1945 -- It was a miracle she ever made it to her first birthday. Wilma Rudolph was born two months premature in June 1940, the 20th of 22 children in her family -- her parents each had children from previous marriages as well as from their own. At the time, babies like Wilma -- who weighed less than five pounds -- frequently died during their first year. As an African American living in a small, segregated Tennessee town, Rudolph entered life facing additional risk factors, including deep poverty and substandard medical care. By the age of four, she had survived viral pneumonia, mumps, measles, whooping cough and scarlet fever. A bout of polio, however, had twisted her left leg, turning her foot inward and leaving her partially paralyzed. The President at the time, Franklin Roosevelt, had survived polio as a young man but afterward had never again been able to walk under his own power Ð and he came from a very wealthy family with the best medical care. At best, doctors said, Wilma might learn how to walk with the aid of a leg brace.
1960 -- Eight years after shedding her leg brace, crutches and corrective shoes, Wilma Rudolph stood on an Olympic medal podium, where an official draped a gold medal -- her third of the Rome games -- around her neck. Earlier that afternoon, more than 100 million television viewers around the world had joined 80,000 fans at Stadio Olympico as Rudolph and three other American women took first place in the 4x100m relay. The teams from the Soviet Union, Great Britain and West Germany had been favored in the competition, but all eyes were on the Americans. If Rudolph -- who had already won gold in the 100 and 200-meter events -- could bring her team across the finish line first, she would become the first American woman to win three gold medals during a single Olympic Games. As a black woman, Rudolph was inspired by the mark set by Jesse Owens in 1936, when he shocked the Nazi hosts of the Berlin Games by winning four gold medals. With the civil rights movement stirring in the United States, she hoped to provide a similar model of achievement to young black women. Running on a sprained ankle, Rudolph nearly dropped the baton at the start of the race's final leg. Although the Americans were in third place at the time, the young woman from Tennessee soon managed to sprint past the other racers, bringing the United States the gold medal.
As Wilma Rudolph acknowledged many times in her life, she was depressed and broken by her condition. She felt isolated from other children -- many of whom teased her -- and the feelings of loneliness were awful. But her family gave her the strength and determination she needed to overcome the brutal effects of the polio virus. "The doctors told me I would never walk," Rudolph explained years later, "but my mother told me I would, so I believed my mother." During the most difficult years of Rudolph's young life, there were plenty of helping hands around the home, and her siblings took turns carrying her from room to room. Beginning in 1946, Rudolph's parents would take a Greyhound bus twice a week to seek treatment fifty miles away in Nashville, where the doctors believed heat and water therapy might enable her to walk someday. Eventually, her family's encouragement wore off on young, shy Wilma. By the age of eight, she was secretly taking off her braces when her parents weren't around; she practiced walking on her own, hoping that she might one day be able to run and jump with the other kids. At last, not long after her twelfth birthday, she was able to remove the braces for good. As if making up for lost time, Rudolph began playing basketball every waking moment that wasn't spent in school. Though she was an excellent all-around player, her unbelievable speed distinguished her from her peers. Before long, Rudolph came to the attention of Ed Temple, the legendary track coach at Tennessee State University who produced 40 Olympic athletes and 23 medal-winners in his career. He recognized her unique abilities and took her under his wing, setting her on a road that would soon lead to Olympic glory.