Mar 27, 2014 - Sale 2342

Sale 2342 - Lot 589

Price Realized: $ 8,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
BETTER THAN OWENS BUT UNABLE TO GO TO BERLIN (SPORT--TRACK.) PEACOCK, EULACE. Personal Archive of this great African American Track and Field star. Consists of over 100 gold, silver and bronze medals contained in a large home-made case; correspondence, newspaper clippings, programs, and ephemera, his passport which he would have used to travel to Berlin for the 1936 Olympics; a few photographs, his 1932 and 1933 high school yearbooks, with copious photos and inscriptions. must be seen Vp, vd

Additional Details

Eulace Peacock (1914-1996), often referred to as "The Fastest Man on Earth" was an American track and field athlete of the 1930s. He was born in Dothan, Alabama, but his family moved to New Jersey where he was raised and attended school. He was not only Jesse Owens chief rival, but beat Owens five times in the trials running up to the Olympics. In 1935, Peacock was a sophomore at Temple University and Owens a sophomore at Ohio State. On May 25, in a 45-minute span during the Big Ten Conference championships in Columbus, Ohio, Owens broke five world records and equaled a sixth. Six weeks later, in the Amateur Athletic Union national championships in Lincoln, Neb., Peacock beat Owens in the 100-meter dash (10.2 seconds, wind aided) and the long jump (26-3 to Owens's 26-2 1/4). Arthur Daley, covering the meet for The New York Times, called Peacock's achievement ''one of the greatest double upsets in the history of track.'' Sadly, he injured his hamstring just before he was supposed to leave for Germany. Peacock won the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) outdoor pentathlon championship six times, in 1934, 1935, 1937, and from 1943 through 1945. After the War, Peacock retired from Track and Field, opened a liquor store, and occasionally coached local events. He is honored by several Sports organizations and was inducted into the National Field and Track Hall of Fame. In Tony Gentry's book "Jesse Owens," (1990) Peacock appears in a photograph with Owens on page 51: "Owens in July 1935 with his friend Eulace Peacock who went on to defeat Owens five times in the next 9 months. A hamstring injury prevented Peacock from making the 1936 U.S. team."