By Woodrow Carroll
Occasionally, when surfing the web, one comes across an interesting bit of reading.
One interesting article was on Olympic Games athletes who died before their time. All too often it was a war or military conflict that brought about death. The individuals were in the modern Olympic Games,. The modern Olympic Games started with the 1896 Olympiad in Athens, Greece.
We came to know in greater detail of the tragedies that befell this group.
One prominent Olympic figure who didn’t survive World War II after making a name for himself in 1936 was Foy Draper. Draper although not an unknown, was overshadowed by some of his illustrious teammates.
As a member of the United States track and field team, Draper was a part of the U.S. 400 meter-relay team in Berlin. When the 400-meter-relay finals took place, many prominent fans were in the stadium. Most famous, or infamous, was Adolph Hitler, Germany’s leader who wanted the Olympic Games held in Berlin in 1936 and who started World War II.
All four U.S. members of the 400 meter-relay team in 1936 were known by the time U.S. delegation arrived in Germany.
Leading off for the U.S. was Jesse Owens, the world’s faster sprinter. Ralph Metcalfe, a holdover from the 1932 Olympics held in Los Angeles, was there to take the baton exchange from Owens was little or no cessation in team speed.
The third man on the U.S. 400-meter relay quartet that day was in all likelihood the least known of the group.
So, let us meet Foy Draper!
Texas-born Foy Draper was a stocky 5-5 who didn’t look like a sprinter. Not when you first saw him! But, Draper had that initial burst of speed so near and dear to any track coach putting together a relay team. Draper also had another quality that made him a coaches’ favorite, he never mishandled the baton pass.
The man Draper handed off the baton to for the final leg of the relay was experienced Frank Wykoff. The 1936 Berlin Olympics was the third Olympiad for Wykoff. In the 1928 Olympics that took place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Wykoff first came to the public’s attention as a member of the U.S. 400-meter-relay team. All Wykoff and company did was tie an Olympic record in winning the Gold Medal in 1928.
It was more of the same for Wykoff in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Wykoff anchored the final leg of the 400-meter-relay. Another record-setting Gold Medal was the prospect for the U.S. given what Wykoff already had done when the Berlin Olympic Games rolled around. Suffice to say that the only hope for the opposing relay teams that was a bad U.S. baton pass or disqualification. And, that didn’t happen because the U.S. set another world record in victory.
By the time the Berlin Olympics had run its course, too many observers were well aware of the coming conflict that was settling over the planet as World War II.. The 1936 Olympiad was the Games for 12 years until World War II ran its course. Not until 1948 when London played host to the Olympic Games, did the quadrennial event return.
Jesse Owens, a winner in the 100-meter race, the 200-meter event, the long jump, as well doing his part in the 400-meter-relay was the talk of 1936 Olympic Games and returned to the U.S. a national hero.
It was politics where Metcalfe later found a niche because he served four terms in Congress representing Chicago.
Frank Wykoff ended up a teacher and administrator in the Los Angeles School System. Wykoff passed away in 1980.
Not every Olympic Games athlete lived a long life. Foy Draper, flying a World War II bomber in Tunisia for the U.S. crashed in 1943 and, sadly, his remains were never found.