John Woodruff remembered
Almost a hundred people gathered at Falcon Stadium on Sunday afternoon to honor the memory of Connellsville's Olympic gold medalist John Woodruff.
Among those attending included two past Olympic gold medalists, a university chancellor, family members, public officials and friends.
The track star died Oct. 30. He was 92.
The memorial service at Falcon Stadium was Woodruff's personal request. It's near an oak tree that grew from a sapling that Woodruff brought home from the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
The South Connellsville native was 20 years old and a University of Pittsburgh student when he made his way across the ocean to compete in the Olympics in Germany.
"Raised here in Connellsville, John Woodruff left high school as a teen to try and find a job to help out at home, but he quickly returned to school when he could not find one," said Mark A. Nordenberg, chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. "He took up running and soon held school, county, district and state records."
After Woodruff set the country's best time for running a mile, a group of local businessmen helped put together a scholarship to get him into Pitt.
"He arrived on campus with just a quarter in his pocket and began to hit the books and the track," Nordenberg said.
At the Olympics, Woodruff ran the 800 meter in 1:52.9, claiming the gold medal. He was the first of five African Americans, including the legendary Jesse Owens, to win gold medals in Berlin.
"Despite the myth of Arian supremacy in athletics by the Nazis, that collective triumph will always live on as a victory for the forces of good," Nordenberg said.
State Sen. Richard Kasunic called those feats the first victories toward a free world for the countries who would ally themselves against Germany when World War II started a few years later.
"John Woodruff was a true hero and we should all take a page out of his life," Kasunic said. "If we did, this would certainly be a better, kinder, gentler world that we live in."
Nordenberg added that Woodruff's spirit will never die in Western Pennsylvania.
"His memory will live on our campus and his legacy will certainly live on from the memory of the oak tree that he brought back from Germany's Black Forest and planted here more than 70 years ago," he said.
Local author Ceane O'Hanlon Lincoln, who was asked a year before Woodruff's death to deliver the eulogy at his memorial service, said the oak tree planted in Connellsville is believed to be one of the few surviving trees from the saplings presented to participants in the 1936 Olympics.
"John Woodruff was the epitome of the great human spirit that came along in the right moment of time . . . to inspire hundreds of thousands of people worldwide," she said. "He was a winner and a warrior on the track and in life."
Herb Douglas and Roger Kingdom, both Woodruff proteges who won Olympic gold medals, spoke of their friend.
"Back then, there were no Jackie Robinsons or Michael Jordans," Douglas said. "People like Johnny Woodruff and Jesse Owens were our heroes."
Kingdom, who won gold medal in the hurdles competition in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, said Woodruff meant much to him.
"One of the things you never heard from him when he talked about his experiences was the negative," he said. "Because of that I set my goal to make the Olympic team and I just held on to that. And when a person has a goal and a mission, they're like a rock that's hard to move."
Woodruff's son John Y. Woodruff Jr. recalled how much his father loved his hometown.
"My father obviously loved this city, and I thank you for honoring a man who distinguished himself and whom I've often said was my hero," he said.
Woodruff's widow, Rose, was presented with proclamations from Kasunic, state Rep. Debra Kula, Fayette County Commissioner Angela Zimmerlink and U.S. Rep. William Shuster.
