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EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region's history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.
Since the first modern Olympics in 1896, only 11 Americans have competed in both the Summer and Winter Olympics in different sports, one of whom was from Trumbull County.
A five-time Olympian (1964, '68, '72, '76, '80), William (Willie) D. Davenport won gold in the 110-meter hurdles in Mexico City (1968) and bronze in the same event in Montreal (1976). He also competed in this event in Tokyo (1964) and Munich (1972) and was a part of the four-man bobsled team in Lake Placid (1980). Besides being an Olympic champion, his legacy includes being one of the first two African Americans to compete for the U.S. at a Winter Olympics.
Born in Troy, Alabama, on June 8, 1943, Davenport was the oldest of seven children. He attended Hubbard High School in Trumbull County where he was a sprinter on the track team.
One day, he competed in the hurdles when the team's hurdler was sick, won the event, and went on to set a high school state record in the 120-meter hurdles during his senior year.
After high school, he served as an Army paratrooper and ran track while stationed in Mainz, Germany. After being discharged from the Army, he went to Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to study physical education.
While there, he won several national championships in the 110-meter hurdles and 60-yard hurdles and helped his team win the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship three years in a row.
He went on to be a national champion in the 60-yard hurdles five times (1966, 1967, 1969, 1970, and 1971). In 1969, he recorded seven indoor bests, swept every race of the indoor track and field circuit, and tied the 110-meter hurdles world record with a run of 13.2 seconds. For all this, he was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.
Besides being a champion hurdler, Davenport was a member of the top American four-man bobsled team that finished 12th at the Lake Placid Winter Olympic Games (1980). That makes him one of the few rare athletes to have competed in both the Summer and Winter Olympics. During the same games, he and another member of his sled, Jeff Gadley, were the first African American Olympic bobsledders in history.
Those 1980 Olympic Games were the first ones where American track and field athletes transitioned to be pushers in the bobsled event. Former bobsledder Al Hachigan approached Davenport to attempt bobsledding because of his speed and strength from hurdling. In an article in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Davenport was "asked if breaking the Winter Olympics racial barrier was important to him, [and he] said, 'It's what inspired me...there's a myth in this country that blacks can't make the Winter Olympics. Gadley and I proved you don't have to be rich or white to make it.'"
After retiring from athletics, Davenport joined the Louisiana Army Guard in 1981 and was a National Guard community relations officer for almost five years. He then coached the All-Army men's and women's track teams to four undefeated seasons from 1993 to 1996. He was chief of the National Guard Bureau's Office of Sports management for three years and was responsible for getting the Army to validate the National Guard's sports program so it could be funded. He also served on the National Fitness Leaders Association, the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, and the National Black College Alumni Association.
Honored as one of the United States' 100 Golden Olympians before the 1996 Centennial Olympics in Atlanta, he was also vice president of the U.S. Olympic Alumni Association until he passed away in 2002 from a heart attack at the age of 59.
Varner wrote this column on her last day as an Ohio History Service Corps member at the Trumbull County Historical Society. Good luck in your future endeavors, Emmy!