What If?

Eulace Peacock, far right, beating Jesse Owens, center, in 1935.

I'll spare you the details, but alternative history has been a mini-theme in my life for the last couple of days, so I was pleased to stumbled on this article in the NY Times Sports section (one has to read the whole paper) that isn't particularly profound, but reminds us of life's little twists and turns, chances lost and opportunities gained.

We all know about Jesse Owens and his dominance of Hitler's 1936 Olympic games.  (It is more than a little ironic that we are taught the story of Owens vs. Nazi theories of racial superiority, but never taught Owens vs. the reality of American racism.  Still, in the words of Mark McGuire, we're "not here to talk about the past.")

The point is that Owens had a rival that most of us have never heard of, named Eulace Peacock who, but for a torn hamstring, would have been on the same Olympic team as Owens. 

At one point, after Owens was defeated by Peacock in consecutive races, the former Olympic sprint champion Charles Paddock predicted that Peacock, of all American sprinters, was the only sure thing for a berth on the 1936 Olympic team and said he felt Owens was burned out. 

 Owens seemed to agree. After losing to Peacock five straight times beginning in July 1935, he said Peacock was the better sprinter. “It’s going to take a special man to beat Eulace Peacock,” he told one newspaper. “You see, I’ve already reached my peak. Peacock is just now reaching his. He’s a real athlete. I don’t know whether I can defeat him again.”

The reason for the newspaper article is a new PBS documentary about Jesse Owens by Laurens Grant, which I think is for the American Experience series, and which I presume has not yet been aired, but don't know.

Peacock, meanwhile, is a prime example of the “what if” moments of sports, and life.

What if Wally Pipp had never had a headache?

What if Portland had drafted Michael Jordan instead of Sam Bowie?

What if Eulace Peacock had not pulled his hamstring? Would the history of the Nazi Olympics have been reconfigured?

“As a filmmaker I’m astounded at how literally history is made in the span of a few seconds sometimes,” Grant said. “In just a split second history could turn left or right or up or down.”

As I said, it's not profound, but it's an interesting story I didn't know.