Tommie Smith set a world record while winning the Olympic 200 meters at Mexico City in 1968. He’s best known for what came next.
He stood on the awards platform and raised his black-gloved right fist during the national anthem. Teammate John Carlos, who won the bronze medal, also raised a black-gloved fist, his left, while bowing his head, as the two combined for one of the most iconic moments of the 20th century.
Smith and Carlos made their stand 40 years ago today, and it has been viewed as courageous and controversial.
“There are still a lot of Neanderthal minds out there who really can’t think beyond their noses,” Smith said in a recent interview. “The basic concern of theirs is seeing it their way. But there are more and more people coming forward to understand what we were doing wasn’t a militant act. It was a gesture of proposed freedom. It was called the Olympic Project for Human Rights.
“It was not a Black Panther stand or to liberate only black folks or kill the white man. It had nothing to do with that. It was a social issue. Standing up, like Rosa Parks did.”
Thirty years have passed since a less well-known fact about Smith: He left Ohio after serving as track and cross country coach at Oberlin College.
There have been no gold jackets recognizing Smith for his coaching efforts and he was never been inducted into the Heisman’s Club Hall of Fame for Oberlin College or the Ohio Association of Track and Cross Country Coaches.
Part of the reason: Smith’s track stint in Ohio was abruptly cut short.

Misunderstood?

Smith, 64, is retired from teaching and coaching and tours the country and world as a speaker. His life and athletics career, including his stint with Oberlin, is told in his 2007 autobiography, “Silent Gesture.” He has said his Olympic gesture was misinterpreted as support for the radical Black Panthers.
At the Los Angeles Olympic Trials in 1968, the top black male athletes held a meeting. Of 26 favored to make the team, 13 said they would boycott. To ensure unity, the boycott was abandoned. Black athletes would take part in the Olympics, do their best to win and then, if one’s conscience demanded it, make a gesture on the victory stand.
Smith later explained in a television appearance that: “The shoes off stands for black poverty. The raised fist is for unity.”
Smith’s scarf and Carlos’ beads represented black lynching, he said.
No matter their intentions, they were criticized for politicizing the Olympics and their patriotism was questioned. Smith was sent mock plane tickets to Africa. They were ostracized and faced death threats for years.
Carlos’ wife Kim later committed suicide — some believed because of all the stress and pressure. Smith’s son, Kevin, was harassed by officers in the first Gulf War.
“There’s a history why it had to happen,” Smith said. “Not that it happened, but why it had to happen. And done by athletes and done by black athletes. There are a lot of things to be said about the knowledge of the athletes who participated and stood on the victory stand. Plus, how they felt en route to that even a year and a half before it happened.”
For all the controversy, Smith said no penalty was instituted against them.
The International Olympic Committee tried to force U.S. Olympic officials to kick the pair out of the Games for introducing political issues to an apolitical event, but it was a moot point. Smith and Carlos were done competing.
Their medals were never taken away.
ESPN is planning to air a feature about Smith and Carlos’ stand soon, and the two were to head to Mexico City for filming shortly after the conclusion of the Beijing Olympics.
“I considered it a very mild protest,” said Fred Shults, Smith’s former assistant in basketball and a soccer coach for Oberlin from 1960-93. “After all, he did win the event. It was a different era. Nowadays, who would really care?”
Smith recently received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the “ESPY’s.”

Time at Oberlin

Smith taught social science and physical education at Pomeroy High School in Milpitas, Calif., during the 1971-72 school year when he was first contacted by Jack Scott about coaching at Oberlin. Scott had been head of the Sports Institute at Berkeley prior to coming to Oberlin.
“Scott approached me in Berkeley. I was up there for a lecture,” said Smith, a resident of Stone Mountain, Ga. “He asked if there was a possibility I would consider coming to Ohio. I said, ‘No. I’ve already been to Ohio with the Cincinnati Bengals.’ I wasn’t about to go to sub-zero temperatures again.
“He told me that the job wasn’t in Cincinnati, but near Cleveland. I decided since I was having so many problems in California finding work that leaving the state might be my best bet.”
Smith was hired by Scott as head track coach and assistant athletic director at Oberlin in April 1972. It wasn’t the first time Oberlin had an Olympic gold medalist on its staff. Head track and cross country coach Dan Kinsey (1928-59) and college president William Stevenson (1946-59), both winners from the 1924 Games in Paris, served at Oberlin.
The hiring of Scott and Smith brought a lot of publicity to the 2,600-student college. National publications such as Newsweek, Time and Sports Illustrated all wrote about Oberlin’s bold move. ABC’s Howard Cosell visited the campus in February 1973 and did a segment on Smith for “Cosell’s Sports Magazine.”
The honeymoon didn’t last long.
Scott was gone from Oberlin within two years of Smith’s hiring. Smith replaced Scott as athletic director, but took a lot of heat. He relinquished the position after the 1974-75 school year, serving just one year.
“Tommie should have just settled in as head track coach,” Shults said. “He did a very good job in the areas he was qualified in. He didn’t need to have to assume the responsibilities as athletic director when it was very difficult for him to do that and relate to all the other ADs in the conference.
“The other ADs were very suspicious of Tommie and gave him a hard time. He wasn’t prepared for that in that stage of his life.”
Scott later gained notoriety for allegedly transporting newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst from California to Pennsylvania when she was eluding federal law enforcement officials. Scott died in 2000 at age 58.
Smith made a request for tenure, but it was rejected by an 8-2 vote in April 1977. He was gone by the next spring when his contract expired. An appeals request to the College of Arts and Sciences was also denied.
Smith has only visited Oberlin once since, an afternoon visit in 1995 when he was in Northeast Ohio for the funeral of a friend’s young son.
Some believe Smith caught the backlash from the Scott era.
“I really liked Tommie, but I think his problem was that he was hired by Jack Scott,” said Shults, 76. “There was a lot of antagonism against Jack. Some thought everything Jack did wrong, Tommie was partially responsible for.”
Smith left Oberlin for Santa Monica College, where he taught and coached for 27 years before retiring in June 2005.
“I was hoping one day to get back to Oberlin (again), but I don’t think so,” said Smith. “The way I left I think is the reason I’ve stayed away.”

THE TOMMIE SMITH FILE

AGE: 64
RESIDENCE: Stone Mountain, Ga.
BORN: June 12, 1944, in Clarksville, Texas. The seventh of 12 children.
FAMILY: Wife — Delois.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Retired college professor and coach. Speaker and author.
COACHING EXPERIENCE: 1978-2005 — head track coach, Santa Monica College; 1995 — assistant coach, USA World Indoor Championships; 1972-78 — assistant athletic director, head track and cross country coach, Oberlin College. 1970-72 — head track coach, Bay Area Striders. 1970 — head track coach, Ravenwood High School, Palo Alto, Calif.
ATHLETIC CREDENTIALS: 1968 Olympic gold medalist and former Olympic and world record-holder, 200 meters. 1969-71 — Wide receiver, Cincinnati Bengals. Set 13 world track and field records. 1978 inductee, National Track and Field Hall of Fame.
WEB SITE: TommieSmith.com
 

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