Gina Hemphill-Strachan: He always let me be myself

Gina Hemphill-Strachan is 64 years old, has 14 prestigious television Emmy Awards and... 4 Olympic Torch relay laps. She can also boast a famous ancestor from whom she inherited a huge passion for sports. “He was a beloved grandfather to me,” says Jesse Owens’ granddaughter in an interview with Przegląd Sportowy Historia.

Tomasz Moczerniuk, Przegląd Sportowy Historia: What is it like to be the granddaughter of the famous Jesse Owens?

Gina Hemphill-Strachan: It’s a great thing. Thanks to his achievements - as well as my own passion for sports - I was able to participate in many global sporting events and make a career in the media. I also ceremonially ran several times with the Olympic Torch. Wherever I go, everyone tells me their “Jesse Owens story”. This shows how great he was not only as an athlete, but also as a person. Although for me, privately, he was just a grandfather whose lap I would sit on, who would pick me up from school and who was always ready to help.

You got to know him well, because he passed when you were 20. What has he told you about his childhood? Or what is known about his upbringings?

His grandfather Henry Clay Owens was a slave. His father Henry Cleveland was a free man, but - since he was living in a very small town in Alabama - he had to rent land and an apartment in exchange for the produce from the crops he produced. So they lived very modestly, especially since they had ten children. They all worked in cotton fields. Grandpa Jesse, who was born in 1913, was the youngest, but at the age of 7 he had to pick 100 pounds of cotton a day. In 1923, in search of a better life, they moved to Cleveland, Ohio.

There - as he himself told in an interview for the Illinois State Historical Library in 1961 - they lived in a neighborhood where the overwhelming majority were Polish immigrants. The athletic 10-year-old quickly found a common language with the Slavs and played baseball and marbles with them. No one minded his skin color - they treated him like one of their own, and his mother often visited homes of her Polish neighbors, who treated her to tea and doughnuts.

I had no idea! I have to listen to these interviews, because we rarely talked about such topics at home. However, I know that he went to school in Cleveland and worked for a shoemaker, where he shined shoes. This state of affairs did not change in middle school even when he met coach Charlie Riley, who convinced him to compete on the track.

They worked together for 9 years. He had great respect for the Irishman, called him "Pops," and after the Berlin Olympics he bought him a brand new car in gratitude. That's truly remarkable.

Both Charlie and Larry Snyder, who coached him at Ohio State University, saw in him not only enormous athletic, but also human potential. It did not matter to them that he was some black boy from Alabama. They saw that he had a good heart, that he cared about his family - because my mother Gloria was born when he was 18 - and that he wanted to work. They were able to guide him, and he trusted them, which resulted in both improving his running technique and strengthening his character on and off the track. Thanks to these role models, he himself wanted to be a teacher and a coach. He wanted to give back what they gave him.

But he never became a coach. Or maybe he trained his children or granddaughters?

In our family, only my mother and I inherited the sports gene from him. The rest played with dolls and pored over books. My mother played basketball in high school and at Ohio State. They said about me that I should have been a boy, because from a very young age I played basketball and loved going to football games. In 1978, I started college at Arizona State University in Phoenix, where Grandpa and Grandma Ruth lived. This was a time when such celebrities as Valerie Brisco (three gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics - TM note) and Evelyn Ashford (gold medals at three Olympics: Los Angeles, Seoul and Barcelona - TM note) ruled the track. My strength was neither being fast nor endurance, so my grandfather suggested that I try my hand at the 400 meters. The coach accepted me onto the team, but said there would be no leniency.

And so it was?

I worked very hard, but it did not translate into results. My personal best hovered around 57 seconds. I remember my debut in an open stadium, when I had to compete with stars from UCLA and the University of Southern California. When I was getting ready to start, the announcer enthusiastically invited everyone to welcome the legendary Jesse Owens sitting in the stands. He, of course, got a standing ovation. It stressed me out because I had no idea that he would come to watch me! After a while it got even worse, because the announcer said that Owens' granddaughter would run on lane no. 2. No wonder I first had a false start, and then I finished second to last. After the race I ran to my grandfather and started apologizing for humiliating him so much. But he calmed me down, saying that everything was fine and blamed it on the pressure. But I knew that there would be no bread from this flour. I ran a few more times and asked him if he won't be offended if I quit. He didn't mind, because he always let me be myself.

So you ended your career even earlier than your grandfather, whose last start - at the age of 23 - was Berlin 1936, where he won four Olympic gold medals. Did you regret never seeing him in action?

I love sports, so of course I do. However, I saw him race for fun with children during the ARCO Jesse Owens Games: meetings that were supposed to encourage young people to compete in track and field. Interestingly, those competitions included Carl Lewis, Jackie Joyner Kersee and Doug Christie. The latter is now the coach of the NBA Sacramento Kings. Some time ago I was in Sacramento for Black History Month. Doug came up to me, held out a medal and said: "Look! When I was 9, your grandfather gave me this!" Such moments always filled me with pride, because they clearly showed the impact my grandfather had on other people's lives.

Carl Lewis? The same one who in 1984 repeated your grandfather's feat and won four Olympic golds: in the 100m, 200m, long jump and 4x100 relay?

The same one! He once told me - because we've been friends since 1983 - that as a child he took part in the Jesse Owens Games in Houston. This made him feel a special bond with my grandfather, which deepened even more when he equaled his Olympic track and field record. He felt proud that he had equaled his great teacher.

In connection with your media career (as a TV producer, she worked at nine Olympics and has 14 Emmy Awards to her credit - TM) you have met many sports legends. What do celebrities say when they find out you're Jesse Owens' granddaughter?

Yes, I'm lucky to have worked with people like Muhammad Ali, Rafer Johnson, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson and recently Gabby Thomas. I spent the whole day with her. She's incredibly nice. I talked to her about my grandfather and - like everyone else - she emphasized how much of an inspiration he was to her. She also wondered what a huge influence my grandfather would have on young people today - in the age of social media and internet streaming. Who knows, maybe the same as LeBron James? Jackie Joyner Kersee and Michael Johnson, who I'm friends with, follow the same pattern. Before the Atlanta Olympics my grandmother sent Michael a letter saying: "Since your running style is the same as my Jesse's, I wish you the same success as Jesse had!"

You love sports, but it couldn't be otherwise, since you grandfather took you to the Munich Olympics when you were 12?

What an experience! Grandpa was supposed to go to Munich as a member of the US Olympic Committee. He could also take a few people with him, so Grandma Ruth, my cousin Donna, Uncle Stuart, my dad and I went with him. We were given official Olympic gear - jackets, tracksuits etc. - so people in the city thought we were participants and asked for our autographs! I spent a lot of time with Wilma Rudolph (the first American woman to win three gold medals in one Olympics - Rome 1960 - note TM). I went with her literally everywhere. We visited the village and went to the stadium to watch the competition. Meanwhile, Grandpa was a real celebrity. For the incredibly polite Germans, it was like the return of a hero from 1936. All he had to do was get out of the car and a crowd would gather around him like Michael Jackson! Sometimes we went to restaurants without him, but it was enough to sign the check “Jesse Owens” and no one asked us to pay for anything. I had never seen him in such an environment and in such an atmosphere. It was only then that I realized who my grandfather was to the world. This special feeling was broken after the murder of the Israeli athletes. My grandfather cried and was devastated. He couldn’t believe that something like this could have happened at such a magical, almost sacred, global event.

Despite of this you will still have mostly good memories from Germany? Because later - after your grandfather’s death - you were also a guest of honor in Berlin.

And that happened twice. First it was 1996. Right after the Atlanta Olympics, the prestigious World Athletic Gold Tour meeting was organized in Berlin. I presented medals to the best participants there. During this event, there was a moment when I leaned against the wall of the stadium and signed autographs. Then I had this thought that I might be signing cards for the granddaughters of people who asked for my grandfather's autograph 60 years earlier! What's more, my friend Gigi Rivera captured this very moment on camera. When I saw this photo later, it chilled me, because it was almost a copy of a frame with my grandfather from the documentary Olympia by the Nazi film chronicler Leni Riefenstahl. I realized that history had come full circle.

And the second time?

It was also magical and nostalgic. In 2004, I took part in the opening of the renovated Olympiastadion. There were fireworks, a Pink concert, 50 thousand people. Together with Julia Kellner-Long, I ran to the stadium and we lit the Olympic flame. Julia is the granddaughter of Luz Long, a German long jumper who was the local favorite in the long jump competition during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. He had a chance to secure victory in the qualifications, because his biggest rival - my grandfather - had failed his first two attempts and was very nervous before the last one. Long played very fair and helped my grandfather by marking with a handkerchief the place from which he should take off so that the attempt would be valid. Then in the finals they both jumped beautifully and far, and in the last attempt my grandfather broke the Olympic record. Despite the defeat, Long grabbed him by the hand and did a lap of honor with him, which Adolf Hitler's right-hand man Rudolf Höss did not like. After the Olympics he called him and told him that he was forbidden to "hug black people". However, Long and my grandfather remained friends and corresponded with each other until the outbreak of the war. Long was then drafted into the army, and as a result, he died on the front in 1943. Therefore, it was a great honor for us that Julia and I could light the torch 61 years later.

There were more stories with the Olympic torch in your life?

Yes. In 1984, first on May 8, together with Bill Thorpe Jr. - grandson of the famous Jim Thorpe - we received the torch that had flown to New York from Athens and ran the first kilometer with it. Then on July 28 in Los Angeles I had the honor of making the penultimate change. After me, there was only Rafer Johnson, who lit the torch at the stadium. I also took part in the relay in 1996 before the Olympic Games in Atlanta and on December 30, 2001 - before Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

In nature, the oak tree is a symbol of endurance and strength. Is it a coincidence that your grandfather was born in Oakville, is buried in the Oak Trees Cemetery in Chicago, and that for his victories in Berlin - in addition to gold medals - he received English oak saplings?

I never thought about it, but maybe there really is some supernatural connection here? Strength and endurance are certainly some of the descriptions that characterized my grandfather.

Finally, please tell me what - if you had the opportunity - would you tell your grandfather today?

Great question. And a difficult one at the same time. Maybe I would ask him if he would do anything differently in his life? Or I would simply not ask him about anything, but climb on his lap and just give him a big, proper, loving hug.