Long before colleges began aggressively competing for athletic talent with generous scholarships and others lures, Ed Temple a had pretty simple plan for young ladies aspiring to run track: work hard to earn your tuition, stay focused on your studies to graduate and follow his demands on the field that you deliver your best, including always remember you are first a lady.
Temple’s plan as women’s track coach for Tennessee A & I State University, worked for some four decades, making him a legend worldwide among coaches and athletes.
It’s evidenced in part by the 40 Olympic medals won by women track athletes under his mentorship at Tennessee State (now Tennessee State University), dozens of national track honors awarded members of Tennessee State (TSU) Tigerbelles teams and, most recently, honors for him and his teams placed in the nation’s new Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture.
Temple, a track coach in three Olympic games while coaching at TSU, retired in 1993. Still active when called upon, however, he helped Smithsonian museum collectors earlier this year when he gave them several items from his personal collection of coaching career memorabilia.
At age 89, and slightly less active that in his coaching days, Temple did not attend this year’s Olympics in Brazil, sticking with a consistent post-retirement plan to never go back to the games. He was unable to join the thousands last weekend who had come to Washington from across the nation to join President Obama in celebrating the official opening of the massive museum where the achievements of his Tigerbelles are cited.
Temple died last Thursday in Nashville, according to his family, after a brief downturn in his health. No cause of death was cited.
“He knew how to treat people, was a hard worker and strict disciplinarian,” said Homer Wheaton, a colleague of Temple’s at Tennessee State since the early 1950s, summing up the things that help Temple achieve and stand out among his peers. Those words echoed the same thoughts voiced by many of his Tigerbelles over the years.
