Herb Douglas, an Olympic medalist who was inspired as a youth by Jesse Owens, emulated him as a track and field star and then honored his memory by creating an international sports award in Owens’s name, died on Saturday in Pittsburgh. He was 101 and the oldest living U.S. Olympic medalist.
The University of Pittsburgh announced his death, at an extended care facility. Douglas was a graduate of the university and had served on its board of trustees.
Douglas was 14 when he met Owens in September 1936, soon after Owens won four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics, shattering, as a Black man, Hitler’s hopes of using the Games as a showcase for Aryan supremacy. Owens was speaking at a school in Pittsburgh, where Douglas lived. Douglas’s mother, Ilessa May France Douglas, had taken him to the event.
“When Jesse was leaving the auditorium,” Douglas recalled, “I was standing near the door. I told him that I ran track in junior high school, did 21 feet 8 inches in the long jump, ran 100 yards in 10.4 and high-jumped 6 feet. He told me that was better than he did at my age, and ‘keep up the good work.’”