, Metcalfe won 16 national titles in track during his athletic career.
At Berlin, Metcalfe ran with Owens, Foy Draper and Frank Wykoff in the 440-meter relay, winning a gold medal.
Despite coming in second in Berlin, Metcalfe had much to be proud of. He became the first man to win the NCAA 200-meter title three times consecutively.
Metcalfe died in Chicago on Oct. 10, 1978, of a heart attack during a fifth-term reelection campaign to Congress. The downtown Chicago federal office building was named in his honor upon its completion in 1991.
While he focused on that dead-heat 100 he ran with Tolan, that 10th of a second loss to Owens never seemed to bother him — that is until the middle of the night as he often relived those days of Olympic glory.
Today, the name George Saling of Corydon (Iowa) High probably doesn’t mean anything to most folks, but back in the late 1920s, and early ’30s, his name was linked with the name of nearby Seymour (Iowa) High’s Joe Long. Both were champion hurdlers in high school track, becoming fierce Corydon-Seymour competitors. After graduating from Corydon High School in 1927, Saling went on to the State University of Iowa, becoming an NCAA champion who won the gold medal for high hurdles in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles.
During the late ’50s, I was a hurdler on the track team at Seymour High School. Our coach, Maurice Stamps, told me about Saling and Long competing with each other. Coach Stamps, himself a high school and college hurdler at Seymour (Class of 1934) and Knox College (Class of 1938), would tell me about the rivalry between Saling and Long.
“Ironically, Joe could always beat George in the high hurdles event, and George always won in low hurdles,” Coach Stamps would tell me. “No telling what Joe could have done if he had gone on to college.”
Saling did go on to college and became a world champion.
George J. Saling Jr. was born July 27, 1909, in Memphis, Missouri. Saling established himself as a world champion hurdler, and during his college senior year in 1932, he won the NCAA Championships in the 110-meter hurdles, equaling the Percy Beard’s world record of 14.4 seconds. At the AAU Championships, Saling won the 200-meter hurdles title, thus earning a place on the 1932 Olympic team heading for Los Angeles. Saling beat his chief college rival, Beard, in the semi-final by 0.2 seconds and then again in the final by 0.1 seconds. His personal best in high hurdles was 14.1 seconds.
Saling’s Olympic victory would remain his last because six months later, on April 15, 1933, at age 23, he was killed in a car accident in Missouri.
Joe Long remained in Seymour for the rest of his life working at a farming equipment dealership, but he continued to have close ties with Seymour High sports. After World War II, and for most of his life, Long was the home game and events announcer for all boys’ and girls’ basketball games, as well as all SHS football games, and, of course, at all school track meets. Long was a quiet, friendly and unassuming man, but few people ever knew how close to Olympic gold and world recognition he could have been.
Tom Morrow is a longtime Oceanside-based journalist and author.
Columns represent the views of the individual writer and do not necessarily reflect those of the North Coast Current’s ownership or management.