"Jesse Owens - Symbol of Determination"!!!

Only a tiny plaque on a small brick monument here commemorates 99-year-old Ferry Field as hallowed ground, the site of the finest hour in athletics, thanks to the legendary Jesse Owens.

Wednesday, the 25th May 2005 marks the 70th anniversary of Owens setting three world records and matching another within a span of 45 minutes, shrugging off back pain from a fall to produce the sport's greatest one-day effort at age 21.

Owens matched the 100-yard world record of 9.4 seconds at 3:15 in the afternoon, then just 15 minutes later took one leap and set a world long jump record of 26-feet-8 1/4-inches (8.13m) that would stand for a quarter century.

- The Hindu dated 25th May 2005.

Born the son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave in rural Alabama, Owens picked cotton as a child labourer.

At age nine, the Owens family moved to Cleveland, where Owens equalled the 100-yard world record in high school.

Owens attended Ohio State University but in the midst of the "Great Depression" and with the American civil rights movement 30 years away, Owens was forced to eat at "blacks only" restaurants and sleep in segregated hotels.

"I couldn't ride in the front of the bus," Owens recalled to biographers. "I had to go to the back door."

Owens, a sophomore, slipped on water and injured his tailbone in a fall two weeks before the 1935 Big Ten Conference Athletics Championship here at the University of Michigan, Ohio State's archrival.

Owens endured a 200-mile ride in the "rumble seat" of a car over the Midwest backroads and was doubtful for the meet but decided to compete. He then participated in the Berlin Olympics.

Hitler came to the games but refused to greet this black athlete from the United States. What Hitler did not know was that Jesse Owens was a skilled athlete who had prepared himself, but more importantly, he was armed with an unshakeable determination and Great Faith.

The 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin. The Nazi athletes were cheered while Jessie Owens and the other American athletes were booed. Jesse did not worry about the boos or the snub by Hitler. He was determined about his goal. His determination was so high that he never lost his faith after a "foot fault" three times. His determination was mixed with his Faith and on his final attempt he jumped and WON! and made history.

Hitler's sense of Nordic superiority was so outraged by the dark Jesse Owens outpacing and out leaping the best blonde giants, that he would not shake hands with the great Negro star. Next morning, the German Press, obeying the dictates of Goebbels, made fun of `coloured barbarians'. The wheel, however, came full circle. On September 3, 1951 in that same Olympic Stadium, miraculously salvaged from the effects of war, 75,000 Germans rose to applaud Owens, who played in a specially-arranged basketball match. `Hitler would not shake your hand. I give you both hands', said the Mayor of West Berlin to Owens. The true value and significance of sport was brought out even more forcefully in Owens's reply. He dismissed the Nazis' studied insolence and said he remembered the good things that happened in the stadium, the fighting spirit and sportsmanship shown by German athletes, especially by Lutz Long of Germany (whom Owens defeated in the long jump). `Hitler stood right up there in the box. But I believe the real spirit of Germany, a great nation, was exemplified down here on the field by athletes like Long. It is the spirit underlying words like these that promote friendly rivalry and international cooperation'.'' - The Hindu Dated 3rd September 2001

Jesse Owens exhibited so much determination and confidence that he changed the destiny and rewrote history.

When you become so determined You will make it happen because you have no other choice.