Willye Brown White (December 31, 1939 – February 6, 2007) was an American track and field athlete who took part in five Olympics from 1956 to 1972. She was America's best female long jumper of the time and also competed in the 100 meters sprint. White was a

Tennessee State University Tennessee State University (Tennessee State, Tenn State, or TSU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1912, it is the only state-funded historically black university in Tenness ...

Tigerbelle under Coach

Ed Temple Edward Stanley Temple (September 20, 1927 – September 22, 2016) was a women's track and field pioneer and coach. Temple was Head Women's Track and Field Coach at Nashville's Tennessee State University for 44 years and was Head Coach of th ...

. She was African-American.

Athletic career

White was a 16-year-old sophomore in high school when she won a silver medal in the long jump in the 1956 games in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. It marked the first time an American woman ever won a medal in that event. She won her second silver medal in 1964 as a member of the 400-meter relay team, along with Wyomia Tyus, Marilyn White and

Edith McGuire Edith Marie McGuire (born June 3, 1944), later known as Edith McGuire Duvall, is an American former sprinter. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, McGuire ran for Tennessee State University. TSU had a very successful women's sprinting team, The Tigerbell ...

. During her career White won 13 national indoor and outdoor titles and set seven U.S. records in the long jump. Her last record of 6.55 m stood from 1964 until 1972. She was a member of more than 30 international track and field teams and won a dozen Amateur Athletic Union long jump titles in her career, according to

USA Track & Field USA Track & Field (USATF) is the United States national governing body for the sports of track and field, cross country running, road running and racewalking (known as the sport of athletics outside the US). The USATF was known between 1979 a ...

, which inducted her into its hall of fame in 1981 — one of her 11 sports hall of fame inductions. In 1999,

Sports Illustrated for Women ''Sports Illustrated Women'' (previously called ''Sports Illustrated for Women'') and also known as ''SI Women'', was a bimonthly sports magazine covering (according to its statement of purpose) "the sports that women play and what they want to fo ...

named her one of the 100 greatest women athletes in the 20th century.

Personal life

Born in

Money, Mississippi Money is an unincorporated community near Greenwood in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, in the Mississippi Delta. It has fewer than 100 residents, down from 400 in the early 1950s when a cotton mill operated there. Money is located ...

, and raised by her grandparents, she picked

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...

to help her family earn money, while at the same time competing in sports. A longtime

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

-area resident, she credited her experience as an athlete with allowing her to see beyond the

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagoni ...

and hatred that surrounded her as a child. White moved to Chicago in 1960 and became a nurse, first at

Cook County Hospital The John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County (formerly Cook County Hospital) is a public hospital in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is part of the Cook County Health and Hospital System, along with Provident Hospital of Cook County and ...

, then at the Greenwood Medical Center. In 1965 she got a job of a public health administrator at the Chicago Health Department, and in 1976 earned a bachelor's degree from Chicago State University. In those years White was active as an athletics coach, preparing the national team to the 1981 World Cup and 1994 U.S. Olympic Festival. In 1990, she founded WBW Hang on Productions, a sports and fitness consultancy, and in 1991 the Willye White Foundation. The Foundation aimed to help children and included an after-school program, a summer day-camp and healthcare. White died of

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a mass. These cancerous cells have the ability to invade other parts of the body. A number of types of pancr ...

at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, according to Sarah Armantrout, a longtime friend who was with White when she died.

References

External links