Lee Evans
Lee Edward Evans, born on February 25, 1947, in Madera, California, emerged as a prominent figure in athletics during the late 1960s. Growing up in a family of seven, he developed a strong work ethic while helping his parents in the fields. Evans achieved notable success in high school track, remaining undefeated, and later attended San Jose State College, where he trained under the esteemed coach Bud Winter. At San Jose State, he became a key member of a talented team, winning multiple championships and setting a world record in the 4x400-meter relay.
Evans gained international fame at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, where he won gold in the 400 meters with a world-record time of 43.86 seconds. He participated in a significant moment in Olympic history alongside fellow athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos during the medal ceremony, where they made a statement about civil rights. After his Olympic success, Evans continued his career in coaching in various countries and took on roles in universities, though he faced setbacks, including a ban from coaching due to a doping controversy. Evans passed away on May 19, 2021, but left a lasting legacy, being inducted into the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame and the Olympic Hall of Fame. His contributions to athletics and the civil rights movement are fondly remembered.
Lee Evans
Olympic athlete
- Born: February 25, 1947
- Birthplace: Madera, California
- Died:May 19, 2021
- Deathplace:Nigeria
Track-and-field athlete
Lee Evans set a world record in the 400 meters at the 1968 Olympic Games that stood for two decades. His role as a trailblazer for racial equality helped change the social landscape of America.
Areas of achievement: Sports: Olympics; Sports: track and field
Early Life
Lee Edward Evans was born in Madera, California, on February 25, 1947, the middle child of seven children. The family moved to Fresno, California, when Evans was old enough to go to school, and he worked beside his parents in the fields to help support the family. It was hard work, but the work ethic Evans developed was a key to his success the rest of his life. Evans went undefeated in his high school track career, running 440 yards in 46.9 seconds in 1965 for Overfelt High School in California.
Evans attended college at San Jose State College. San Jose State was a powerhouse led by Bud Winter, a Hall of Fame track-and-field coach. With a team that included such established sprinters as Tommie Smith, the university was nicknamed Speed City. As a freshman, Evans won his first of four straight Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championships in the 440-yard dash. He also won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) 400-meter title in 1968. The only person ever to beat Evans in college was his teammate Smith.
Evans earned his first berth on the US national team in the 4x400-meter relay. The team set a world record in 1966 and was the first in history to break three minutes in the event.
Life’s Work
Evans’s success led him to the Olympic Trials held in Echo Summit, California. The top three finishers in the 400 meters would make the 1968 United States Olympic team for the upcoming Mexico City Games. At the Olympic trials, Evans won the 400 meters in a world-record 44.0 seconds and also was selected for the 4x400-meter relay team.
The Olympic Games in Mexico City were held at a high altitude. The thin air hindered the performance of the distance runners but aided sprinters, and numerous sprint world records were set. However, the most memorable event at these Olympic Games was the protest of 200-meter medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who raised black-gloved fists while on the podium during the American national anthem. Smith and Carlos were removed from the US team immediately afterward.
Evans also was a leader among athletes in the civil rights movement, but made his statement in a different way. He broke his world record in the Olympic 400-meter final with a time of 43.86 seconds to win the gold medal. He led an American sweep of the medals in that event with Larry James and Ron Freeman. As the three Americans took the podium, they wore black berets, a symbol of the Black Panther Party and the Black Power movement. They removed their berets during the anthem and waited until it concluded to raise their black-gloved fists. Later, Evans anchored the 4x400-meter relay team to another world record of 2:56.16. The 400-meter and 4x400-meter relay records stood for twenty years.
After the 1968 Olympics, Evans won the AAU 400-meter title and began preparing for the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. He did not make the US Olympic team in the 400 meters but was named a member of the 4x400-meter relay team once again. In Munich, however, Vincent Matthews and Wayne Collett were suspended from the team for a demonstration during a medal presentation and the United States was unable to field a relay team.
Trying to earn a living as a track-and-field athlete, Evans joined the International Track Association (ITA) after the 1972 season. However, the ITA went bankrupt after a few years and Evans never returned to his previous level of performance. After his graduation from San Jose State, he served as the university’s head cross country coach and assistant track coach before going abroad to coach. From 1975 to 1997 he led the national track-and-field programs in Nigeria, Cameroon, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Evans coached briefly at the University of Washington before becoming the head coach of cross country and track and field at the University of South Alabama.
In 2012 doctors diagnosed Evans with a brain tumor. He underwent surgery and was reported to have made a full recovery. In 2014 he drew controversy while working as a consultant in Lagos, Nigeria; allegedly he provided an athlete he was working with, who was a minor at the time, with a substance that led her to fail a doping test. The exact nature of the potential performance-enhancing drug (PED) involved and the level of Evans's involvement was unclear. Nevertheless, the Athletics Federation of Nigeria banned him from coaching for four years. He later returned to coaching high school track in Lagos and made a special appearance on Nigerian television in 2019.
Evans appeared in a 2018 NBC Sports documentary, 1968—A Mexico City Documentary, in which, among other things, he describes the fallout of his decision at the 1968 Olympics medal ceremony. He died on May 19, 2021, at the age of seventy-four. He had reportedly had a stroke and died in a Nigerian hospital. His fourth wife and six of his seven children outlived him.
Significance
Evans gave a record-setting performance at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics amid a climate of racial tension and unrest. The world records he achieved in the 400 meters and 4x400-meter relay gave him a forum he used to bring attention to the civil rights struggle raging in the United States. He was inducted into the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1983 and in 1989 was accepted into the Olympic Hall of Fame.
Bibliography
Bass, Amy. Not the Triumph but the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete. U of Minnesota P, 2002.
Hoffer, Richard. Something in the Air: American Passion and Defiance in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Free Press, 2009.
"Lee Evans." USA Track & Field, oldserver.usatf.org/HallOfFame/TF/showBio.asp?HOFIDs=50. Accessed 21 July 2021.
"Lee Evans, 1968 Olympic Champ Known for Same Black Power Salute as Teammates Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Banned from Coaching." NY Daily News, 1 Apr. 2014, www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/olympic-champ-lee-evans-banned-coaching-article-1.1741476. Accessed 22 Apr. 2016.
McFadden, Robert D. “Lee Evans, Olympic Runner Who Protested Racism, Dies at 74.” The New York Times, 19 May 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/sports/olympics/lee-evans-olympic-runner-who-protested-racism-dies-at-74.html. Accessed 21 July 2021.
Murphy, Frank. The Last Protest: Lee Evans in Mexico City.Windsprint Press, 2006.