Jesse Owens, one of the greatest athletes of all time, participated in the controversial 1936 Nazi Olympics. His competitor was the superb German athlete, Luz Long. As excerpted from his biography, Jesse confronted this “enemy” but found, instead, a friend.
Read My Brother Luz: Told by Jesse Owens (Part 1)
“Jesse Owens!” Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t the loudspeaker calling my name a final time. It was a man standing right there next to me.
It was Luz Long. My archenemy. Or was he? The way his hand rested on my shoulder, the vibrations I felt as he looked at me and smiled, made me know somehow that, far from being my enemy, he was my friend.
“I Luz Long,” he said, introducing himself. I nodded. “I think I know what is wrong with you,” he went on. “You give everything when you jump. I the same. You cannot do halfway, but you are afraid you will foul again.”
“That’s right,” I said, finding my voice for the first time.
“I have answer,” he said. “Same thing happen to me last year in Cologne.”
There were literally only seconds left before I had to jump or default. Luz told me to simply remeasure my steps and jump from six inches in back of the takeoff board—giving it all I had. That way I could give 100 percent, and still not be afraid of fouling. He even laid his towel down at exactly the place from which I was to jump. It was so simple! And it worked.
I could feel the confident energy surging back into my body as I stood still for that brief second before beginning my run. I went as fast as I ever had, took off, and felt almost like I was flying. When I came down, it was more than twenty-six feet—an Olympic record—from the takeoff board. With the extra six inches, it surely would have been a new unofficial record. But what did I care about records? I was in the finals.
I didn’t know how to thank Luz Long. All I could offer was my friendship. I met with him that night, and we talked, over coffee, in the Olympic Village. We might’ve stayed up a little later than athletes should who have to compete against the best from every country in the following days, but it was worth it.
For the bond between us gave a spiritual strength that was greater than the physical. Luz and I, it turned out, were very much alike. He was married and had one child, as I did. A son, Karl. He had come from humble beginnings. And he didn’t believe Hitler’s Aryan supremacy statements and was disturbed by Hitler’s military aggressiveness. Still, it was his country and he felt that if he didn’t fight for it, he would be putting his family in danger.
I asked him about religion. He said that he did not have any, had never really known any. “Do you believe in God?” I questioned. He held out his hands, palms up, as if to say he didn’t know. Then he shrugged a little, as if to add that he had never really had any evidence that there was a higher power. He was so good, and all the truly good people I’d known till then believed in God. But even if Luz was a Nazi who might soon be my archenemy again, trying to kill my countrymen and even me, I felt that beneath that he was my brother. And even though he didn’t believe in God, I believed in Luz Long.
