Harrison Dillard had a dream. It started when East Tech grad Jesse Owens returned home after shaming Hitler at the Berlin Olympics. There was a big hometown parade. A 13-year old Dillard was among the spectators:
Dillard: We stood at curbside and when this big car, open car, Jesse was sitting on the back with the white suit, I mean black suit, and white shirt and black tie. And he looked down and he winked and said, "Hi kids, how are you?" We thought this was the greatest thing in the world that our idol had actually spoken to us. And I remember running back home and I just about took the screen door off the hinges going into the kitchen saying, "Momma, momma, I just saw Jesse Owens. I'm going to be just like him."
He followed in Owens's footprints to East Tech high school where he became a state sprint champion. He almost attended Ohio State, just like his hero, but in a last-minute change of heart he enrolled at Baldwin-Wallace where his skills helped B-W win its first Ohio Conference track championship.
As his career blossomed, World War Two festered. Dillard enlisted in the Army Reserve and was called to active duty in the storied 92nd Infantry Division, an all-black unit known as the Buffalo Soldiers like their cavalry counterparts a century earlier. The Army was still a segregated place. Dillard and the men of the 92nd were the only black soldiers to see ground combat duty in the war. They earned medals, but not respect:
Dillard: "There was naturally and understandably a degree of resentment about that type of thing. I remember we used to talk about it when we were in the service. And in particular there was one fellow from Washington, D.C., said, "Oh boy, we fought, we did our duty for our country. Things are going to be better when we get home." Well, they weren't really better when you got home."
After the war, Dillard resumed his education and track career at B-W where he won national collegiate championships and tied world records. In 1948, the Olympics beckoned. Amazingly, he failed to qualify in his best event, the 110-meter hurdles.
Dillard: "Fortunately, the day before I had qualified in the 100-meters. I finished third, which was the final qualifying position. So I went to London in 1948, actually the number three American sprinter. And also was chosen to run on that 4x100-meter relay team, so I was in two Olympic events."
As he took to the track for the final, he was to run on a surface that was, in a way, a product of the war that had just ended:
Dillard: "Of course you know how London was bombed during World War II by the German Luftwaffe. And as a consequence they took some of that rubble and I guess mixed it with sand, dirt, and whatever. And they also, because it was red brick, it gave the track a red hue, or a red tint. And that's common today to see red tracks made out of the synthetic running surfaces. Back then it was bomb rubble."
Dillard led a race that was close from the start to the tape and won the first-ever Olympic photo finish. His team also took the four-by-100 relay. Four years later, he qualified for the 110-meter hurdles in Helsinki, brought home the gold in that event and again in the 4 by 100 relay.
Dillard is still the only person to win both the hurdles and the 100-meter dash at the Olympics. In an age of specialization, it's a record that might never be equalled.
TAG: Dillard, now 89, still lives in the Cleveland area. He's in London this week as the guest of the Omega company, maker of the timing device that confirmed his victory in 1948. You can see artifacts of his Olympic career in the sports archive at Baldwin Wallace University. And Dillard will be Dick Feagler's guest tomorrow night at 8:30 on WVIZ/PBS.