With the Summer Games in Rio less than a month away, let’s take a look back at the XV Olympics that began in Helsinki, Finland on Jul. 19, 1952 and featured gold-medal performances from six different Texans. 

In the high jump held on opening day, Walter “Buddy” Davis of Texas A&M was the favorite despite his inexperience.  The Nederland product had gone to College Station on a basketball scholarship and lived up to high expectations by blossoming into a star.      A childhood victim of polio, who had not been able to walk for three years, Davis went out for track in 1951 “to escape spring basketball practice because we had a coach who was a demon for workouts.”  To everyone’s surprise, including his own, he proved that some high jumpers are born not made.

Within two years, Davis was threatening the world record of six feet 11 inches set in 1941.  He actually bettered the mark by half an inch at the Southwest Conference track meet in the spring of 1951 but had the incredible effort erased on a technicality.

The best on the planet were no match for the six-foot-eight Texan, who broke the Olympic record by jumping half an inch above his head.  He also earned a unique place in Olympic history by becoming the tallest athlete ever to win a gold medal in individual competition. 

Buddy Davis immediately announced his retirement from amateur sports.  With a wife and child and another baby on the way, he had bills to pay.  He played six seasons in the National Basketball Association mainly as backup to Wilt Chamberlain.    

The next native Texan to take gold was pole vaulter Robert E. “Bob” Richards, whose birthplace was the tiny community of Gordon, north of Stephenville.  Following in the footsteps of Earle Meadows, the 1936 Olympic champion from Fort Worth, the theology professor cleared the winning height of 4.56 meters (14.9 feet) on his third and last attempt.

A repeat gold medalist at Melbourne in 1956, Richards went on to become one of the best known athletes in America during the 1950s and 1960s.  Millions of kids ate breakfast every morning with the personable reverend, whose face was featured on a cereal box.   

Next came Malvin “Marvelous Mal” Whitfield, the greatest half miler of his day.  For six phenomenal years, the Bay City native dominated the half mile and its metric equivalent, the 800-meter race, winning 66 of 69 contests.

Whitfield burst upon the Olympic scene at London in 1948.  A Frenchman led in the finals of the 800, until the Texan took off like a rocket and pulled away from the pack.  He held off heavily favored Arthur Wint of Jamaica down the stretch to break the tape.

The 800 at Helsinki was a rematch of Whitfield and Wint.  They were third and first respectively with 250 meters to go, when the defending champion shifted into high gear and passed the challenger.  “Marvelous Mal” crossed the finish line with two yards to spare in exactly the same time he had run four years earlier.

Two years later, Malvin Whitfield was the first black awarded the Sullivan Award as the nation’s best amateur athlete.  Failing to qualify for his third Olympics in 1956, he withdrew from competition and spent several years in Africa teaching the finer points of running to eager young Kenyans and Ethiopians.

A speed demon from Graham collected the fourth gold medal for Texas by running the initial leg on the 4×100-meter relay.  First out of the starting blocks in the 100-meter dash, Dean Smith looked like a cinch for a second gold but finished 14 inches behind the winner in fourth place.

When his running days were over, the University of Texas track star earned his living as a Hollywood stuntman.  He appeared in hundreds of movies and television shows and as Robert Redford’s stunt double in three films.

The fifth gold medal for Texas came in a team sport.  Slaton’s Bill Lienhard, a college player at Kansas, was a member of the U.S. basketball squad that won every game in Helsinki by an average of 20 points.

The last gold medalist was the smallest of the six – little five-foot, four-inch Skippy Browning from Dallas.  A three-time state diving champion at Highland Park, he collected four consecutive NCAA trophies for the University of Texas.

At Helsinki, Brown left no doubt as to who was the best diver in the world.  When he was done, the Dallas Morning News reported “the spectators, including the Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, cheered wildly.”

Clutching the shining symbol of his supremacy, Skippy Browning said with a hint of sadness, “I’m glad I won it because I don’t think I’ll ever see another Olympics.”  In March 1956, while training for the Melbourne Games, he was killed in a plane crash. 

Here is a fascinating tidbit of trivia:  If the Lone Star State had still been an independent nation in 1952, the six gold medals won at Helsinki would have tied Texas with France, Finland and Australia for seventh place among the 69 countries!      

Bartee’s three books and “Best of This Week in Texas History” column collections are available for purchase at barteehaile.com.