Missing the Olympics? Relieve the pain by remembering these North Carolina greats

Missing the Olympics? Relieve the pain by remembering these North Carolina greats

Missing the Olympics? Relieve the pain by remembering these North Carolina greats, Instead of marking the opening of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, July 24 was just another Friday.

Japan Prime Minister Shizo Abe and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach announced their agreement to postpone the Olympics due to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 24. It is the first time the international sporting event has been rescheduled. The Games were outright canceled in 1916, 1940 and 1944 because of war.

Missing the Olympics? Relieve the pain by remembering these North Carolina greats

At the time of the postponement, there were around 390,000 coronavirus cases worldwide. There have now been over 15 million.

With the Opening Ceremony rescheduled for July 23, 2021, those who look forward to the Games might be missing their thrill. Although this list is not comprehensive, the best way to relive Olympics past is by reading about some of North Carolina’s many home-grown Olympians.

Harry Williamson, N.C.’s first Olympian

The year was 1936, and the 10th Summer Olympics were happening in Berlin. It was the first time the games were televised, and a female filmmaker named Leni Riefenstahl was commissioned to film the Games. Radio stations broadcasted the event in 41 countries.

German Chancellor Adolf Hitler had a new, 100,000-seat track and field stadium, now known as the Olympiastadion, built, along with other smaller gyms and venues. It was on that track that Williamson competed in the 800-meters race for the United States.

Williamson won both his round one heat and the semifinal — by a tenth of a second — to advance to the final. He finished in sixth place, two seconds behind the Bronze medalist, Phil Edwards, who Williamson had beat in the semis. The race lasted under two minutes.

North Carolina’s first Olympian was from High Point and attended the University of North Carolina, where he won multiple conference championships. He was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 1999, a year before his death.

Michael Jordan

Perhaps North Carolina’s most notable home-grown athlete, Jordan helped lead the U.S. men’s basketball team to gold medals in 1984 and 1992 following an impressive collegiate career at UNC.

Jordan’s performance as the team’s leading scorer in the 1984 Olympics, averaging 17.1 points per game, helped rocket the Wilmington native to the international level of fame he still holds today. The team beat Spain 97-65 in the final.

In 1992, Jordan started every game for the “Dream Team” and averaged 14.9 ppg, second-most to Charles Barkley’s 18. Also on the team was Christian Laettner, who played for Duke from 1988-92. The Dream Team won gold 117-85 over Croatia, its smallest point differential across the eight games.

Parts of Jordan’s two Olympics appearances are featured in the ESPN documentary The Last Dance. Jordan was inducted in the NCSHOF in 2010.

Leora “Sam” Jones

Jones was a three-time U.S. women’s handball Olympic team member, a sport of which she had no knowledge of nor experience with when she was asked to join the team.

A basketball player who averaged 16 points per game at East Carolina University, Jones decided to try out for the South handball squad at the National Sports Festival — now the U.S. Olympic Festival — being held at ECU in 1982. Two years later, she was in Los Angeles for the 1984 Olympics.

She scored 32 goals that year and returned to the Games in 1988 and 1992, after which she retired.

Jones was born in Mount Olive but moved to Raleigh after retiring. She was inducted in the NCSHOF in 2004.

Walt Bellamy

Bellamy was born in New Bern in 1939 and went on to play in the 1960 Rome Olympics at just 21 years old.

The U.S. men’s team that year, elected as a unit to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010, went 8-0. It beat Brazil 90-63 for the gold, the country’s fourth consecutive win and fifth total. The team was elected the the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1984.

In 1961, Bellamy was taken No. 1 in the NBA Draft by the Chicago Packers. He would go on to win Rookie of the Year in 1962, be a four-time NBA All-Star and play 14 seasons. Aside from his team HOF inductions, Bellamy is also in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and NCSHOF for his individual achievements.

He died in 2013 at the age of 74.

Kathy McMillan

McMillan’s first Olympic appearance was at the 1976 Games in Montreal, when she won a silver medal in the long jump with a leap of 6.66 meters.

She was set to return to the Olympics in 1980, but the Games, scheduled to take place in Moscow, were boycotted by several countries, including the U.S. Instead, the “Liberty Bell Classic” also known as the Olympic Boycott Games were held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and included athletes from 29 countries.

McMillan finished in first place with a jump of 6.65 meters. She also received one of 461 Congressional Gold Medals awarded to the athletes who boycotted the games.

A native of Raeford, McMillan was inducted into the NCSHOF in 1999.

Other Notables

Although they didn’t compete as athletes, both Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and UNC’s Roy Williams, who’s from Marion, coached the U.S men’s basketball team. Krzyzewski was head coach in 2008, 2012 and 2016, and all three years the team won gold. He had previously served as an assistant coach for the team in 1992. Williams was an assistant coach to Larry Brown in 2004 when the U.S. had a bronze-medal finish.

Kyrie Irving, who played at Duke but grew up in New Jersey, played for Krzyzewski in the 2016 Olympics. He led the team in assists per game with 4.9.

Other athletes to have played for U.S. men’s basketball include Tommy Burleson and Kenny Carr, both N.C. State alumni, Tate Armstrong, Grant Hill and Carlos Boozer, who all played for Duke, and J.R. Reid and Vince Carter, both Tar Heels.

Former N.C. State women’s basketball coach Kay Yow, a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, carried the Olympic Torch at the opening ceremony of the 1987 U.S. Olympic Festival, which took place in Raleigh. At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, she coached the U.S. women’s basketball team to a 77-70 win over Yugoslavia for the gold.

UNC has a number of alumni who are also Olympians, though most of them are not from North Carolina. Jim Beatty, the first person to run a sub-four-minute mile on an indoor track, graduated a Tar Heel in 1957. Three years later, he competed in the 1960 Olympics, but did not medal.

The women’s soccer program had eight of it’s members compete in the 1996 Olympics, including Mia Hamm and current Duke assistant coach Carla Overbeck. A handful went on to compete in one or two subsequent Games as well. There were also eight Tar Heels in the 2016 Olympics, three of whom — Crystal Dunn, Tobin Heath and Ashlyn Harris — would have been competing this year.