Ralph Harold Metcalfe Sr. (May 29, 1910 – October 10, 1978) was an American

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

sprint Sprint may refer to: Aerospace *Spring WS202 Sprint, a Canadian aircraft design *Sprint (missile), an anti-ballistic missile Automotive and motorcycle *Alfa Romeo Sprint, automobile produced by Alfa Romeo between 1976 and 1989 *Chevrolet Sprint, ...

er and politician. He jointly held the

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...

in the

100-meter dash The 100 metres, or 100-meter dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, the dash is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been contest ...

and placed second in that event in two Olympics, first to

Eddie Tolan Thomas Edward "Eddie" Tolan (September 29, 1908 – January 30/31, 1967), nicknamed the "Midnight Express", was an American track and field athlete who competed in sprints. He set world records in the 100-yard dash and 100 meters event and Olympi ...

in 1932 at

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and then to

Jesse Owens James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games. Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifet ...

at the

1936 Olympics 1936 Olympics may refer to: *The 1936 Winter Olympics, which were held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany *The 1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Metcalfe won four Olympic medals and was regarded as the world's fastest human in 1934 and 1935. He later went into politics in the city of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and served in the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

for four terms in the 1970s as a

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

from

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

Track and field career

Born in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, Metcalfe grew up in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and graduated high school from Tilden Tech in 1930. He accepted a track

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholarsh ...

Marquette University Marquette University () is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Established by the Society of Jesus as Marquette College on August 28, 1881, it was founded by John Henni, John Martin ...

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, and equaled the record of 10.3 seconds in the 100 m on a number of occasions, as well as equaling the

200 m The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slightl ...

record of 20.6 seconds. He became the first man to win the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

200 m title three times consecutively. At the

1932 Summer Olympics The 1932 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the X Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1932) were an international multi-sport event held from July 30 to August 14, 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. The Games were held duri ...

, he virtually dead-heated with his rival

, with the gold medal awarded to Tolan only after extended study of the photograph; both recorded a time of 10.38 seconds in the

100 meters The 100 metres, or 100-meter dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, the dash is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been contest ...

. Metcalfe also earned a bronze medal at these games, in the

200 meters The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slightl ...

. He competed again at the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...

in Berlin, and again took silver in the

, this time behind four-time gold medalist Owens. They won

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

in the 4×100 meter relay with

Foy Draper Foy Draper (November 26, 1911 – February 1, 1943) was an American track and field athlete who won a gold medal in 4 × 100 m relay at the 1936 Summer Olympics. As a University of Southern California student, Draper won the IC4A championships i ...

and

Frank Wykoff Frank Clifford Wykoff (October 29, 1909 – January 1, 1980) was an American athlete, triple gold medal winner in 4 × 100 m relay at the Olympic Games. Career Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Frank Wykoff has a place in track and field hi ...

; the U.S. won by 1.1 seconds over runner-up Italy, and Germany took bronze. Fierce rivals on the track, Metcalfe and Owens became lifelong friends.

1932 Olympics

Metcalfe was convinced to the end of his life that the 100 m should have been awarded as a tie between him and Eddie Tolan: "I have never been convinced I was defeated. It should have been a tie"Duncanson, Neil, "The Fastest Men on Earth", Andre Deutsch, 2011 Film evidence and that of observers of the race seem to support Metcalfe's verdict. The AAU later changed their rules to have the winner being the first athlete to cross the line not merely breast the tape. It was the latter that Tolan was judged to have done first. The AAU went further and awarded the race as a tie but the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

has never agreed to this change. They maintain the result stands because the judges decided in line with the rules at the time that Eddie Tolan's entire torso had passed the finish line on the ground before Metcalfe's. In addition, even though credited with same time as Tolan, 10.3 s, a time that equaled the then world record, Metcalfe's time was never ratified as a world record. In the 200 m, Metcalfe was embroiled in further controversy. Observers at the time claimed the marking for his starting holes were 3–4 feet behind where they should have been. Others claimed this discrepancy was the result of an optical illusion because George Simpson in the lane outside cut his holes on the outside of his lane whilst Metcalfe used the inside of his. In any case, Metcalfe was offered a re-run but refused because he feared the United States would not be able to repeat its 1–2–3.

1936 Olympics

Olympic sprinters Owens Metcalfe and Wykoff 1936

In the sprint relay, Metcalfe became involved in a controversy not of his own making. Originally the United States chose for the relay the athletes who had come 4th to 7th in the trials. Two of these athletes,

Sam Stoller Sam Stoller (August 8, 1915 – May 29, 1985) was an American athlete who specialized in sprinting and long jumping. He tied the world record in the 60-yard dash in 1936. Stoller is best known for his exclusion from the American 4 × 10 ...

and

Marty Glickman Martin Irving Glickman (August 14, 1917 – January 3, 2001) was an American radio announcer who was famous for his broadcasts of the New York Knicks basketball games and the football games of the New York Giants and the New York Jets. Glickman w ...

, were replaced with Metcalfe and Jesse Owens allegedly because the former were Jewish. Metcalfe and Owens were undoubtedly the superior sprinters but they had not done the relay baton practice and the switch went against established practice. Whilst all world attention was on

winning the gold in the 100m it is often ignored that Metcalfe won the silver in an equally outstanding performance. In 2016, the 1936 Olympic journey of the eighteen Black American athletes, including interviews with Metcalfe's son, was documented in the film ''

Olympic Pride, American Prejudice ''Olympic Pride, American Prejudice'' is a 2016 American documentary film written and directed by Deborah Riley Draper. Dr. Amy Tiemann, Michael A. Draper, and Blair Underwood (who also narrated the film) were executive producers. The film premier ...

''.

United States Championships

Metcalfe was United States Champion at 100 m between 1932–34 (and was 2nd in 1935–36) and at 200 m between 1932–36. In all he won 16 national titles at the AAU Championships, NCAA Championships and Final Olympic Trials.

World records

Metcalfe 16 times broke or equaled world record times at various distances. However, only 5 of these were ever officially ratified by the athletics governing body, the

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...

. The ratified times were: * equaled the world record for 100 m of 10.3 s on: ** 12 August 1933 in Budapest, Hungary. ** 15 September 1934 in Nishinomiya, Japan. ** 23 September 1934 in Darien, Japan. * equaled the world record for 200 m (straight course) of 20.6 s on 12 August 1933 in Budapest, Hungary. * broke the world record for the 4 × 100 m relay with 39.8 s on 9 August 1936 (United States 1936 Olympics team of

-Metcalfe-

Military and political career

After earning his bachelor's degree at Marquette in 1936, Metcalfe completed a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

in 1939. Metcalfe taught political science and coached track at

Xavier University Xavier University ( ) is a private Jesuit university in Cincinnati and Evanston (Cincinnati), Ohio. It is the sixth-oldest Catholic and fourth-oldest Jesuit university in the United States. Xavier has an undergraduate enrollment of 4,860 studen ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

, recruiting athletes to the University like Jimmie McDaniel and Herb Douglas. He served in the

transportation corps The Transportation Corps is a combat service support branch of the U.S. Army. It is responsible for the movement of personnel and material by truck, rail, air, and sea. It is one of three U.S. Army logistics branches, the others being the Qua ...

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, rising to the rank of

first lieutenant First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment. The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations, but in most forces it is sub-divided into a s ...

and awarded the

Legion of Merit The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued to members of the eight ...

medal. After the war, he moved back to Chicago and later headed the state's athletic commission. In 1955, Metcalfe won the first of four elections as an

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many Jurisdiction, jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council membe ...

representing the South Side of Chicago. He ran for an open seat in Congress in

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...

as a Democrat and was easily elected from Illinois' first district. The seat had been filled for 28 years by William L. Dawson, who was retiring at age 84 due to poor health and then died less than a week after the 1970 election. Metcalfe was a co-founder of the

Congressional Black Caucus The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is a caucus made up of most African-American members of the United States Congress. Representative Karen Bass from California chaired the caucus from 2019 to 2021; she was succeeded by Representative Joyce ...

(CBC) in 1971 and later was noted for breaking ranks with Chicago mayor Richard Daley after incidents of police brutality.

Death and legacy

Grave of Ralph Harold Metcalfe (1910–1978) at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Alsip, IL

Metcalfe was seeking a fifth term in

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...

when he died at his Chicago home on October 10 of an apparent heart attack at age 68. Metcalfe is interred at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Alsip, southwest of Chicago. A federal office building in Chicago (at 77 W. Jackson Blvd.) was named for him upon its completion in 1991. Metcalfe was inducted into the

National Track and Field Hall of Fame The National Track and Field Hall of Fame is a museum operated by The Armory Foundation in conjunction with USA Track & Field. It is located within the Armory Foundation (the former Fort Washington Avenue Armory) at 216 Fort Washington Avenue, b ...

in 1975 and named a member of the

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

's Commission on Olympic Sports.

Personal

Metcalfe married Gertrude Pemberton on June 9, 1937 in Dallas, Texas. They divorced in Los Angeles, California in 1943. Metcalfe married Madalynne Fay Young in 1947 and they had one son. He was a member of

Alpha Phi Alpha Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. () is the oldest intercollegiate historically African American fraternity. It was initially a literary and social studies club organized in the 1905–1906 school year at Cornell University but later evolved int ...

fraternity A fraternity (from Latin language, Latin ''wiktionary:frater, frater'': "brother (Christian), brother"; whence, "wiktionary:brotherhood, brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club (organization), club or fraternal ...

Alpha Sigma Nu Alpha Sigma Nu () is the honor society of Jesuit colleges and universities. ΑΣΝ is a member of the Association of College Honor Societies. Founded in 1915 at Marquette University as Alpha Sigma Tau, it adopted the current name in 1930. The ...

honor society, and the Corpus Christi

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood. He converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in 1932, while an undergraduate at Marquette.

Electoral history

References

External links

U.S. House of Representatives history: Ralph Metcalfe
* – Olympic results
National Track and Field Hall of FameGeorgia Sports Hall of FameMarquette University, Raynor Memorial Libraries
– digital archives – Ralph Metcalfe

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Metcalfe, Ralph 1910 births 1978 deaths 20th-century American politicians African-American Catholics African-American male track and field athletes African-American members of the United States House of Representatives African Americans in World War II African-American people in Illinois politics American athlete-politicians American male sprinters United States Army personnel of World War II American Roman Catholics Athletes (track and field) at the 1932 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1936 Summer Olympics Burials at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery (Alsip, Illinois) Chicago City Council members Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois World record setters in athletics (track and field) Marquette University alumni Medalists at the 1936 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1932 Summer Olympics Olympic bronze medalists for the United States in track and field Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field Olympic silver medalists for the United States in track and field Track and field athletes from Atlanta United States Army officers University of Southern California alumni Converts to Roman Catholicism USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners 20th-century African-American politicians Military personnel from Illinois Knights of Peter Claver & Ladies Auxiliary African-American United States Army personnel