- - - - - - - - - .

STRATEGIES & SKILLS AT A GLANCE

Read to Comprehension
Strategy: Make Inferences and

Fi:ndOut Analyze

Skill: Evaluate Author's Purpose

Doctors said that
Vocabulary
Wilma Rudolph flinched, fluke, gaped, insult,

would never legendary, muttered, snickering

walk. How did Vocabulary Strategy

Context clues
she manage to

become the CONTENT-AREA VO CABULARY

Words related to W ilma Rudolph
world's fastest
(see glossary)
woman?
CONTENT STANDAR DS
Social Studies
. -
- - - - - - - - Culture

photo credits
Cover: Bettmann/CORBIS; 1-3: Bettmann/
CORBIS; 5: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images; 6: AP/
Wide World Photos; 7: Royalty-Free/CORBIS;
8: Royalty-Free/CORBIS; 9: AP/Wide World
Photos; 10, II: Bettmann/CORBIS; 12: AP/Wide
World P hotos; 13: Bob Daemmrich/The Image Word count: 930**
Works; 14: AP Photo/The Leaf-Chronicle, Greg
Williamson

8
The McGrawHill Companies

B Macmillan
U McGraw-Hill
Published by Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, of McGraw-Hill Education, a division of
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., Two Penn Plaza, New York, New York 10121.

Copyright Macmillan/McGraw-Hill. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retneval
system, without the prior written consent of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., including,
but not limited to, network storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.

Printed in the United States of America

7 8 9 004 10 09 08

**The total word count is based on words in the running text and headings only.
Numerals and words in captions, labels, diagrams, charts, and sidebars are not included.
Wilma Rudolph:
A True Winner
by Terre Lintner

Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . . . 2
Chapter 1 Wilma's Childhood . . . . . . . . . . 4
Chapter 2 Skeeter . . . ... . . . . . . . . . ..... . 6
Chapter 3 Tigerbelle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
.

Chapter 4 American Heroine . . . . . . . . . . 10

Chapter 5 Wilma's Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Glossary and Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Comprehension Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
 Introduction
Wilma Rudolph calmly walked to the
starting line. ({Wilma!, the crowd yelled. It
was 1960. She was running in the Olympics.

People were shouting Wilma's name

because she was fast. They didn't care that
she was African American or poor. Here
in Rome, Italy, Wilma was just another
athlete-a good one.
 Wilma Rudolph won three gold medals
at the 1960 Summer Olympics. That was
amazing. Getting there at all was even more
amazing. When Wilma was a child, her
doctors said she would never walk.

Wilma worked hard. If she failed at

something, she worked harder.

Being a top athlete was only one of her

goals. She also worked to help others. This
made her a true winner.

C: Wilma Rudolph
was the first
American woman
to win three
gold medals at the
Olympic Games.
 Chapter 1

Wilma's Childhood
Wilma Rudolph was born on June 23,
1940, in Tennessee. As a child Wilma was
often sick. She caught the measles and the
chicken pox. Her parents didn't have money
for a doctor. But Wilma was lucky. Her
family took goo d care of her.

When Wilma was four, she got a disease

called polio. Polio made thousands of people
sick. They suffered greatly. Some could no
longer walk. Wilma couldn't use her left leg
at all.

In the United States at that time,

segregation was the law. Black people could
not use the same hospitals as white people.
The closest hospital for African Americans
was far away from Wilma's house. Wilma
and her mother took the long bus ride there
every week for treatment.
Polio Vaccine
Today most babies get a polio vaccine,
a medicine that prevents polio. Polio was
virtually eliminated from the United States
by 1979.

One day the doctors said that Wilma

would never walk again. Her mother
flinched. She said that Wilma would walk.
Years later Wilma was asked about this. She
said, ((I decided to believe my mother."

Wilma worked hard doing exercises to

make her leg strong. Finally she could
walk with a brace on her leg. But she still
couldn't run and play. So she worked even
harder to make herself well.
 Chapter 2

Skeeter
By the time Wilma was 12 years old , she
no longer needed to wear the brace. Her leg
was strong again. She wouldn't have to hear
the muttering and snickering of children
making fun of her brace.

Now that she was able to run, Wilma ran

all the time. She raced everyone. The other
children gape d at her as she whizzed by. It
almost felt like an insult. She was so fast!

<:Once Wilma started

running, she never
stopped.
 Wilma joined the basketball team at
school. The coach called her "Skeeter." He
told her, "You're little, you're fast, and you
always get in my way."

Finally Wilma got to play. She was almost

six feet tall by this time. And she was fast.
In her first game, she scored 32 points. This
was no f luke. Wilma quickly became the
star player. She joined the track team too.
She easily won every race.

Then her team competed in a track meet

at Tuskegee University. Wilma lost every
race. She was shocked.
She thought she
was the best.
She went back
Words from a Winner
to training.
"Winning is great, sure,
but if you are really going
to do anything in life, the
secret is learning how to
lose. . . . If you can pick
yourself up after a crushing
defeat, and go on to win
again, you are going to be
champion one day."

Wilma Rudolph
 Chapter 3

Tigerbelle
Ed Temple, the coach of the Tennessee
State University girl 's track team, saw Wilma
run. He invited her to train with his track
team. The team was called the Tigerbelles.
At first Wilma's mother was worried about
Wilma leaving home. Then she realized that
this was Wilma's chance to go to college.
((If running is going to do that, then be the
best you can be," she told Wilma.

Wilma did well on the Tigerbelles. At

one meet Wilma ran in nine races and won
them all.

Wilma tried out for the

1956 Olympic team. She
was 16 years old. She made
the team. The games were
in Melbourne, Australia.
The people in Wilma's
hometown collected money
to help pay for her trip.
 At the 1956 Olympics, Wilma competed
in the 200-meter race. She lost that race.
But her team won a bronze medal in a
relay race.

o Wilma (second from left) and her teamma ose

with their bronze medals after placmg third in the
4 x 100 meter relay at the 1956 Olympic Games.

' bronze medal still isn't all that bad

for a high school kid from Tennessee."

-Wilma Rudolph
 Chapter 4

American Heroine
Four years later, Wilma was back. At the
1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy, Wilma's speed
was legendary. "Don't blink or you' ll miss
her!" people would say.

During the 100-meter race, the crowd

began screaming. Wilma looked behind her.
She was way ahead of everyone. She won
her first gold medal.

During the
200-meter race,
she told herself,
"Nobody can beat
me!" And she won
her second gold
medal.

C: Wilma was presented

with her first gold
medal on August 3,
1960.
0 Wilma was honored with a parade
in Nashville, Tennessee.

The relay race wasn't so easy. Wilma

almost dropped the baton. She saw
runners race ahead of her. With a great
burst of speed, Wilma caught up to the
other runners. Then she f lew past them
all. The crowd roared. Wilma had won her
third gold medal!

Her hometown had a huge celebration for

their Olympic heroine. They had a parade
and a banquet. But this celebration was
special for another reason. Blacks and whites
celebrated together.
 Chapter 5

Wilma's Legacy
After the Olympics, everybody wanted to
see Wilma race. But Wilma had reached one
dream. She turned to her next dream.

Wilma had learned many lessons in her

life. Now she wanted to help others. She
started the Wilma Rudolph Foundation in
1981. The foundation
gave free coaching to
boys and girls. It also
helped them work
toward getting
good grades.

0 Wilma wor'ed b
help others.

becomes first
Time Line
woman to win
three Olympic
gold medals
begins training with
the Tigerbelles and
contracts wins an Olympic retires from
polio bronze medal in the sports and
women's relay race graduates
in Australia from college
0 Wilma shared her experiences so that "... other
young women have a chance to reach their
dreams."

Wilma helped other women athletes. She

gave speeches. She told women to believe
in themselves. She knew it wasn't always
easy. Wilma herself had to rise above insult
and prejudice.
In 1994 Wilma Rudolph became very sick
with cancer. She died on November 12, 1994.

starts the Wilma

Rudolph Foundation dies on November 12

1981 1994
0 In 2004 the U.S. Postal Service issued a postage
stamp honoring Wilma Rudolph.

Wilma still inspires people today. Each

year, the Women's Sports Foundation gives
the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award to
a woman athlete who shows the kind of
strength Wilma did.

"Wilma Rudolph was truly

a lady of gold."
-James A. Hefner, President of Tennessee
State University. Wilma Rudolph graduated
from Tennessee State University in 1963.
Glossary
meet (MEET ) an athletic competition (page 7)

polio (POH-Iee-oh) a serious disease that affects the

muscles and often results in permanent disability
(page 4)

prejudice (PRE-juh-duhs) hatred or unfair treatment

of a particular group, such as members of a race
or religion (page 13)

relay race (REE-Iay RAYS) a race in which each

member of a team runs a part of the course and
passes a baton to the runner to start the next
part (page 9)

segregation (seg-ri-GAY-shun) the separation or

isolation of one racial group from another (page 4)

track (TRAK) usually called track and field; sports

that involve running and jumping (page 7)

Index
bronze medal, 9, 72
gold medal, 3, 70-77, 72
Olympics, 2-3, 8-72
Postage stamp, 74
Wilma Rudolph Courage Award, 74
Wilma Rudolph Foundation, 72, 73

15
 Compre ension Check
Summarize
Use an Author's Purpose

Map to record your ideas

Author s Purpo e
on why the author wrote

about Wilma Rudolph.

Then list clues that

support your ideas. Use the information on

the map to summarize the book.

Think and Compare

1. Reread Chapter 3. What lessons did Wilma
Rudolph learn as a Tigerbelle? (Evaluate
Author-'s Purpose)

2. What lesson can you learn from Wilma

Rudolph and the way she lived her life?

(Analyze)

3. Some people think that sports are more

important for boys than for girls. Do you

agree or disagree? Explain. (Evaluate)

16
 Be a Reporter
Pretend that you are a sports writer at

the 1960 Olympic Games. Describe what

it is like being at the track events and

watching Wilma Rudolph run. Use the

who, what, why, and how questions of

good reporting.

Report on the Sixties

about what life was like in the 1960s

when Wilma Rudolph was young. Ask older

family members and friends who remember

that time to tell you their experiences.

Write them down and share them with the

class.
Wilma Rudolph: A True Winner
When she was young, Wilma Rudolph just

wanted to walk. When she was older, she

wanted to run.

4.2 Week 1

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