Mark Maynard: The day Jesse Owens raced here: 9/24/09

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September 23, 2009

Anonymous The Daily Independent Wed Sep 23, 2009, 10:42 PM EDT

Plenty of local heroes played on the sacred ground that was Armco Field.

But one star who made headlines around the world made an appearance there, too.

Jesse Owens, the great sprinter of Olympic fame, came to Ashland as part of a barnstorming tour following his landmark triumphs in the 1936 Berlin Games, where he won four gold medals.

William “Barlow” Dawson was just a little fella back then, but he remembered the great Jesse Owens visiting his town.

“How that came to mind, I don’t know,” Dawson said. “But I did see him.”

Owens ran a 100-yard sprint up the football sideline by himself as a crowd cheered. Then he ran a 100-yard sprint backwards against an Ashland athlete — Dawson couldn’t remember the name — and won that race in a landslide.

“I’d never seen anybody run backwards that fast,” Dawson marveled. “I was right there in front of the grandstands.”

Owens, he said, was like a blur.

“Oh, man, he was fast. He was like watching a thoroughbred run,” Dawson said. “He moved out. It was something to see.”

Dawson, 83, said the recent stories about Armco Field have jostled his memory. He was at the game in 1932 when two boys were electrocuted on the guide line while watching a Tomcat football game.

“I was sitting in the bleachers on the other side and I was looking at the direction he fell,” Dawson said. “Everybody was so shocked. Then the other boy came down.”

One of the boys was killed when hitting the high-voltage guide line; the other injured, but survived.

Dawson was only 6 at the time but it left a deep impression on him. That same year he witnessed Erie, Pa.’s 19-13 victory over the Tomcats that snapped a six-year, 64-game (60-0-4) nonlosing streak.

He also watched the Tomcats of 1935, with quarterback T.J. Damron and Fred “Bad-Eye” Young, a team that went 9-0 and outscored opponents 367-2 in one of the most dominating seasons in Ashland history.

“Lots of good football was played on that field,” he said. “And when Ashland played, they might as well have shut down the town. Everybody went to the game.”

Dawson graduated from Ashland High School in 1944 and his class enjoyed a 65-year reunion last weekend at Bellefonte Country Club. There were 36 in attendance.

“Tom Wuerdeman said it might be the last (reunion) we have,” Dawson said. “But a lot of them were saying we’ll do it again in five years.

“I guess we’ll see what happens.”

Meanwhile, the history of Armco Field keeps coming back to life with its own revival.

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.

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