Willye White

1939-2007

Track and field athlete, public health administrator, children's advocate

Willye White was the first U.S. track athlete to compete in five Olympic Games. She held the national record for the long jump for more than sixteen years and set a total of nine national records. Over the course of her career she competed in 150 countries and represented more than 30 track-and-field teams. After her Olympic career, White worked for more than thirty years as a health administrator and then spent the rest of her life working with children in the Chicago area. She established the Willye White Foundation in 1991 to provide encouragement and self-esteem training to inner-city and disadvantaged youth.

Found Freedom in Sports

White was born Willie Bertha White on January 1, 1939, in the small town of Money, Mississippi, where her parents, Johnnie and Willie White worked as sharecroppers. White's father left the family shortly after her birth, believing that she was another man's child because of her pale skin and green eyes. Shortly thereafter, White and her siblings, a brother and sister, lived with her maternal grandparents. "My mother gave me away to her parents," White told Robert Lipsyte in the New York Times in 1993. White's mother died when she was twelve years old, and her father returned the following year. "Turned out, I was his spit image. On his deathbed, he said, ‘You are my child,’" she said. White reconciled with her father, who died when she was fifteen years old.

In her youth White thrived on sports and competition and was sometimes mistaken for a boy. She changed the spelling of her name from "Willie" to "Willye," believing that it was more feminine. She began working in the cotton fields at age eight, receiving pay of just $2.50 for twelve hours' labor. Though she dreamed of leaving Mississippi, there were few options for young African-American women in the segregated environment of rural Mississippi. In her home town, White later remembered, the threat of racial violence was always present, and she recalled relatives and friends being the victims of racially motivated attacks.

White joined the school basketball team in fifth grade and was talented enough to win a spot on the varsity team despite her youth. White jumped at the chance, realizing that through sports she could escape the fate that waited for her in Mississippi. "Athletics was my flight to freedom," she said in Runner's World in 1993, "freedom from prejudice, freedom from illiteracy, freedom from bias. It was my acceptance in the world." In 1950 White began competing in track and found she was fast enough to outpace high-school students, winning a spot on the varsity team at Broad Street High School in Greenwood, Mississippi.

Became an Olympic Athlete

White led the Broad Street team to the area championships from 1953 to 1956 and, at each appearance, won first place in the 50-yard hurdles, the 50- and 70-yard dashes, and the broad jump. In 1956 White was selected to attend Tennessee State University's summer program for track-and-field training, and after an impressive summer with the team, was asked by Coach Ed Temple to join the Tennessee State Tigerbelles. Until she finished high school, White spent summers with the Tigerbelles competing in national competitions.

White qualified to compete in the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) national competition and placed second in the long jump, passing the mark for Olympic qualification. Coach Temple traveled with her to Washington, DC, where she qualified for the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia. At age sixteen White won a silver medal for the long jump in her first Olympic appearance, with a mark of 19 feet 11.5 inches, which was the first medal for an American woman in the long jump and was also a new national women's record. Initially disappointed by her failure to win the gold, White later realized that it gave her an opportunity to improve. "It was almost an embarrassment, coming in second," White told Lipsyte. "Second best in the world is treated like a shame. In the long run, I think athletes who win silvers and bronzes may do better than athletes who win the gold because we're still out there trying to get better."

The Melbourne Olympics gave White a chance to experience life away from the segregated South, and that had a profound impact. As quoted in Sports Illustrated for Women, White recalled: "Before my first Olympics, I thought the whole world consisted of cross burnings and lynchings. After 1956, I found there were two worlds, Mississippi and the rest of the world. The Olympic Movement taught me not to judge a person by the color of their skin, but by the contents of their hearts. I am who I am because of my participation in sports."

After finishing high school in 1959, White moved to Tennessee. She qualified in the Olympic trials and competed in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. During training and trials, White consistently scored long jumps over 20 feet, however, when it came time for her Olympic performance she placed sixteenth and later admitted that she was overtrained and overconfident. Frustrated and disappointed, White left Tennessee State before finishing her education. "Coach Temple wanted to control every aspect of your life," she told Lipsyte, "training, classes, who you dated, and I was too much of a free spirit for that."

Continued Her Career in Chicago

At twenty years old, White joined the Richard J. Daley Youth Foundation in Chicago, Illinois, to continue her track training. White traveled with the U.S. national track team to the European circuit in 1961, and that summer placed a mark of 21 feet and 3/4 inches, becoming the first U.S. woman to jump more than 21 feet. White and her teammates, including Olympic athlete Wilma Rudolph, also set a record for the 400-meter relay with a time of 44.3 seconds. Freed from the constraints of her former coach, White fell into a romance and married in 1961, though she and her husband divorced in 1964.

In Chicago White also planned to begin a new career as a nurse; however, she was unable to gain acceptance into nursing schools and settled for practical nursing. With no full-time coach and forced to fit training in after shifts at a full-time job, White's performance suffered. She was the 1962 AAU champion in the broad jump but never placed a score approaching her 1961 record. The following year she placed third in the jump at the 1963 AAU championships. Despite declining performance, White qualified for the 1964 U.S. Olympic Team and traveled to Tokyo to compete.

At a Glance …

Born Willie Bertha White on January 1, 1939, in Money, MS; died February 6, 2007, in Chicago, IL; daughter of Johnnie and Willie White; married 1961 (divorced 1964). Education: Chicago State University, BA, public health administration, 1976.

Career: Olympic athlete, 1956-76; Cook County Hospital, Greenwood Medical Center, nurse, 1963-65; Chicago Health Department, public health administrator, 1965-91; Chicago Park District, director of recreation services, 1991-93; Willye White Foundation, founder, 1991-2007; Olympic Sports Festival, head coach, 1994; Robert Taylor Homes, athletic programs director, 1994-2007.

Memberships: Women's Sports Foundation, trustee, 1986-93, member of amateur sports action committee, 1997-98.

Selected awards: Silver medal for long jump, International Olympic Committee, 1956; silver medal for 400-meter relay, International Olympic Committee, 1964; inductee, National Track and Field Hall of Fame, 1981; inductee, International Women's Sports Hall of Fame, 1988; Wilma Rudolph Courage Award, Women's Sports Foundation, 1998.

White placed fourth in the qualification trials for the long jump, but during the Olympic finals she only cleared 19 feet 11 inches and placed twelfth overall. Undaunted, White performed better in other events, beating Wilma Rudolph's previous 600-meter-dash record and winning a silver medal in the 400-meter relay. The following year, White became the first American to win the prestigious UNESCO Pierre de Coubertin International Fair Play Trophy, one of the highest international honors awarded for sportsmanship.

White continued competing in national and international competitions and qualified for both the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and the 1972 games in Munich, Germany. Her participation in Munich, though unremarkable, made her the first U.S. athlete to compete in five Olympic games. By her own account, White competed in more than 150 countries as a member of 39 track-and-field teams. She was planning to take part in the 1976 Olympic Games but was forced to abandon the effort when an injury rendered her unable to compete. Over the course of her track career, White was inducted into eleven sports halls of fame, including the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1981 and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.

Followed Sports Career with Public Service

White accepted a position as an administrator with the Chicago Health Department in 1965 and spent the next decade working for the city while attending classes. She obtained a bachelor of arts degree in public health administration from Chicago State University in 1976 and continued working as a health administrator until March of 1991 when she left to join the Chicago Park District as director of recreational services. With the park district, White helped to promote youth athletics programs until the job was eliminated due to budget cutbacks in 1993.

Though she had achieved a measure of financial independence, White chose to remain in the south side of Chicago. "I still live in the inner city because I don't want kids to think I deserted them," White told Lipsyte. "You know, there's a movement of middle-class blacks coming back. If we don't, we'll lose our schools and our neighborhoods to the gangsters." White developed an interest in helping underprivileged children and, in 1991 she founded the Willye White Foundation, an organization that used self-esteem counseling to help children set and develop goals.

Although White's foundation sponsored athletics programs, like the Robert Taylor Girls Athletic Program, which taught sports and teamwork to children living in the Robert Taylor housing project, her foundation also provided general services to residents of low-income Chicago neighborhoods, including summer camp programs and health-care initiatives. "I'm not interested in developing athletes," White told Lipsyte. "Sports is just my hook to get that grass-roots kid. Athletes are prostituted in this society and the coaches aren't helping, they're not teaching kids that sports is just for a short time, you need other skills."

White continued working with Chicago youth for the rest of her life and maintained a positive attitude that made her a hero to a younger generation of female athletes. White died on February 6, 2007, at age sixty-seven after a struggle with pancreatic cancer. Even decades after her retirement from professional sports, White was still remembered for her contributions to women's and African-American athletics. Sports Illustrated for Women named White one of the one hundred greatest female athletes of the twentieth century, and in 2002 Ebony named her one of the ten greatest black female athletes. "For all the struggles she went through she always gave back," said fellow-Olympian and longtime friend Donna de Varona to Don Babwin in the Boston Globe after White's death. "She was always … campaigning for equal education, equal rights."

Sources

Books

"Willye B. White," Notable Black American Women, Book 3, Gale Group, 2002.

Periodicals

Boston Globe, February 8, 2007.

Ebony, March 2002.

New York Times, October 3, 1993; February 7, 2007.

Runner's World, June 1993.

Online

Brennan, Christine, "White's Legacy Went Beyond the Track," USA Today, February 8, 2007, http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/brennan/2007-02-07-brennan-white_x.htm (accessed February 28, 2008).

Brody, Susan, "79. Willye White," Sports Illustrated for Women, 2000, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/siorwomen/top_100/79/ (accessed March 26, 2008).

"Olympic Medalist Willye White Dies," USA Today, February 7, 2007, http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2007-02-07-willye-white-obit_x.htm (accessed February 28, 2008).

Scott, Tracy, "Remembering Willye White," Women's Sports Foundation, http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/cgi-bin/iowa/athletes/article.html?record_262 (accessed February 28, 2008).

—Micah L. Issitt