August 11 a Trailblazing Day for Alabama Athletes That Needs to be Recognized
You probably didn't know it, but August 11 is one of the most important anniversaries for the University of Alabama athletic department.
It stems from a glorious event in Los Angeles, not too far from where the Crimson Tide won its first national championship in football, and included a number of historic firsts in the resplendent sports palace that called itself "The Greatest Stadium in the World," the Coliseum.
Lillie Leatherwood was going first that day in 1984, but running in lane eight, which put her at a disadvantage because she couldn't see any of her competition. It didn't matter, though, as the world watched her quickly pull away at the start and along with her teammates make history.
This was the first time the United States women won the 4x400 relay, an event it now dominates at the Olympics. Along with Sherri Howard, Valerie Brisco-Hooks and Chandra Cheeseborough, it was still considered the favorite, but as everyone knows that may not mean much in such high-pressure situations.
In this case it did at the Games of the XXIII Olympiad. The U.S. dominated its semifinal heat, when Diane Dixon and Denean Howard filled in and contributed to the easy win. For the finals, the team won the gold medal in an Olympic record time of 3:18.29, nearly three seconds (and 30 meters) better than the Canadian team that took silver.
If you saw the latest edition of the 4x400 last week, when Sydney McLaughlin, Allyson Felix, Dalilah Muhammad and Athing Mu absolutely destroyed the field in Tokyo, it looked a lot like that. This latest version of Team USA ran it 3:16.85, and won by more than four seconds.
Even though Leatherwood's group didn't have some of the same advantages all those years ago, and certainly not the same training, it still would have been good enough to win the silver this year. That's not too bad for someone who had only been running competitively for a couple of years, and ended up having a successful career as a police officer.
Not only was she the first female Crimson Tide athlete to win an Olympic gold medal, Leatherwood was recently enshrined into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
"Whoever thought it would lead to all of this ..." she repeatedly said at the induction ceremony in May.
Leatherwood's Remarkable Journey
To fully understand how Leatherwood became such a trailblazer and how remarkable her accomplishments have been, one first has to realize that none of this was planned or expected.
Growing up in Ralph, Alabama, a small community in the southwestern part of Tuscaloosa County, she didn't come from an athletic-oriented family. None of her five brothers played sports. Neither did her older sister, until one fateful day.
When the sibling joined the track team at Tuscaloosa County High School, Leatherwood decided to do so as well. She was a junior at the time.
"A lot of people don't know that," Leatherwood said. "It was a spur of the moment kind of thing."
Obviously, she was good, a natural if you will. Alabama noticed and offered a scholarship, one that it still honored after she suffered a hamstring injury her senior year, and tried to run with.
"Thank goodness," Leatherwood quipped.
It was with the Crimson Tide that her career literally took off. She won the NCAA indoor titles in the 400 in 1985-86, and the outdoor championships in 1986-87, plus was a runner-up in the outdoor 200 in 1987.
That final collegiate season she was also named SEC Female Athlete of the Year, the second woman from Alabama to earn the still-new honor that had only been around since 1984, joining gymnast Penney Hauschild in 1985.
But before all that was the glare of L.A., where the U.S. team desperately wanted to put on an impressive show. Even through Leatherwood was still relatively unknown her times qualified her to compete at the U.S. Olympic Trials. She was 19, and had never left Alabama before.
Eventually, track would take her around the world, to places like Australia, France, Japan and Russia.
"You name it, I've probably gone there," Leatherwood said.
She was the U.S. champion in the 400 in 1985, 1988, and 1991, and won two medals at the world championships, with a silver in 1991 and a bronze in 1987. Leatherwood also won a bronze medal in the 1985 World Cup and a silver medal in the 1991 World Indoors Championships.
She even returned to the Olympics, the 1988 Summer Games, and earned a silver medal in the 4x400 relay in Seoul, Korea.
Nothing topped that first medal, though, at least in terms of her track career; standing on the podium and "hearing that National Anthem played."
Then followed the other things that would define her. Leatherwood married Olympian Emmit King, and she considers her 18-year-old son, who is set to go to Alabama on a scholarship and major in nursing, her biggest accomplishment.
Then there's her career on the Tuscaloosa police force.
"We were tickled to death that Lillie wanted to be a police officer," former police chief Ken Swindle said. "What a role model she would be.
"And she was, throughout her career."
More Than Just A PAL
With a degree in social work, Leatherwood had hoped to do something with children in her hometown community, but also had an interest in maybe becoming an officer.
The answer turned out to be The Tuscaloosa Police Athletic League.
Although the PAL offers everything from educational activities to cultural trips, it strives to help kids in nearly any way imaginable. However, sports are at its core, while serving as a juvenile crime prevention program designed to put officers and at-risk youth together in a positive environment.
There are only four successful PAL programs in the state of Alabama, affiliated with the National Association of Police Athletic/Activities Leagues, Inc. On average, it serves over 200 children with special after-school programs.
The first year that the program was in place, the crime rate in the neighborhood dropped 25 percent.
"What a wonderful way to tie it all together," said Leatherwood, who was an easy fit for the program.
Make no mistake, Leatherwood was a police officer first and foremost. She officially joined in 1993, went through the academy, earned the uniform and worked a patrol.
But when she pulls out her medals and tells the kids her story, it can go a long way.
"Showing kids what I've accomplished ... it's different when you read it in a book," Leatherwood said. "Talking to children, something they can touch, it's right there, from their hometown."
In 1995, Leatherwood was assigned to PAL, and in 2013 became the program's director, a role she fulfilled until retiring on January 1 of this year.
"She's very outgoing," said Swindle, who served on the Tuscaloosa Police Department for 34 years and was Chief of Police for 20 years before retiring in 2008 (he's now the chief investigator for the Prince, Glover and Hayes law firm). "Lillie doesn't meet any strangers, she's a friend to everybody. She loves kids. She loves people.
"She's a competitor. She likes being out front and doing things for other people. She's just a superb person.
"Did just an outstanding job with PAL and the kids," Swindle added.
One of Many Firsts
By any standard, Leatherwood's medals stand out in Crimson Tide history, and not just because she was the first woman to win one.
Overall, there have been approximately 40 Crimson Tide athletes who have won any sort of Olympic medal — gold, silver or bronze. The list only goes back to Jan Johnson at the 1972 Games in Munich, Germany, where he won the bronze in the pole vault.
Of them, you're talking about only 10 others who have won gold.
The first was Mark Tonelli, swimming in the 400-meter medley relay for Australia in 1980.
The Crimson Tide's Olympic medal kings are swimmer Jon Olsen, who won three for the U.S. at the 1992 games (gold, 400m freestyle relay; gold 400m medley relay; bronze 800m freestyle relay), and track's Kirani James. Grenada's first and only Olympic medalist has one of each in the 400 (gold 2012, silver 2016 and bronze 2021).
To put it further into perspective, the Crimson Tide had 22 past and present athletes competing in seven different sports in Tokyo, representing 13 countries including seven for the United States.
Only one won gold: Remona Burchell was on Jamaica's 4x100m relay for the qualifying round. Among the Crimson Tide's most notable silver-medal winners included Rhyan White as part of Team USA's 400m medley relay in swimming, pitcher David Robertson in baseball, and softball standout Haylie McCleney.
Thus, the entire list of Crimson Tide women who have won a gold medal:
- Pauline Davis, track and field, Bahamas, (200m and 400m relay in 2000)
- Kelly Kretschman, softball, USA (2004)
- Leatherwood
- Burchell
Similarly, Leatherwood's also in rare company with the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. There have been more than 300 inductees over the years, featuring an amazing collection of prominent athletes and coaches including Jesse Owens, Hank Aaron, Joe Louis, Willie Mays, Carl Lewis, Don Hutson and Paul "Bear" Bryant.
She was just the 18th woman to be inducted.
The rest of her class had Willie Anderson, Hal Baird, Cliff Ellis, Steve Hudson, George Teague, Ben Wallace and Demarcus Ware.
Obviously, there will be more women enshrined, and probably soon as competitive women's athletics have grown dramatically during Leatherwood's lifetime.
Leah Rawls Atkins, who became the state's first water skiing world champion, was the first woman inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1976. When Crimson Tide gymnastics coach Sarah Patterson was inducted "Where Heroes Live Forever" in 2003, she was the sixth woman overall and first coach.
Patterson's program won six national titles, while the Crimson Tide has also won NCAA crowns in women's golf and softball. Some of those contributors are certain to be under consideration for enshrinement soon, if not already.
Nevertheless, the Crimson Tide's female contingency in the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame is Leatherwood, Patterson and golfer Martha Jones Lang in 2016.
That's why August 11 is a date that needs to be especially remembered, enjoyed and celebrated by the Crimson Tide community.
"It's all been a dream come true for me," Leatherwood said.
