Ray Ewry

Athlete

• Born: October 14, 1873
• Birthplace: Lafayette, Indiana
• Died: September 29, 1937
• Place of death: Douglaston, New York

Sport: Track and field (standing jumps)

Early Life

Raymond Clarence Ewry, “The Rubber Man,” was born on October 14, 1873, in Lafayette, Indiana, to George and Elizabeth Ewry. His grandfather had been a Lafayette pioneer and lived next to John Purdue, founder of Purdue University. Although Ray’s name may not be familiar to many, he won more individual gold medals, eight, than any other athlete in modern Olympic history until the American swimmer Michael Phelps won his ninth in 2008. (Phelps had eleven going into the 2016 Summer Games.).

As a small boy growing up in midwestern America, Ray was frail, and his poor health worried his parents. Partially paralyzed by polio, he was confined to a wheelchair and had little opportunity to enjoy his childhood. His doctor recommended exercise to rebuild his legs, and Ray began an intensive program on his own. He began with simple calisthenics and, when he became strong enough, he started jumping. His therapy turned into his sport. As he matured, he grew tall, 6 feet 3 inches, and stayed skinny, 153 pounds, with incredibly long, thin legs. He had become so powerful by the time he attended Purdue that he was on the verge of becoming the greatest jumper of his day.

The Road to Excellence

From 1890 to 1897, while at Purdue, “Deac” Ewry studied mechanical engineering and earned a graduate degree. He also was a star receiver on the football team, until a shoulder injury ended his career, and captain of the track team. He specialized in the standing jumps. In 1891, he participated in the first Purdue Field Day, and, in the same year, set a state record in the standing long jump at the Indiana collegiate meet at Terre Haute.

After graduation, Ray competed for the Chicago Athletic Association for a year and then took a job in New York as a city hydraulics engineer. While there, he joined the New York Athletic Club in 1898, which launched him on his incredible Olympic career, sending him and a group of athletes to the second modern Olympic Games in Paris, in 1900. He competed in what later became obsolete events: the standing long jump, the standing high jump, and the standing triple jump. Ray was the first former Big Ten Conference athlete to win an Olympic gold medal.

The Emerging Champion

On Monday, July 16, 1900, Ray, the man who could not walk as a child, became an Olympic sports legend. His lifetime of exercise and hard work had made him a champion. He won gold medals in all the events in which he competed. His performance in the standing high jump established a world record. From a stationary start, he cleared a height of 5 feet 5 inches. His complete dominance of this event was indicated by the fact that the second-place finisher jumped only 5 feet. Ray also set Olympic records in the standing long jump, at 10 feet 6 1/2 inches, and standing triple jump, at 34 feet 8 1/2 inches, in which he surpassed his nearest competitor by more than 2 feet. These were awesome achievements—yet for Ray, they were only the beginning of his string of ten consecutive victories through the 1908 Olympics.

Continuing the Story

Ray duplicated his achievements at the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis. There, he won the same three events, this time setting a world record in the standing long jump at 11 feet 4 7/8 inches. In 1906, Greece held an unofficial Olympic Games at Athens, called the Intercalated or Interim Games. As a member of the American team, Ray once more dominated his events. The standing triple jump had been discontinued, so Ray had to settle for gold medals in his other two favorite events. His marks, however, did not equal his previous performances in Paris and St. Louis. On this occasion, Ray’s wife, Nelle, who was the greatest influence on his career, accompanied him to Athens as the U.S. team cook. She was at the jumping pits urging her husband on to his two gold medals.

Ray Ewry’s final Olympic appearance was at the 1908 London Games. By this time, Ray was thirty-four years old, but his performance did not reflect his age. On Monday, July 20, he again won the standing long jump. Three days later, he ended his Olympic career with a victory in the standing high jump, bringing his total gold medal count to ten, unrivaled by any other Olympic athlete. Adding to his illustrious record were fifteen American championships. He also held the amateur record of 9 feet 3 inches in an even more obscure event, the backward standing long jump.

In later life, Ray was a track official. After 1912, he served on the New York Board of Water Supply and was supervising engineer on the Ashokan System. He died at his home in Douglaston, New York, at the age of sixty-three on September 29, 1937. His accomplishments were mostly forgotten until they were resurrected in the publicity surrounding the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. In 1990, the United States Post Office issued a stamp commemorating Ray’s Olympic victories.

Summary

Ray Ewry was a sports phenomenon. His career reads like a film script, an inspirational story in which a crippled child overcomes his maladies through hard work to become one of the world’s greatest athletes. Over an eight-year period from 1900 to 1908, Ray competed in three official Olympic Games and the Intercalated Games at Athens. He was never defeated in Olympic competition and won more gold medals than any other track and field athlete in modern Olympic history. Ironically, if he had competed today, there would be no Ray Ewry story. The events in which he excelled had all been discontinued as Olympic events by 1912. Consequently, no one can ever surpass his particular achievements.

Bibliography

Findling, John E., and Kimberly D. Pelle, eds. Historical Dictionary of the Modern Olympic Movement. Westport: Greenwood, 2004. Print.

Greenberg, Stan. Whitaker’s Olympic Almanack: An Encyclopaedia of the Olympic Games. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000. Print.

Wallechinsky, David, and Jaime Loucky. The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2012 Edition. London: Aurum, 2012.