Disqualified , livre ebook

The Kent State University Press - Eddie Hart

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

164 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Having previously tied the world record, Eddie Hart was a strong favorite to win the 100-meter dash at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. Then the inexplicable happened: he was disqualified after arriving seconds late for a quarterfinal heat. Ten years of training to become the "World's Fastest Human," the title attached to an Olympic 100-meter champion, was lost in a heartbeat. But who was to blame?Hart's disappointment, though excruciating, was just one of many subplots to the most tragic of Olympic Games, at which eight Arab terrorists assassinated eleven Israeli athletes and coaches as the world watched in horror. Five terrorists were killed, but three escaped to their homeland as heroes and were never brought to trial. Swimmer Mark Spitz won seven gold medals but was rushed out of Germany afterward because he was Jewish. Other American athletes, besides Hart, seemed jinxed in Munich. The USA men's basketball team thought it had earned the gold medal, but the Russians received it instead through an unprecedented technicality. Bob Seagren, the defending pole vault champion, was barred from using his poles and forced to compete with unfamiliar poles. And swimmer Rick DeMont lost one gold medal and the possibility of winning a second because of an allergy drug that had passed U.S. Olympic Committee specifications but was disallowed by the International Olympic Committee.It was that kind of Olympics, confusing to some, fatal to others. Hart traveled back to Munich forty-three years later to relive his utter disappointment. He returned to the same stadium where he did earn a gold medal in the 400-meter relay. In Disqualified, his interesting life story, told with author Dave Newhouse, sheds entirely new light on what really happened at Munich. It includes interviews with Spitz and the victimized American athletes and conversations with two Israelis who escaped the terrorists. And Hart finally learned who was responsible for his disqualifications and those of Rey Robinson, who was in the same heat, leading to an interesting epilogue in which these two seniors reflect on the opportunity denied them long ago.

Sujets

History of sport

Terrorism

Germany

Informations

Publié par	The Kent State University Press
Date de parution	15 août 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781631012600
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

DISQUALIFIED
DISQUALIFIED
EDDIE HART, MUNICH 1972, AND THE VOICES OF THE MOST TRAGIC OLYMPICS
EDDIE HART WITH DAVE NEWHOUSE
Foreword by Dr. Cornel West

Black Squirrel Books® Kent, Ohio
Text © 2017 by Eddie Hart and Dave Newhouse
Foreword © 2017 by The Kent State University Press
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-60635-312-7
Manufactured in USA
Black Squirrel Books®
Frisky, industrious black squirrels are a familiar sight on the Kent State University campus and the inspiration for Black Squirrel Books™, a trade imprint of The Kent State University Press. www.KentStateUniversityPress.com
Cataloging information for this title is available at the Library of Congress.
21 20 19 18 17     5 4 3 2 1
To my beloved parents, T. J. and Florence Hart: my father taught me to be a husband and father, and the value of what it means to be the best; my mother raised me with an undying love and desire for my physical and spiritual well-being. Without them, there is no Eddie Hart.
To my precious family: my wife, Gwen, who helped me understand the meaning of love, and who is the mother of my children and the person with whom I have grown spiritually; to Paris, my firstborn, who is truly a gift from God and whose unconditional love and joy have brought more happiness to my life than I deserve; to my son, Eddie Jr., who is my right arm, continuing the tradition of the Hart legacy, bringing both honor and dignity to the family, and who has made me the proud grandfather of Eddie III, from a previous marriage, and James and Bella by his wonderful wife, Tara, giving me three beautiful grandchildren.
To my brothers and sisters: Catherine, John, Alfred, Evelyn, and David.
To Stan Wright’s family for their continued support, background information, and the genuine heartfelt love they extended to me in the process of writing my book.
     — E.H.
To Phyllis Newhouse: a gold-medalist sister and fashionista.
     — D.N.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Dr. Cornel West
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Tunnel Vision
2 A Massacre Made Easy
3 Death Lights Up the Sky
4 Gold Medal for Corruption
5 School Days
6 The Bavarian Perspective
7 Learning to Sprint
8 Black and White
9 The Eagle Flies
10 Post-Olympic Stress Factor
11 The Turning Point
12 I Love Paris
13 The Fog
14 View from Olympus
15 The Berkeley Man
16 Cat on the Prowl
17 The Road to Munich
18 Blamed, but Blameless
19 Last Leg of the Journey
Epilogue
Notes
References
Index
FOREWORD
DR. CORNEL WEST
Eddie Hart is one of the great exemplars of spiritual integrity and athletic excellence in our time. He is one of those rare persons who combine undeniable dignity and unquestionable achievement.
In the 1970s, Eddie Hart was well known as “The World’s Fastest Human”—co-holder of the world record for the 100-meter dash. And for those of us who have known him for more than four decades, he is the embodiment of moral greatness.
I was blessed to first meet Eddie in 1969. He was the good friend (or “elder brother”) of my only blood brother, Cliff West. They were roommates in Berkeley, where they were teammates on the University of California track-and-field team. Eddie was the reigning emperor of the “Mad Pad,” their famous apartment, and he was the major force behind Cal’s NCAA track-and-field championship team of 1970. Together, Cliff, Eddie, Kerry Hampton, and Mike Lyons were loving and supportive comrades in the Mad Pad, and the West family—especially Dad and me—became close adoptive kin to our brother Eddie.
The first thing I noticed about Eddie was his grand style—in music, clothes, walk, and talk. Along with his quiet dignity and deep wisdom was his sophisticated “Pittsburg style,” rooted in black southern sensibilities, tested and triumphant in urban West Coast realities. In other words, Eddie is first a product of the black spiritual nobility of the Hart family, especially his father, T. J. Hart, and his mother, Florence Viola Hart. The sublime Hart family represents the best of black church tradition—charity to all, malice toward none, and a willingness to persevere and keep on pushing regardless of the circumstances and consequences. The brute fact that Eddie Hart also became one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century reinforces his family’s proud commitment to compassion in the face of catastrophe and dignity in the face of adversity.
The Eddie Hart story is a story of familial piety—the ways his beloved mother and father, grounded in a trusting God, constituted the fundamental sources of good in his life. This powerful acknowledgment of his debts of gratitude to them becomes the model for his own blessed family, with his marvelous wife, Gwen; their loving daughter, Paris; their loving son, Eddie Jr.; and their three grandchildren.
In our age of cupidity and mendacity, Eddie Hart enacts a life of piety and integrity. Like the Sankofa bird, which looks back to recover the best of the past in order to succeed in the present toward a better future, Eddie Hart builds on a rich tradition of love and perseverance. His courageous response—not reaction—to his heartbreaking experience of disqualification is a life lesson to all of us as to how to be spiritually fortified and morally majestic. And with the multilayered context of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games—barbaric terrorism, double-standard racism, athletic heroism, and technical chicanery—this book intensifies the drama of his life.
My life is enriched because of the life work and spiritual witness of Eddie Hart. I salute Eddie and Dave Newhouse for unleashing this grand drama into a world hungry for integrity, excellence, and dignity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank all of the book’s participants, Olympians and otherwise, who relived the tragic story of the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, Germany, where a massacre and gold medals merged amid the background noise of terrorists’ rifles, police sirens, getaway buses, whirling helicopters, and sniper fire.
Dave Newhouse, together with Eddie Hart, interviewed these 1972 Olympians: Mark Spitz, Rick DeMont, Barbara Ferrell, Tom McMillen, Bob Seagren, Tom Hill, Marilyn King, Klaus Wolfermann, Rey Robinson, Tom Dooley, and Gerald Tinker.
Other Olympians, from games before and after Munich, also contributed: Lee Evans, John Carlos, Jimmy Hines, Stephanie Brown Trafton, Dave Maggard, and Ollan Cassell.
The authors’ trip to Munich included further interviews pertaining to the 1972 Olympics: Irmina Richter, Friederike Wolfermann, and journalist Michael Gernandt. Additional conversations in Munich occurred with Alexander Bock and Eddie Hart Jr. Olympian Dick Fosbury arranged two of these Munich interviews.
Adding credibility to this book were Newhouse’s telephone interviews with Shaul Ladany and Shlomo Levy in Israel, both of whom escaped the Black September terrorists after the September 5, 1972, assault on the Israeli living quarters at Connollystrasse 31.
Further interviews from Eddie Hart’s and Stan Wright’s lives included talks with Nanette Mercurio, Rodell Johnson, Bert Bonanno, Jack Albiani, Cliff West, George Wright, and Toni Wright Hartfield.
Eddie Hart Jr. documented the Munich trip by taking photographs and film footage. William Love offered psychological expertise.
Dr. Cornel West and his family have enhanced the life of Eddie Hart Sr., who expresses his gratitude to others who contributed to this book: Blaine Robinson, Carl Ray Harris, Howard Carter, Roy Finks, Donald Payne, Patricia Warfield, Tam Harris, Harold Winston, Larry Winston, Art Mijares, Carlis Harris, Don Pierce, George Scott, George Brooks, Randy Williams, Wyomia Tyus, Clarence Taylor, Rosie Bonds, Ron Wilborn, Chuck Dybdal, Vince Ferrate, Mort Laudsberg, and especially Dave Newhouse, who brought structure and clarity to Hart’s life journey.
The authors are indebted to the Kent State University Press, and especially Will Underwood, Mary Young, Susan Cash, and Carol Heller, for believing in this book project and pushing it to fruition. Go Golden Flashes! And much appreciation goes out to Erin Holman for her expert editing of the book.
Making this book visual was David Petranovic of Montclair Photo (Oakland, CA), digitalizing the photographs in the book.
Patsy Newhouse, the perfect wife, stood by patiently as her husband devoted himself to the project, both home and abroad, over a two-year period. Son Casey Newhouse; his wife, Michelle; and grandchildren Callan and Campbell were a valuable source of encouragement.
The authors couldn’t have written this book without any of you.
INTRODUCTION
The first Olympic Games were held in, and named for, Olympia, Greece, in 776 B.C. ; these classic origins echoed many centuries later in the tragedy that played out in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.
No modern Olympics—which first commenced in Athens, Greece, in 1896—has experienced anything like Munich did, with the brutal killings of eleven Israeli athletes and coaches by eight Arab terrorists known as the Black September group.
The city, determined to erase the bitter memory of the Nazi-controlled 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, presented a “Cheerful Games” in 1972. Thus Olympic Village security was lax in the daytime and nonexistent at night, which made it an easy target for the eight Arabs. Undetected and wearing ski masks, they climbed over a six-and-a-half-foot fence that lacked the protective barbed wire that customarily surrounds an Olympic Village. Carrying concealed rifles in sports bags and murder in their souls, those men committed the first terrorist attack at a sporting event.
Before the carnage of September 5, 1972, was over, five terrorists and one Munich policeman were killed, along with the targeted eleven Israelis. Three Black September members managed to flee the country and weren’t ever prosecuted for their crimes. Israeli race walker Shaul Ladany, who escaped, is one of many Munich Olympians who were interviewed