20 Facts About Tommie Smith

Tommie C Smith was born on June 6,1944 and is an American former track and field athlete and former wide receiver in the American Football League.

Tommie Smith was born on June 6,1944, in Clarksville, Texas, the seventh of twelve children born to Richard and Dora Smith.

Tommie Smith suffered from pneumonia as a child, but still grew to be an athletic youth.

Tommie Smith won the 440-yard dash in the 1963 CIF California State Meet.

Tommie Smith was voted Lemoore's "Most Valuable Athlete" in basketball, football, and track and field, and was voted vice president of his senior class.

Tommie Smith's achievements earned him a scholarship to San Jose State University.

That record for 200m was finally beaten by Tyson Gay on May 16,2010, just over 44 years later, though Tommie Smith still holds the record for the slightly longer 220-yard event.

Tommie Smith won the national collegiate 220-yard title in 1967 before adding the AAU furlong crown as well.

Tommie Smith traveled to Japan for the 1967 Summer Universiade and won the 200m gold medal.

Tommie Smith repeated as US 200m champion in 1968 and made the Olympic team.

At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico, Tommie Smith nursed an injured groin into the 200m final.

Carlos and Tommie Smith made headlines around the world by raising their black-gloved fists at the medal award ceremony.

Tommie Smith argued that the Nazi salute, being a national salute at the time, was acceptable in a competition of nations, while the athletes' salute was not of a nation and therefore unacceptable.

Tommie Smith, who had been drafted by the National Football League's Los Angeles Rams in the ninth round of the 1967 NFL Draft, signed to play for the American Football League's Cincinnati Bengals and was part of the team's taxi squad for most of three seasons as a wide receiver.

In 1996, Tommie Smith was inducted into the California Black Sports Hall of Fame, and in 1999 he received that organization's Sportsman of the Millennium Award.

Tommie Smith later became a track coach at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he taught sociology and until 2005 was a faculty member teaching physical education at Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California.

In 2010, Tommie Smith put his gold medal and spikes up for auction.

Tommie Smith first married Jimi Denise Paschal from 1967 to 1973, with whom he had one child.

Tommie Smith then married Denise M "Akiba" Kyle in 1977, with whom he had four children.

Tommie Smith is featured in the 1999 HBO documentary Fists of Freedom: The Story of the '68 Summer Games.