February 24, 2022 - Alice Coachman

Today’s Olympic athletes train in the best facilities with the best equipment and shoes. Alice Coachman, the first African American woman to win the Olympic gold, grew up in the Jim Crow South where she trained barefoot on country roads and in fields, using old, discarded equipment to improve her high jump. Her parents were not initially in favor of her athletic pursuits, but while she was in high school, the boys’ track coach recognized her talent and encouraged her, resulting in the athletic department of the Tuskegee Institute offering Coachman a scholarship when she was only sixteen. While she ran off with awards at Tuskegee, she had already broken the high school and college high jump records for national track and field competition-and she broke these while running barefoot.
Coachman ran barefoot on hard country roads, developing her stamina. She made her own high jump crossbar out of rope and sticks. This young woman was determined.
Coachman’s specialty was the high-jump, running off to the American national title for ten years straight, from 1938 to 1948.
While in college, Coachman dominated the AAU competitions. While attending Albany State College, she was recognized as the national champion in the 50- and 100-meter races, 400-meter relay and high jump. She should have been competing in the Olympics in 1940 and 1944, but World War II took away those opportunities for our Olympic hopefuls.
During her stateside career, she won thirty-four national titles, ten for the high jump in consecutive years.
Then in 1948, she and teammate Audrey Patterson-Tyler made history, becoming the first African American women to win medals at the Olympics. Patterson-Tyler took the Bronze and the next day, Alice Coachman brought home the Gold, leaping to the record-breaking height of 5 feet, 6 and 1/8 inches in the high jump finals, in front of 83,000 spectators. She received her Gold medal from King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. Not only was she the first black woman to win the Gold, she was the only American woman at the 1948 Olympics who took home a Gold medal.
Along with her teammate Patterson-Tyler, President Truman honored her with a reception, and her hometown of Albany hosted “Alice Coachman Day,” complete with a 175-mile motorcade in her honor.
Following the Olympics, Coachman returned to college, completing her degree at Albany State and retired from athletic competitions. However, she founded the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation to support young athletes and older, retired Olympic competitors.
In 1952, Coca-Cola signed her as an endorser, making her the first black female athlete to endorse an internationally consumed product, breaking color barriers in the advertising world as well as the athletic world.
Following her Olympic success in London, Coachman was honored at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta where she was recognized as one of the 100 greatest Olympians in history.
Coachman was inducted into nine Halls of Fame including the National Track-and-Field Hall of Fame in 1975 and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 2004.
Alice Coachman made history and broke racial barriers, exhibiting her strong determination in the face of adversity.