No One Remembers Who Finished Second
On August 5, 1936 in the finals of the Olympic 200 Meters a young black American named Matthew ‘Mack’ Robinson ran the event faster than any other Olympian in history prior to that moment. Unfortunately for Mack, another black American, named Jesse Owens ran the same event 4/10’s of a second faster than Mack setting an Olympic and World Record and capturing the Gold Medal. Robinson had to settle for the Silver. And to this day, almost everyone remembers Jesse Owens and almost no one remembers Mack Robinson.
Robinson was a track star at Pasadena City College. He set many junior college records before qualifying for the Olympics. Many experts considered Robinson’s accomplishment to be even more impressive than Owens, since Robinson had only been running for six-months, had no real formal training or coaching, and even ran the Olympic Games in the same shoes he had used at Pasadena City College. After the Olympics he transferred to the University of Oregon and is a member of that institutions Hall of Fame.
“Nobody remembers who finished second but the guy who finished second.” Bobby Unser
Winning an Olympic Silver medal is an impressive feat. As Robinson put it “it’s not too bad to be second best in the world at what you’re doing.” Still, American’s have a thing for winners and we almost never remember who finished second. The Daytona 500 has one winner and 32 losers. Who lost the Super Bowl? The World Series? As Vince Lombardi once said “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
‘’It’s not too bad to be second best in the world at what you’re doing, no matter what it is. It means that only one other person in the world was better than you. That makes you better than an awful lot of people.’’ Matthew ‘Mack’ Robinson.
Certain Olympic Games are imprinted in the human memory more than others; 1924 in Paris, 1968 in Mexico City, 1972 in Munich, Atlanta in 1996. The Berlin Olympics of 1936 stand out for a number of reasons. The event was hosted by German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Hitler saw the games as an opportunity to demonstrate to the world the superiority of the German Master Race. Only Aryans were allowed to compete for the host country and Hitler refused to congratulate non-Aryan winners from other countries.
“In 1940 the Olympic Games will take place in Tokyo. But thereafter they will take place in Germany for all time to come, in this stadium” Adolf Hitler to Albert Speer.
There were other controversies. Talks of a boycott by the US team, because of the Nazi Regime’s treatment of Jews were put aside after Avery Brundage, President of the USOC, was feted by the Nazi’s during a visit. Late in the games, two Jewish atheletes, Glickman and Stoller, were pulled from the USA’s 4 x 100 team to appease the Host County. The Olympic salute and Nazi Salute were similar. Some countries including France and Austria vigorously performed the Nazi salute as they entered the stadium for the opening ceremonies, the Romanian team went one better by marching in Goosestep.
“Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.” Richard M. Nixon
But all did not go well for the Fuhrer. The US and English teams refused to salute at all, giving the Fuhrer an “eyes right” as they marched past and US flag-bearer Jesse Owens famously refused to dip the American flag as he passed Hitler’s box. And of course, Owens was the figure head of a US team that include 18 African-Americans that turned the myth of Aryan Supremacy on its head. Owens became the first athlete to win four gold medals in a single games, (a feat that was not repeated until almost 50 years later by Carl Lewis.) The American blacks picked up a total of 14 medals in the Olympics including 8 golds.
After the 1936 Olympics ended, Mack Robinson attended the University of Oregon, but never graduated. The family needed money and Robinson went to work to help his widowed Mother feed her family. There were no professional sport’s jobs for blacks in pre-World War II America and so he returned to Pasadena and took a variety of jobs working for the city. He was often seen sweeping the city streets in his Olympic sweatshirt. ‘’If anybody in Pasadena was proud for me, other than my family and close friends,’’ he said, ‘’they never showed it. I was totally ignored.”
‘’If anybody in Pasadena was proud for me, other than my family and close friends, they never showed it. I was totally ignored.” Matthew Mack Robinson
Well, one person was proud of Mack Robinson’s accomplishments. Inspired by Mack’s athletic success, his younger brother followed in his footsteps and attended Pasadena City College where he starred on the football, basketball and track teams and even picked up a letter in his fourth best sport, baseball. Next he attended UCLA where he was an All-American halfback, led the Pacific Coast Conference in scoring for the basketball team, broke his older brother’s NCAA long-jump record, and played short-stop. He left college without graduating in 1941 to play professional football for the semi-pro Honolulu Bears.
After one season as a professional football player, the younger Robinson entered World War II to fight Hitler. He was one of the first black’s admitted to officer candidate school and was ultimately promoted to Captain. After the war, he joined the Kansas City Monarchs of the old Negro Baseball League. And of course, as I am sure you have now figured out, in 1949 Mack’s younger brother, Jackie Robinson, broke the color barrier and became the first black to play Major League Baseball.
