A Time When Sports Mattered

It all started off like any other Monday morning. I sluggishly walked into the door at work, said “good morning” to my fellow writers in the news room, flopped into the seat at my desk and opened my internet browser when something in the Yahoo! news bar caught my eye.
It was an old black and white picture of USA gold medalist Olympic runner Jesse Owens standing beside a white German runner giving the Nazi salute on the stand while receiving their medals. Above the photograph read “Hitler watched Owens win gold.”
Moved by the photo alone I opened the story to read how Jesse Owens entered into Hitler ruled Germany in 1936 to compete in that year’s Olympics held in Berlin.
At a time when one of the most evil and powerful forces the world has ever known was preaching that non-aryan races were inferior and killing millions who did not fit his mold, Owens defiled Hitler and all his beliefs by winning an unheard of four gold medals in the 100, 200 and 4×100 meter dash as well as the broad jump.