Jesse Owens Completes The Quadruple-Double

Many star athletes have won four individual titles in their career at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, but only one has done so at the same meet: Jesse Owens.

Here’s the kicker: Owens didn’t just do it once. He did so twice in back-to-back years.

On this day in 1936, Owens duplicated his four-title performance from the previous year. And just like he did in 1935, Owens won all four on the same day.

The United Press called Owens winning the 100 meters, 200 meters, 200-yard low hurdles and the long jump “a grand slam,” and noted that he won the field event with “plenty to spare.”

In addition to those NCAA titles, Owens held world records in four events from the previous year when he had his unbelievable “Day of Days,” when he set them in a span of 45 minutes at the 1935 Big Ten Championships. But one world record was missing from Owens’ collection. That would be the 100 meters, since the NCAA only contested the 100-yard version at its meet.

That wouldn’t be the case at the 1936 NCAA Championships, as it was also an Olympic year. The NCAA held all Olympic events at their metric distances and Owens left nothing to chance.

After winning the long jump, Owens blistered the track inside Chicago’s Amos Alonzo Stagg Field to the tune of 10.2 for 100 meters. It was the first legal 10.2 the world had ever seen and no one would run faster for another 20 years. Owens then added victories in the 200 (21.3) and 220-yard low hurdles (23.1) to complete the quadruple-double.

Owens’ career, of course, became legendary after the 1936 Olympics in Berlin when he won four gold medals. He later became the first athlete to receive both the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1976) and Congressional Gold Medal (1988), the latter posthumously after his 1980 death.