Lee Calhoun in 1960
The finish of the 100m hurdles at the Olympic games in Rome in 1960, just won by Lee Calhoun from the USA ahead of Willie Mae also from the USA.

Lee Calhoun was the 110-meter hurdles champion at the 1956 Melbourne Games. And like many other athletes in the post-war years, he was not financially well off. He was about to get married, but he wanted to keep his dream alive of repeating his gold-medal success at the 1960 Rome Games.

For many athletes in America up until about the 1980s, this meant sacrifice, scrimping and saving to maintain just enough to get by and be able to train. In 1958, Calhoun intended to marry his college sweetheart, but was under no illusion of being able to afford anything special.

His fiancé, Gwen Bannister, had an idea. Based on a tip from Calhoun’s college coach, LeRoy T. Walker, Bannister would apply for participation on the popular game show, “Bride and Groom”. On this program from the 1950s, couples would actually get married, revel in their wedding gifts presented on the show, and then be sent off on an all-expenses paid honeymoon.

Bride and Groom_NBC title screenshot

As she explained to David Maraniss in his wonderful book Rome 1960: The Olympics that Changed the World, Bannister said that Calhoun was not a party to the idea, but was all for it when he heard about it. “If they enjoyed your letter, they would put you on the show. Mine must have been a humdinger,” Gwen told Maraniss. “I didn’t tell Lee about it until I knew for sure. He thought it was wonderful. We knew we didn’t have anything; didn’t even have a job. [But] it was my choice. Lee didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Lee Calhoun cardThen fell the heavy hand of the AAU, the Amateur Athletic Union, which was the overarching governing body for sports in America recognized by the IOC. Only a week before Lee Calhoun and Gwen Bannister were to be married on television, Dan Ferris of the AAU informed the couple that Calhoun would no longer be considered an amateur if he appeared on “Bride and Groom”. As Maraniss explained, “Calhoun was unduly benefiting from his status as an athlete and that the couple would not have been invited on Bride and Groom had he not been a track star.”

Calhoun thought the judgment was unfair, “that anyone could be on the TV show, not just athletes.” So Lee and Gwen rolled the dice and got married on Bride and Groom.

Calhoun was suspended from competing in track and field for a year. Fortunately, he was able to continue his Olympic journey after the suspension, go to Rome, and win gold in 110-meter hurdles.

Irish_Whales_team in 1904

They were tall and big. They were voracious eaters. They were cops. And they were Olympians.

The Irish Whales. You wouldn’t call them that to their faces because they were almost all over 6 feet tall, ranging in weight from 250 to 300 pounds…and they didn’t like the name. But they were achievers, winning well over 20 medals in Olympics between 1900 and 1924, dominating in the hammer throw, the discus throw, the shot put and what was common then, the 56lb weight throw.

Abel Kiviat 1912
Abel Kiviat in 1912

Abel Kiviat was a member of the Irish-American Club even though he wasn’t Irish, nor a very large person. He was a runner, winning gold for the US in the Team 3000 meter race, and silver in the 1500 meters race at the Stockholm Olympics in 1912. He wrote about his Irish-American teammates in the book “Tales of Gold An Oral History of the Summer Olympic Games Told by America’s Gold Medal Winners“.

The best-known members of the Irish-American Club were the so-called New York Whales. They were all Irish cops. I remember Pat McDonald. He weighed 350 pounds and won the shot put at Stockholm. For 30 years he was the traffic cop at 43rd Street and Broadway, right at Times Square. Matt McGrath was another of the Whales. He won the hammer throw in 1912 after coming in second in London in 1908. Ralph Rose was another but he was from out west someplace.

He was the biggest one of them all – six feet, seven inches or so. He won the shot put in 1908 and the two-handed shot put in 1912. He was the flag bearer in 1908 who refused to dip the flag in the opening ceremony when he passed by the British king. Rose weighed 365 pounds, a pound for each day. You know, those big Irishmen protected me, the only Jew in the Irish-American Club. I remember I had a little run-in with the discus thrower, Jim Duncan, on the boat going over to Stockholm. He was a fresh mutt, about 225 pounds and ugly looking. He started calling me names and annoying me, so Matt McGrath and Pat McDonald grabbed ahold of him and dragged him to a porthole and threatened to push him through if he called me any more names. And then they made me track captain.

Irish_Whales_McDonald_and_McGrath
Pat McDonald and Matt McGrath of the Irish Whales

According to Arthur Daly in a June 12, 1942 New York Times article, this team got their moniker because they were prodigious eaters.

It was on the Olympic trip of 1912 that the “whale” nickname took hold. Dan Ferris, then a cherubic little boy, recalls it with relish. “Those big fellows,” he related, “all sat at the same table and their waiter was a small chap. Before we reached Stockholm he had lost twenty pounds, worn down by bringing them food. Once as he passed me he muttered under his breath, ‘It’s whales they are, not men.’ They used to take five plates of soup as a starter and then gulp down three or four steaks with trimmings.

The Irish-American Club and the famous group of individuals known as the “Irish Whales” or “The New York Whales” were in some ways the story of America in the 19th and early 20th century. The Irish left Ireland for America and a better life, one in which they could break class and economic shackles and have an opportunity to achieve. Here is a historical description of the Irish Whales from TheIrishHistory.com.

The Irish Whales dominated the track and field, particularly throwing events, at the Olympics between 1896 and 1924 and their story touches on many issues that affected Irish-Americans in the late 19th and early 20th century; emigration, assimilation, national identity, antipathy towards England and Irish nationalism.

As Irish immigrants arrived in North America in the mid and late nineteenth century they brought with them a love of sport. Sports such as fishing, hunting and shooting were popular among the landed gentry but for the vast majority of Irish people athletic meetings at county fairs, fields and rural roads were the sporting activities of choice and attracted huge crowds and interest. Success in the sporting world was one way that immigrants could gain acceptance in the United States and by the end of the nineteenth century Irish Americans were dominating the sports of boxing and baseball. Victory in the sporting arena also meant socioeconomic advancement which was a powerful motivator for poor immigrants.

These are Emma Lazarus’ words etched on The Statue of Liberty in New York

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, he homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

They meant something powerful then. They still mean something today.

Hayes Jones in the 110- meter hurdles finals, from the book
Hayes Jones in the 110- meter hurdles finals, from the book “XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964_Asahi Shimbun”

Hayes Jones was about to run the race of his life. His wife, Odeene Jones, was seated next to Jesse Owens in the National Olympic Stadium, saying to the 4-time gold medalist that Hayes hadn’t been executing on this strategy going into the finals. Owens told her not to be concerned.

And yet, there was Jones, anxiously prepping for the start of the 110-meter hurdles final, placing his starting blocks into the red cinder track. “I was setting up my blocks, and this Japanese official tapped me on my shoulder. I was annoyed. He tapped me again and pointed down. I look at the starting blocks and I see I had placed them backwards. That would have been a disaster. I was nervous.”

And then off went the gun. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember one thing about the race. I had run it so many times, I ran this one as rote. I do remember lunging for the tape, but that’s all I remember. I was that focused.”

But when Jones hit the tape, his US teammate, Blaine Lindgren, was there as well, on his left. And Anatoly Mikhailov from the USSR was running through at the same time on his right. “My goodness! Who won?” wondered Jones. “You can look at someone’s eyes and usually know, but we all had that stare – ‘Who won?’ They corralled us underneath the stadium. The Russian coach ran over to his guy. I thought he won. I didn’t see my coach close by – he was against the wall smoking a cigarette. I’ll be damned. I must not have won.”

As was true with almost every single other athlete in Tokyo, Jones trained hard to get to this moment. He and his wife sacrificed financially to be able to train for the Olympics, to make sure he was in top condition and form so that he could be the best in the world. And at that moment of truth, he had to wait and wait. And then the scoreboard lit up. “‘Ladies and gentlemen, the results of the men’s 110-meter hurdles…’ And I watched as the name in the number one slot was being typed J-O-N-E-S U-S-A 13.6 seconds.”

“That’s when I knew I won and my dreams had come true.”

Hayes Jones with medalThe president of the International Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage, was the one to place the gold medal around Jones’ neck, which Jones found ironic. In 1961, after his return from the Rome Olympics, Jones thought he would use his secondary education degree to become a track coach. According to Jones, Brundage directed Dan Ferris of the USOC to advise Jones that if he accepted a stipend for coaching track in a high school, he would not be eligible for the Olympics. “So I left teaching and began to sell real estate and insurance. The guy who put the medal around my neck was the guy who denied me from pursuing my career dream. But the only thing I could think of was back as a young boy in Pontiac, Michigan, wanting to participate in track and field, and people around me encouraging me to keep trying.”

Jones and his wife went out to town to celebrate the day after his golden victory.

“We were eating steak, probably Kobe steak. All of the sacrifices we made. I couldn’t pursue my educational career in teaching. I had to go out and sell real estate and insurance, not certain how much money I was going to make. My wife was a teacher. I had a little boy on the way. It was challenging trying to make a life for yourself and still have this personal goal. So we were sitting there and we looked at each other, and we burst out laughing.”

“We did it!”