Edward Temple was born and educated in
Harrisburg, Pa. He was a member of the junior high school band and later played
football, totally unknown to his parents, who believed him to be a band member
when he was actually on the football team. He made the high school varsity
team in football, basketball and track. Later in high school, he dropped
music as an extracurricular activity and continued sports. He competed in
the prestigious Penn Relays in Philadelphia as a sprinter in the mile relay and
ran at Penn State as part of the state high school championships. Temple
came to Tennessee State University in Nashville in 1946 with Tom Harris, a coach
from his hometown of Harrisburg. Harris was coming to Nashville to start a
men and women's track team at what was then Tennessee Agricultural &
Industrial College, under the administration of Dr. Walter S. Davis.
Temple knew Coach Harris well and had lived across the street from the woman
Harris would eventually marry, He attended Tennessee A & I from 1947 to
1950. Shortly after Temple's graduation, Coach Harris left Tennessee A &
I to become a football and track coach and athletic director in Virginia.
Since Temple had graduated with a B.S. in physical education the previous term
and was seeking employment as a football or basketball coach. Harris recommended
him as the coach of the Tennessee A & I women's track team. In 1950
President Davis appointed Temple as women's track coach. In addition, he
was given a job in the college post office and allowed to work on his
master's in sociology. "In 1950, for a hundred and fifty dollars month,"
recalls Temple, "I coached the women's track team, ran the university post
office and went to graduate school. At that
time I had no idea of working with the women's track team." In fact, the
school did not have a complete track. It had a three-quarter-mile track
since part of the oval ended atop a dump. "The lady that really got us
started was a young lady from Bayside, N.Y., named Mae Faggs," says
Temple. Mae Faggs had competed in the Olympics of 1948 and 1952, and had
won a gold medal in 1952. Unable to find scholarship assistance in her
home state, Faggs applied to Tuskegee Institute and Tennessee A & I. In the
end she selected Tennessee A & I "because Tennessee A & I was closer to
New York than Tuskegee, Ala.," says Temple. Faggs believed that she was
coming to an institution with an established women's track program, notes
Temple. "She didn't know that she would be the one who would have to
establish the program." When Temple started coaching track at Tennessee A
& 1, there were no scholarships for members of his team. "We had work
aid," says Temple, "where everybody worked for two hours a day on campus." His
first team consisted of three female runners, one of them Jean Patton, a
Nashville native, who .had been coached by Tom Harris two years before Temple
took over the program. Patton was an outstanding athlete. She had
won first place in the 100 meters at the Pan American Games in Chile in 1951.
Temple had to fight the prejudice against women competing in sports.
"At the time, women's track had a taboo that if you did anything strenuous you
would not be able to have children; if you worked hard and perspired, it was not
ladylike, etc. We had a lot of obstacles that we had to overcome." Dr.
Walter S. Davis was his major supporter in this struggle. "Dr. Davis
was the backbone of the Tennessee State University women's track program.
He felt that women should have an opportunity to compete in athletics, and he
gave us that opportunity. This at a time when there was real prejudice
against women competing in sports." Tennessee A & I also had a women's
basketball program. Temple took a number of his athletes to a track meet
at Fort Valley, Ga. During a time of segregation, most of the black
schools met at Fort Valley while the white high schools met in a softball
tournament in Atlanta. After qualifying at Fort Valley, the runners would
meet at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. "Tuskegee would bring all of
the top black high school men and women together. This was similar to the Penn
Relays in Pennsylvania. The Tuskegee Relays had participants from
Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana and other states in the South." In
this picnic atmosphere, Temple was able to identify much of the talent for his
track team. Although the team ran in 1952, 1953 and 1954, it was a time of
slow maturing by three runners in 1952 to as many as eight in 1954, all on work
aid. The team started out with an annual budget of $300. At the
time, there was only one track meet each year, the Tuskegee Relays. They
carried a brown bag lunch from the cafeteria, and since racial segregation did
not allow them to use "white only" rest rooms, "We had to pull aside the road
and allow the girls to hit the fields. So we went through some trying
times." This was only the first of many encounters that team would have with
segregation. The team won its first national AAUP championship in Ponca
City, Okla., in 1955. This was the first time that Tennessee A & I had
won an integrated contest, although the school had won the black football
championship in 1947. The team had traveled to the contest on a bus.
Heading back to Nashville, the team stopped at a restaurant in Kansas for
food. They were informed that the place did not serve colored
people. The white bus driver "got off the bus and went in and talked to
the lady," remembers Temple, "and told her in so many words: 'Look here, these
young ladies just won the national championship of the United States. So,
I am sure that you wouldn't mind them eating here.' After he talked to her, she
said OK." 1968 one of these runners was the physician for the
Jamaica Olympic team in Mexico. The team ran in Madison Square Garden in New
York. They made the journey from Nashville to New York in an old DeSoto
station wagon. Forest Strange, Tennessee A & I's first
all-American football player, was the driver. The team left and
drove straight through to New York, stopping only for gas. They ran in the
old Madison Square Garden and stayed in the Paramount Hotel. When they
arrived in New York, they were informed that they could not practice in the
Garden because a circus was in progress. "We thought we would at least get
a chance to warm up in the Garden before we ran the next night," says
Temple. "We had ridden in an automobile for 12-13 hours and needed to
practice. So we practiced up and down the hallway of the Paramount Hotel,
People were coming out of their rooms and we were warming up in the hall." The
team ran an individual event and relay and won both contests. There were
only four members on the team. Temple placed six women on the U.S. Olympic
team in 1956. This was an outstanding accomplishment, considering the team
had only won its first national championship in 1955. The. Olympic
trials were held at American University in Washington, D.C. It was this meet
that first introduced Wilma Rudolph to the track world. At this meet also
were Mae Faggs, Lucentia Williams and Barbara Jones. The four women took
first, second and third in the 100 meters. All had qualified for the
Olympics except Wilma. There was one event left to run, the 200
meters. "Wilma at that time was 6 foot. ... Mae Faggs, a veteran of two
earlier Olympics, wanted to help Wilma qualify. Look, Skeeter, she said,
'I want you to lay on my shoulders. I want you to follow me, because we
want to bring you in and qualify you.' Wilma had to take first, second or third
to qualify. Mae Faggs told her, 'Now I am going to take first; the best
thing you can do is to take second ." Wilma was not given a scholarship
for track, either, but we were [at least] getting work aid .
"She no doubt would have been a great basketball star." In 1955 Wilma had
run on the Tennessee A & I junior team, when the team went to the AAU
Championships in Oklahoma. This junior team was made up of 10th- and 11 th
grade high school girls. They ran under a summer program as a track
club. There were no junior or senior teams at the Olympic trials.
"Everybody was in the same pot: juniors, seniors, everybody else. They
take the top three people in each event " When the gun went, off for the 200
meters "they came around the curve. Mae Faggs was just moving down the
track. Wilma with those long legs was closing in. She ran up beside
Mae Faggs, as if to say, "I will take the lead. I never will forget.
I ran up to them - I was so happy. Mae Faggs lifted her head and
said, 'Now, Skeeter, I told you to run side me, I didn't tell you to act a fool
and try to pass me.'" This was the beginning of a great friendship between Faggs
and Rudolph. Wilma made the team and they went on to represent the school
and the nation in Australia. The team won third in the 4 x 100 relay
The United States team was made up of the four women from Tennessee A & I in
1956. Wilma did not qualify for the finals in the 200 meters although she made
the semifinals. Willie B. White, also a junior in high school, won a
silver medal in the long jump. Isabel Daniels won third place in the 100
meters. "All in all, the six young were from Tennessee State University.
After the contest the team was invited to go to Russia.
"That was a tremendous experience getting off the airplane. When the door
opened, the Russian soldiers were standing there with Tommy guns on their
shoulders. He saw Red Square and the tombs of Lenin and Stalin. They ran
before 100,000 people in Leni Stadium in Moscow. "When they played the
'Star Spangled Banner' as both teams were on the field, it was amazing that
you could not hear a pin drop. I thought to myself, this is much more
quiet than it is in the United States." Temple found the Russians to be
extremely courteous. "When the United States won they would applaude.The
team won first place.
After running in Russia, the team went to Poland, Hungary and Greece on a European
tour. This was during the time of the "Hungarian Uprising against
the Soviet Union. "It was very tense. In Poland and it
[also] was extremely tense because they were under
the communist regime there." The team toured many of the communist countries.
When they got t Greece, recalls
Temple,
"everybody was happy and relaxed. We got a chance to jump in the Red
Sea and run in the old Olympic Stadium at Athens, Greece. And it was
old, too." Later, Temple took his team on a 45-day tour of Africa, sponsored
by the United States Department of State. Wyonia Tyus and Edith, two of
his runners did a tremendous job. But they needed somebody to go over there
and give them some exposure with basic fundamentals and techniques." In
October 1993, Tennessee State University inaugurated the "Annual Edward S.
Temple Seminar on Sports and Society. "The seminar is sponsored by the
Department of Sociology. The purpose is to analyze the impact of sports,
on society. Tennessee State also honored Temple by naming the Tennessee
State University track in his honors In 1993, Edward Temple retired from
Tennessee State University after 43 years of service. He coached three
Olympic teams, two Pan American teams, eight national teams, made the Tennessee
Sports Hall of Fame and the Black Hall of Fame, among other honors. The
NCAA has established the "Edward S. Temple Trophy for Collegiate Champion in
Women's Track and Field" as a permanent reminder of his contributions to women's
track
