Frasi di Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens
Data di nascita: 12. Settembre 1913
Data di morte: 31. Marzo 1980
Altri nomi: Jesse James Cleveland Owens
James Cleveland Owens, detto Jesse , è stato un atleta statunitense, noto per la sua partecipazione alle Olimpiadi del 1936, svoltesi a Berlino, dove vinse quattro medaglie d'oro e fu la stella dei Giochi.
Frasi Jesse Owens
„When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either.“
As quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016393.html (2005), by Larry Schwartz, ESPN SportsCentury
„It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler… You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Lutz Long at that moment.“
On the congratulations given by German athlete Lutz Long, a competitor in the long jump, who in some accounts he credited with giving him some friendly advice that helped him to win against him; as quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" by Larry Schwartz http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016393.html in ESPN SportsCentury (2005)
Contesto: It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler... You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Lutz Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace. The sad part of the story is I never saw Long again. He was killed in World War II.
„The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself — the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us — that's where it's at.“
As quoted in Blackthink: My Life as Black Man and White Man https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0688011632 (1970)
1970s
„The road to the Olympics, leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads — in the end — to the best within us.“
As quoted in People In America : "Jesse Owens" by Barbara Dash http://web.archive.org/web/20071219045105/http://voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2002-06/a-2002-06-07-2-1.cfm on VOA (7 June 2002)
„To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten.“
Contesto: To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten. The first "second" is when you come out of the blocks. The next is when you look up and take your first few strides to attain gain position. By that time the race is actually about half over. The final "second" — the longest slice of time in the world for an athlete — is that last half of the race, when you really bear down and see what you're made of. It seems to take an eternity, yet is all over before you can think what's happening.
„She was unusual because even though I knew her family was as poor as ours, nothing she said or did seemed touched by that. Or by prejudice. Or by anything the world said or did. It was as if she had something inside her that somehow made all that not count.“
On his wife, Minnie Ruth Solomon
Contesto: She was unusual because even though I knew her family was as poor as ours, nothing she said or did seemed touched by that. Or by prejudice. Or by anything the world said or did. It was as if she had something inside her that somehow made all that not count. I fell in love with her some the first time we ever talked, and a little bit more every time after that until I thought I couldn't love her more than I did. And when I felt that way, I asked her to marry me … and she said she would.
„It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards.“
Contesto: It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards. … The secret is, first, get a thoroughbred horse because they are the most nervous animals on earth. Then get the biggest gun you can find and make sure the starter fires that big gun right by the nervous thoroughbred's ear.
„Hitler didn't snub me; it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram.“
About Franklin D. Roosevelt, as quoted in Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-618-68822-7 (2007), by Jeremy Schaap, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p. 211
1930s
„Mr. Hitler had to leave the stadium early, but after winning I hurried up to the radio booth. When I passed near the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me and I waved back at him.“
Quoted in "Owens, Back, Gets Hearty Reception" by Louis Effrat, The New York Times, 25 August 1936, p.25 http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=940CEFDC1E30E13BBC4D51DFBE66838D629EDE.
1930s
„It's like having a pet dog for a long time. You get attached to it, and when it dies you miss it.“
On having his world records beaten
„I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever.“
On his final record-breaking leap in the long-jump competition.
