Wilma Rudolph and parents in a parade in Clarksville, Tennessee, after the Rome Olympics, 1960 October 04.jpg

Wilma Rudolph won her first medal, a bronze, anchoring the 4 x 100 meter relay at the 1956 Melbourne Games. She was just 16; the other three team members were Tennessee State University Tigerbelles. She was the celebrity star of the 1960 games in Rome, where she won the 100-meter and 200-meter and anchored the gold-medal-winning, all-Tigerbelle 4 x 100-meter relay, the finals of which were run in sweltering temperatures that Ed Temple — who coached the 1960 and 1964 U.S. track teams — had anticipated: He had his Tigerbelles practice three times a day on the unforgiving cinders of the TSU track in the unrelenting Nashville heat of June and July. 

An excerpt from “Olympic Fever: Nashville’s Long History With the Olympic Games” by J.R. Lind, published July 11, 2024, by our sister publication, the Nashville Scene.