Jesse Owens

When I returned from my first trip to the Orient, I entered Graduate School at Stanford, rather than Harvard. My interest in running was stronger than ever; and, at that time, The San Francisco Olympic Club sponsored an outstanding track and field team.

"If you'd just start faster, you'd do better." Lakeview Grammar School was having a track meet on the level street that ran behind the school. Dr Muller, our Principal, gave me that advice.

The Olympic Club track team, en route by train to Philadelphia, stopped in Chicago for a few hours; and we were working out at the University of Chicago.

An observer approached and repeated something I'd heard years before but had not forgotten. "If you'd just start faster, you'd do better." My advisor, this time, was Jesse Owens.