18 Facts About Earlene Brown

Earlene Brown was an American athlete notable for her careers in track and field and roller games.

Earlene Brown competed at the 1956,1960 and 1964 Olympics in the shot put and discus throw and won a bronze medal in the shot put in 1960; she finished fourth in the discus in 1956.

Earlene Brown's parents separated in 1938 and she followed her mother who joined the second Great Migration of Southern African-Americans to California and moved to Los Angeles.

Earlene Brown began her participation in track and field activities as a member of LAPD Deputy Auxiliary Police after it was introduced on September 9,1943, by Mayor Fletcher Bowron.

Earlene Brown competed and excelled in the basketball throw, which led up to the shot put.

Earlene Brown joined the Amateur Athletic Union at 21 in 1956, by which time she was already married to Henry Earlene Brown, a bricklayer, and had a baby boy, Reginald, born November 14,1955.

From 1959 on, Earlene Brown was associated with the Tennessee State University "Tigerbelles", whose coach Ed Temple was the head coach of the US Olympic Women's Track and Field Team.

At the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Earlene Brown won the bronze medal in the women's shot put.

In July 1964, Earlene Brown hosted her Russian shot-put counterparts, Galina Zybina, Tamara Press, and Yevgenia Kuznetsova, for an unsanctioned tour of Los Angeles, although she could not speak Russian.

One stop they made was Sportsman's Bowlorama, a bowling alley where Earlene Brown was known to bet in winner-take-all bowling matches called "pot bowling", where she introduced the Russian athletes to the American sport.

Earlene Brown died aged 47, on May 1,1983, in Compton, California.

Earlene Brown was the first American woman to medal in the shot put, one of the only two United States women to place at Rome and the only shot-putter to compete in three consecutive Olympics.

Earlene Brown was the only American woman to win a medal in the shot put until Michelle Carter won gold at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.

Earlene Brown has been described by Nathan Aaseng as "the most unheralded US athlete of all time".

Earlene Brown finished in the top ten in the shot put and discus in the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, setting American records in both events.

Earlene Brown was an eight-time and three-time national champion in the shot put and discus, respectively.

On December 1,2005, Earlene Brown was posthumously inducted in the National Track and Field Hall of Fame by the USA Track and Field during the Jesse Owens Awards and Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony held in Jacksonville, Florida.

Earlene Brown began her skating career with Roller Games' Texas Outlaws and New York Bombers.