08.05.2016 | GREENVILLE JOURNAL | 47
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Past and present with Dr. Courtney Tollison Hartness
Upstate athletes have sparked historic Olympic flames Over the next two weeks, our nation and world will be consumed with the Olympics, a riveting global athletic spectacle occurring every four years. Tears will be shed in victory and defeat, and nations will rejoice and mourn. The physicality of our common humanity, with all the strengths and limitations of the body, will be put to the test, and world records will be broken, redefining the spectrum of human psychical capability. Undoubtedly, as I watch these amazingly athletic specimens from all around the world, I will marvel at the behemoth undertaking that has become of Pierre de Coubertin’s vision for a modern Olympic games. After approximately 1,500 years, the Olympic Games were resuscitated in an attempt to promote fellowship and peace amongst participating countries. In 1896, the first modern Olympiad was held in Athens, Greece, seat of the ancient civilization that birthed the original games. Two hundred and forty-one male athletes from 14 countries participated. In the past 120 years, the games have grown significantly; in Rio, 206 nations will send approximately 10,500 male and
Lucile Godbold, 1922.
female athletes to the games. As the Rio Olympics draw near, I began to wonder about our community’s connections to the games. Those of us who lived here in the mid 1990s remember the excitement surrounding the 1996 Atlanta games, with local leaders such as former Mayor Max Heller running with the Olympic torch down our Main Street. The anticipation of the torch’s arrival was diminished, however, by controversy surrounding an anti-gay resolution passed by County Council weeks before; in protest, Olympic officials decided that the torch would be placed in a van and driven while inside county lines. Within the city limits, however, runners once again carried the torch along the route. Crowds of approximately 8,000 gathered along Main Street to see Heller run the last leg and light the torch to the cauldron in front of the Peace Center. Just before and during the Atlanta Games, Greenville Gymnastics served as the training facility for the Chinese men’s and women’s gymnastics team, while ticket-holders flooded Greenville’s hotels. Greenville and the Upstate have other connections to the games as well, including one athlete who helped tread a path to open track and field events to women. In 1922, after the International Olympic Committee refused once again to hold women’s track and field events for the 1924 Olympic games, Paris hosted what was known as the “Women’s Olympic Games.” Lucile Ellerbe Godbold, a six-foot-tall Winthrop College graduate, participated in the shot-put, discus throw, javelin throw, 300 meter and 1000 meter races and the long jump. She won a gold medal in the shot-put and a bronze medal in the javelin throw. In 1928, women’s track and field events began to be held alongside events for men at the Olympics in Amsterdam. In 1956, British 4 x100 relay team sprinter David Segal finished fifth in the 1956 Melbourne games. Four years later, Segal won a bronze medal at the Rome games in 1960. After the games, Segal left Great Britain and moved
to the U.S. to attend Furman University, where he was a member of the track team. Furman welcomed him into the university’s athletic hall of fame in 2008. Furman alum and current member of the Furman music faculty Jay Bocook, a resident of Greenville since the late 1970s, is regarded internationally for his musical compositions. His musical arrangements were featured at the 1984, 1996 and 2002 Olympic games. In the mid-1980s while enrolled at Furman, business major and swimmer Angel Myers won four individual national titles, a first in NCAA history. She also set three NCAA Division II records and became the first American woman to break 55 seconds in the 100-meter freestyle. In the 1992 games in Barcelona, Angel Myers Martino set a new world record and won gold in the 400-meter freestyle. Four years later, she Kyla Ross served as captain of the U.S. Women’s Olympic Swim Team. At the Atlanta games, she won two gold medals, one in the 400-meter medley relay and another in the 400-meter freestyle relay, which set new Olympic and U.S. records. In the last Olympiad in London in 2012, gymnast Kyla Ross, a member of the famed Fierce Five, won a team gold medal. Although she and her family moved around the country several times during her youth, Ross enrolled in her first gymnastics class at Greenville Gymnastics. This year, several local athletes came within seconds or less of making Team USA. The Furman Elite Professional Running Club sent four athletes to the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. Jeff See ran in the men’s 5K and assistant Furman track coaches Craig Forys and Cory Leslie competed in the men’s steeplechase. In the women’s steeplechase, Stephanie Garcia held a second-place position, but clipped the last barrier, ultimately finishing fifth and missing a spot on the team. Wilkerson Given, a 2013 Furman graduate, placed 54th of 168 men in the Olympic Marathon Trials. Troy Reeder, a current Furman undergraduate, narrowly missed
becoming the first Furman undergraduate to qualify for the Olympic Trials in track and field. See, Forys, Leslie, Given and Reeder are coached by Furman’s Robert Gary, a 1996 and 2004 Olympian in the steeplechase. Jasmine Stowers, a standpoint at Pendleton High School, ran in the 100-meter hurdles, but did not qualify for one of three Olympic slots; Brianna Rollins, a 2013 graduate of Clemson, will represent Team USA in Rio in this event, however. Finally, Greenville High School graduate Sandi Morris will compete in the high jump for Team USA, and seems poised to set new records in that event. So, over the next two weeks, as we revel in the talent of athletes from all the world over, we can marvel at the knowledge that our local champions have thrived, and continue to thrive, on that same global stage. Tyler Edmond of Greenville, a junior history and anthropology major at Furman, contributed to this article. Dr. Courtney Tollison Hartness teaches history at Furman University. She can be reached at courtney. tollison@furman.edu.