I'd noticed him watching me for a year or so, especially when we'd play games where there was running or jumping.

Well, I couldn't play an instrument. I'd just stand up front and announce the numbers. They had me sing a little, but that was a horrible mistake. I can't carry a tune in a bucket. We played black theaters and nightclubs all over hell. One-nighters. Apollo Theater in Harlem and the Earle Theater in Philly - That was big time for blacks.

We must respect the rights and properties of our fellowman. And then learn to play the game of life, as well as the game of athletics, according to the rules of society. If you can take that and put it into practice in the community in which you live, then, to me you have won the greatest championship.

I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.

It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards.

After I came home from the 1936 Olympics with my four medals, it became increasingly apparent that everyone was going to slap me on the back, want to shake my hand or have me up to their suite. But no one was going to offer me a job.

It dawned on me with blinding brightness. I realized: I had jumped into another rare kind of stratosphere - one that only a handful of people in every generation are lucky enough to know.