Edward Stanley Temple - 1927
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Tennessee State University, Tennessee
I. Biography
Ed Temple, a well known and highly respected man, who has served as head coach of Tennessee State University for 40 years, is known as a giant who has made giant shadows in the ever changing world of track and field. Destined to become a world famous coach, Temple has established and is the foundation which Women's Track & Field has been built upon and has set the major cornerstones for the "big boom" that we are all witnessing in track athletes today, all around the world.
The only child to the parents, Christopher and Ruth N. Temple, Edward Stanley, was born on September 20, 1927, in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. He was a young man that came from a Baptist family, went to church often and sometimes played the trumpet there also. He was an all state athlete in track and field, football, and basketball at John Harris High School in Pennsylvania and became his school's first black captain on both the track and field and basketball teams, thus starting his very exciting journey in the constantly moving world of sports.
It was fate and a bit of trickery that led Temple to Tennessee State University. After his high school graduation in 1946, Tom Harris, Temple's neighbor and also a coach at Tennessee State, persuaded Temple to attend the university by telling him that Leroy Craig would be attending also. Craig was Temple's rival and after hearing this, he turned down Pennsylvania State University because he thought that Tennessee State University must have been a good school if Craig was enrolling, and so he too enrolled. He later learned that Harris had misconceived Craig with the same story and both gullible athletes were coaxed to attend Tennessee State University. Declining Pennsylvania State University was not an easy task but nevertheless, Temple decided to stay at Tennessee State. A scholarship was not offered, so Temple was forced to compensate for his tuition with work-aid.
As a sprinter, Temple's personal marks came during his years at Tennessee State University when he ran 9.7 seconds in the 100-meter dash and 21.5 in the 220-meter dash. While training and running with the university, he pursued a degree in Health and Physical Education. During his junior year, he met his future bride, Charlie B, in a physiology class. There was a special effort to introduce himself to her because he believed she was his ticket to getting an A. Did he ever obtained the A grade that he was determined he would get? It is not known, but however, in July 1950, Temple happily married this beauty, who later gave birth to his two children, Lloyd Bernard and Edwina Temple.
Even though starting a family of his own, Temple did obtain his bachelors degree and continued his tertiary education at T.S.U, mastering in Health & Physical Education. While working toward this degree, shortly after graduation, in May 1953, he accepted the position as the assistant Women's Track and Field coach, and at the same time, held a job at the university's Post Office. Later on in that year, Temple became head coach and gave the team the name 'Tigerbelles', who in that same year had also won the women and girls' division of the National AAU Outdoor Championships.
II. International Recognition
The Tigerbelles began to dominate the track, winning national and international track meets under the coaching of Temple. Some of his team members included: Lucinda Williams, Wilma Rudolph, Isabelle Daniels, Mae Faggs, Barbara Jones, Margaret Matthews, Annie Lois Smith, Shirley Crowder, Joann Terry, Willye White, Vivian Brown, Edith McQuire, and Ernestine Pollard. These girls were the foundation of his team and the pride of his life. Temple's effort of perfection in his coaching aided these talented ladies tremendously. As a result, they were able to compete at and travel to international meets in Moscow, Russia, Warsaw, Poland, Budapest, Hungary and Athens, Greece making the team Tigerbelles and himself known and very popular in the world of sports.
To add to his accolades, Coach Temple was selected to serve as head coach for the Women's Track team for two consecutive Olympiads: Rome in 1960 and Tokyo, in 1964. In 1962, he served as a consultant to the USA Women's Coaching Staff and also, in 1980, was an assistant coach in the Olympic Games.
One of the most internationally recognized track and field coaches in the history of Tennessee sports, he served as head women's coach in 1958 and 1959 in a competition between the USA and the USSR; the 1959 and 1975 Pan-American Games; the 1970 European Tour of Germany, Russia and Romania; and the 1975 USA vs. China competition. In 1982 and 1986, he served as head coach of the USA Junior Team at the Pan American Junior Games; head coach of the USA National Junior Women's Track Team in the dual meet with Romania in Bucharest and head coach of the first ever World Junior Championships held in Athens, Greece, in 1986.
III. Current Work
Temple is presently an Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Science at Tennessee State University and is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, a 32nd degree Mason and a member of Clark Memorial Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. He may not have acquired victories himself on the track but like all the women he coached, he is no stranger to awards and hall of fame inductions.
IV. Awards and Honors
On May 10, 1971, he was commended most highly for outstanding coaching in the 1960 Olympics by the House of Representatives of the eighty-second General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, the Senate Concurring. In recognition of outstanding coaching in the Olympics in Rome, 1960, the Governor of Tennessee extended THANKS OF THE STATE (September 1960) to Ed Temple. He has been elected to The National Track and Field Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame and the Ohio Valley Conference Hall of Fame.
In Temple's forty-year career as a coach and mentor, he has obtained many more honors from different associations, states, fraternities, cities, and more. He has been respectably honored by the Agora Assembly, Philadelphia Cotillion Society, Varsity Club of Detroit, The State of Tennessee, Gulf Oil Corporation, Gamma Phi Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Nashville Banner, The Southeastern Amateur Athletic Union Association and a long list of other honors. He has also been presented with 'the key of the city' of Paducah, Kentucky, Hanford California, and Nashville Tennessee. His film, "The Sprinter," which was sponsored by the Coca-Cola Company of Detroit aided him and was instrumental in him being presented 'the key of the city' of Detroit and a Certificate of Appreciation. He has also earned the appreciation of the people of Detroit for his outstanding contributions to the development of the USA.
Although less known, Coach Temple is also a champion of educational accomplishments. Academic nurturing of students constituted a key element in his athletic program. About 90 percent of his Tigerbelles went to on to graduate from college. Many were inspired to obtain advanced degrees. As an Associate Professor of Sociology, Coach Temple extended similar encouragement to all students who came under his tutelage in the classroom.
A Pennsylvanian by birth and a Tennessean by choice, Temple has become a role model for many. Although he has not achieved much recognition for his individual writing, he has inspired many with his knowledge of craft. He has made an outstanding impact and contributions to women's track and field with a touch of his keen insight and great skills that shaped and molded these talents and brought fame and honor to the United States.
On December 17, 1993, Temple retired from Tennessee State University leaving a legacy of 43 years of unprecedented service to higher education, women's track and international sports. Since becoming head coach of the TSU Tigerbelles, he has amassed an array of championship titles and awards, including 23 Olympic medals, 34 National Team Titles and 30 Pan-American Games medals.
V. Literary Works
Only the Pure in Heart Survive is his book that addresses many aspects of Temple and the Tigerbelles. It is comprised of fifteen chapters entitling topics such as his life, how he met his wife, his coaching, the sacrifices and misfortunes that he and the Tigerbelles made and encountered due to the lack of funds to host and attend track meets. In this book he states "My very first track team consisted of about two girls and three boys and a $64.00 budget." He went on elaborating on issues such as the inequality of women and the limit put on athletic scholarships by the NCAA. Temple gives brief discussions on these issues and appears to be against these aspects of athletics and coaching. The book goes on to talk about training strategies and techniques that Coach Temple enforced; his attitude towards coaching, the disciplining of his athletes and the rivalries that occurred between athletes and the different sports in which they were involved.
Finally, the book addressed Temple's success as a coach, how he came to be such a dominant coach and exactly what it takes to make a good athlete or a 'Tigerbelle.'
VI. Other Works by Ed Temple
"Run Fast, Jump High"
Only the Pure in Heart Survive
"A Will to Win" (excerpts)
"The Sprinter" (movie)
VII. Bibliography
Lewis, Dwight, and Thomas, Susan, eds. A Will to Win. Nashville, Tennessee: Cumberland Press, 1983.
Carter, B'Lou, Temple, Edward S. Only the Pure in Heart Survive. 1980
Greenlee, Craig T. "Rekindling Wilma's legacy: TSU struggles to revive Olympic Tradition." Black Issues in Higher Education. Nashville, Tennessee: Expanded Academic ASAP, August 8, 1996. V13 n12 p18 (3)
Temple, Edward://Track Athletics Library of Congress Catalog Card #79-91-728
The American Heritage CONCISE dictionary. 3rd.ed., 1994
Metropolitan Times, (news article) June 1992.
The Tennessean (news article) May 2, 1989.
Special Collections. Brown-Daniels Library, 3rd floor.
Netscape Navigator – Internet
Amateur Athletic Union (AAU):
This essay was submitted by a student of Judith Broadbent atTennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee.