The Most Famous

ATHLETES from United States

This page contains a list of the greatest American Athletes. The pantheon dataset contains 6,025 Athletes, 645 of which were born in United States. This makes United States the birth place of the most number of Athletes.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary American Athletes of all time. This list of famous American Athletes is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of American Athletes.

1. Jesse Owens (1913 - 1980)

With an HPI of 70.20, Jesse Owens is the most famous American Athlete. His biography has been translated into 83 different languages on wikipedia.

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games. Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifetime as "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history". He set three world records and tied another, all in less than an hour, at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a feat that has never been equaled and has been called "the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport". He achieved international fame at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, by winning four gold medals: 100 meters, long jump, 200 meters, and 4 × 100-meter relay. He was the most successful athlete at the Games and, as a black American man, was credited with "single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy". The Jesse Owens Award is USA Track & Field's highest accolade for the year's best track and field athlete. Owens was ranked by ESPN as the sixth-greatest North American athlete of the 20th century and the highest-ranked in his sport. In 1999, he was on the six-man short-list for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Century. Jesse Owens, originally known as J.C., was the youngest of ten children (three girls and seven boys) born to Henry Cleveland Owens [1881-1942] (a sharecropper) and Mary Emma Fitzgerald in Oakville, Alabama, on September 12, 1913. He was the grandson of a slave. At the age of nine, he and his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio for better opportunities as part of the Great Migration (1910–40) when 1.6 million African Americans left the segregated and rural South for the urban and industrial North. When his new teacher asked his name to enter in her roll book, he said "J.C.", but because of his strong Southern accent, she thought he said "Jesse". The name stuck, and he was known as Jesse Owens for the rest of his life. As a youth, Owens took different menial jobs in his spare time: he delivered groceries, loaded freight cars, and worked in a shoe repair shop while his father and older brother worked at a steel mill. During this period, Owens realized that he had a passion for running. Throughout his life, Owens attributed the success of his athletic career to the encouragement of Charles Riley, his junior high school track coach at Fairmount Junior High School. Since Owens worked after school, Riley allowed him to practice before school instead. Owens and Minnie Ruth Solomon (1915–2001) met at Fairmont Junior High School in Cleveland when he was 15 and she was 13. They dated steadily through high school. Ruth gave birth to their first daughter Gloria in 1932. They married on July 5, 1935, and had two more daughters together: Marlene, born in 1937, and Beverly, born in 1940. They remained married until his death in 1980. Owens first came to national attention when he was a student of East Technical High School in Cleveland; he equaled the world record of 9.4 seconds in the 100 yards (91 m) dash and long-jumped 24 feet 9+1⁄2 inches (7.56 m) at the 1933 National High School Championship in Chicago. Owens attended the Ohio State University after his father found employment, which ensured that the family could be supported. Affectionately known as the "Buckeye Bullet" and under the coaching of Larry Snyder, Owens won a record eight individual NCAA championships, four each in 1935 and 1936. (The record of four gold medals at the NCAA was equaled only by Xavier Carter in 2006, although his many titles also included relay medals). Though Owens enjoyed athletic success, he had to live off campus with other African-American athletes. When he traveled with the team, Owens was restricted to ordering carry-out or eating at "blacks-only" restaurants. Similarly, he had to stay at "blacks-only" hotels. Owens did not receive a scholarship for his efforts, so he continued to work part-time jobs to pay for school. May 25, 1935, is remembered as the day when Jesse Owens established four world records in athletics. On that day, Owens achieved track and field immortality in a span of 45 minutes during the Big Ten meet at Ferry Field in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he set three world records and tied a fourth. He equaled the world record for the 100-yard dash (9.4 seconds) (not to be confused with the 100-meter dash), and set world records in the long jump (26 feet 8+1⁄4 inches or 8.13 metres, a world record that would last for 25 years); 220 yards (201.2 m) sprint (20.3 seconds); and 220-yard low hurdles (22.6 seconds, becoming the first to break 23 seconds). Both 220-yard records may also have beaten the metric records for 200 meters (flat and hurdles), which would count as two additional world records from the same performances. In 2005, University of Central Florida professor of sports history Richard C. Crepeau chose these wins on one day as the most impressive athletic achievement since 1850. On December 4, 1935, NAACP Secretary Walter Francis White wrote a letter to Owens, but never sent it. He was trying to dissuade Owens from taking part in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Nazi Germany, arguing that an African American should not promote a racist regime after what his race had suffered at the hands of racists in his own country. In the months prior to the Games, a movement gained momentum in favor of a boycott. Owens was convinced by the NAACP to declare: "If there are minorities in Germany who are being discriminated against, the United States should withdraw from the 1936 Olympics". Yet he and others eventually took part after Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee branded them "un-American agitators". In 1936, Owens and his United States teammates sailed on the SS Manhattan and arrived in Germany to compete at the Summer Olympics in Berlin. Just before the competitions, founder of Adidas athletic shoe company Adi Dassler visited Owens in the Olympic village and persuaded Owens to wear Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik shoes; this was the first sponsorship for a male African American athlete. On August 3, Owens won the 100 m dash with a time of 10.3 seconds, defeating a teammate and a college friend Ralph Metcalfe by a tenth of a second and defeating Tinus Osendarp of the Netherlands by two-tenths of a second. On August 4, he won the long jump with a leap of 8.06 metres (26 ft 5 in) (3¼ inches short of his own world record). He initially credited this achievement to the technical advice that he received from Luz Long, the German competitor whom he defeated, but later admitted that this was not true, as he and Long did not meet until after the competition was over. On August 5, he won the 200 m sprint with a time of 20.7 seconds, defeating teammate Mack Robinson (the older brother of Jackie Robinson). On August 9, Owens won his fourth gold medal in the 4 × 100 m sprint relay when head coach Lawson Robertson replaced Jewish-American sprinters Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller with Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, who teamed with Frank Wykoff and Foy Draper to set a world record of 39.8 seconds in the event. Owens had initially protested the last-minute switch, but assistant coach Dean Cromwell said to him, "You'll do as you are told." Owens' record-breaking performance of four gold medals was not equaled until Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same events at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Owens had set the world record in the long jump with a leap of 8.13 m (26 ft 8 in) in 1935, the year before the Berlin Olympics, and this record stood for 25 years until it was broken in 1960 by countryman Ralph Boston. Coincidentally, Owens was a spectator at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome when Boston took the gold medal in the long jump. The long-jump victory is documented, along with many other 1936 events, in the 1938 film Olympia by Leni Riefenstahl. On August 1, 1936, Nazi Germany's leader Adolf Hitler shook hands with the German victors only and then left the stadium. International Olympic Committee president Henri de Baillet-Latour insisted that Hitler greet every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal presentations. Owens first competed on Day 2 (August 2), running in the first (10:30 a.m.) and second (3:00 p.m.) qualifying rounds for the 100 meters final; he equaled the Olympic and world record in the first race and broke them in the second race, but the new time was not recognized, because it was wind-assisted. Later the same day, Owens' African-American team-mate Cornelius Johnson won gold in the high jump final (which began at 5:00 p.m.) with a new Olympic record of 2.03 meters. Hitler did not publicly congratulate any of the medal winners this time; even so, the communist New York City newspaper the Daily Worker claimed Hitler received all the track winners except Johnson and left the stadium as a "deliberate snub" after watching Johnson's winning jump. Hitler was subsequently accused of failing to acknowledge Owens (who won gold medals on August 3, 4 (two), and 9) or shake his hand. Owens responded to these claims at the time: Hitler had a certain time to come to the stadium and a certain time to leave. It happened he had to leave before the victory ceremony after the 100 meters [race began at 5:45 p.m.]. But before he left I was on my way to a broadcast and passed near his box. He waved at me and I waved back. I think it was bad taste to criticize the "man of the hour" in another country. In an article dated August 4, 1936, the African-American newspaper editor Robert L. Vann describes witnessing Hitler "salute" Owens for having won gold in the 100m sprint (August 3): And then;... wonder of wonders;... I saw Herr Adolph [sic] Hitler, salute this lad. I looked on with a heart which beat proudly as the lad who was crowned king of the 100 meters event, get an ovation the like of which I have never heard before. I saw Jesse Owens greeted by the Grand Chancellor of this country as a brilliant sun peeped out through the clouds. I saw a vast crowd of some 85,000 or 90,000 people stand up and cheer him to the echo. In 2014, Eric Brown, British fighter pilot and test pilot, aged 17 in 1936 and later becoming the Fleet Air Arm's most decorated pilot, stated in a BBC documentary: "I actually witnessed Hitler shaking hands with Jesse Owens and congratulating him on what he had achieved". Additionally, an article in The Baltimore Sun in August 1936 reported that Hitler sent Owens a commemorative inscribed cabinet photograph of himself. Later, on October 15, 1936, Owens repeated this claim when he addressed an audience of African Americans at a Republican rally in Kansas City, remarking: "Hitler didn't snub me‍— it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram." Owens' success at the games caused consternation for Hitler, who was using them to show the world a resurgent Nazi Germany. He and other government officials had hoped that German athletes would dominate the games. Nazi minister Albert Speer wrote that Hitler "was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games." In Germany, Owens had been allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, at a time when African Americans in many parts of the United States had to stay in segregated hotels that accommodated only blacks. When Owens returned to the United States, he was greeted in New York City by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. During a Manhattan ticker-tape parade in his honor along Broadway's Canyon of Heroes, someone handed Owens a paper bag. Owens paid it little mind until the parade concluded. When he opened it up, he found that the bag contained $10,000 in cash (equivalent to $220,000 in 2023). Owens' wife Ruth later said: "And he [Owens] didn't know who was good enough to do a thing like that. And with all the excitement around, he didn't pick it up right away. He didn't pick it up until he got ready to get out of the car". After the parade, Owens was not permitted to enter through the main doors of the Waldorf Astoria New York and instead forced to travel up to the reception honoring him in a freight elevator. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) never invited Jesse Owens to the White House following his triumphs at the Olympic Games. When the Democrats bid for his support, Owens rejected those overtures: as a staunch Republican, he endorsed Alf Landon, Roosevelt's Republican opponent in the 1936 presidential race. Owens was employed to do campaign outreach for African American votes for Landon in the 1936 presidential election. Owens was quoted saying the secret behind his success was, "I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up." After the games had ended, the entire Olympic team was invited to compete in Sweden. Owens decided to capitalize on his success by returning to the United States to take up some of the more lucrative endorsement offers. United States athletic officials were furious and withdrew his amateur status, which immediately ended his career. Owens was angry and stated that "A fellow desires something for himself." Owens argued that the racial discrimination he had faced throughout his athletic career, such as not being eligible for scholarships in college and therefore being unable to take classes between training and working to pay his way, meant he had to give up on amateur athletics in pursuit of financial gain elsewhere. Following the 1936 Olympics where Owens won four gold medals, racism back home led to difficulty earning a living despite his international acclaim. Owens struggled to find work and took on menial jobs as a gas station attendant, playground janitor, and manager of a dry cleaning firm and at times resorted to racing against motorbikes, cars, trucks and horses for a cash prize. People say it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. Owens was prohibited from making appearances at amateur sporting events to bolster his profile, and he found out that the commercial offers had all but disappeared. In 1937, he briefly toured with a twelve-piece jazz band under contract with Consolidated Artists but found it unfulfilling. He also made appearances at baseball games and other events. Owens was involved politically and lent his support to the Republican Party and Alf Landon in the 1936 United States Presidential Election, saying that Adolf Hitler congratulated him but that he was snubbed by President Franklin Roosevelt after winning a gold medal. In 1942, Willis Ward—a friend and former competitor from the University of Michigan—who was then working at Ford Motor Company as Assistant Personnel Director, invited Owens to Detroit. Ward worked for the Ford Motor Company's "ad hoc civil rights division, serving as the liaison between black and white workers" and was an advocate for African American employees in the personnel department. Owens wound up replacing him, and remained with Ford until 1946. In the late 1940s, Owens moved his family to Chicago and opened his own public relations agency. In 1946, Owens joined Abe Saperstein in the formation of the West Coast Negro Baseball League, a new Negro baseball league; Owens was Vice-President and the owner of the Portland (Oregon) Rosebuds franchise. He toured with the Rosebuds, sometimes entertaining the audience in between doubleheader games by competing in races against horses. The WCBA disbanded after only two months. Owens helped promote the exploitation film Mom and Dad in African American neighborhoods. He tried to make a living as a sports promoter, essentially an entertainer. He would give local sprinters a ten- or twenty-yard start and beat them in the 100-yd (91-m) dash. He also challenged and defeated racehorses; as he revealed later, the trick was to race a high-strung Thoroughbred that would be frightened by the starter's shotgun and give him a bad jump. On the lack of opportunities, Owens added, "There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway." He traveled to Rome for the 1960 Summer Olympics, where he met the 1960 100 meters champion Armin Hary of Germany, who had defeated American Dave Sime in a photo finish. In 1965, Owens was hired as a running instructor for spring training for the New York Mets. Owens ran a dry cleaning business and worked as a gas station attendant to earn a living, but he eventually filed for bankruptcy. In 1966, he was successfully prosecuted for tax evasion. At rock bottom, he was aided in beginning his rehabilitation. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower enlisted Owens as a goodwill ambassador in 1955 and sent the world-renowned track star to India, the Philippines, and Malaya to promote physical exercise as well as tout the cause of American freedom and economic opportunity in the developing world. He would continue his goodwill tours in the 1960s and 1970s. Although he lost his patronage job with the Illinois Youth Commission in 1960, Owens continued his product endorsement work for such corporations as Quaker Oats, Sears and Roebuck, and Johnson & Johnson. Owens traveled the world and spoke to companies such as the Ford Motor Company and stakeholders such as the United States Olympic Committee. In 1972, he and his wife retired to Arizona. Owens initially refused to support the black power salute by African-American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Summer Olympics. He told them: The black fist is a meaningless symbol. When you open it, you have nothing but fingers—weak, empty fingers. The only time the black fist has significance is when there's money inside. There's where the power lies. Four years later in his 1972 book I Have Changed, he revised his opinion: I realized now that militancy in the best sense of the word was the only answer where the black man was concerned, that any black man who wasn't a militant in 1970 was either blind or a coward. Owens traveled to Munich for the 1972 Summer Olympics as a special guest of the West German government, meeting West German Chancellor Willy Brandt and former boxer Max Schmeling. A few months before his death, Owens had unsuccessfully tried to convince President Jimmy Carter to withdraw his demand that the United States boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He argued that the Olympic ideal was supposed to be observed as a time-out from war and that it was above politics. Owens was a pack-a-day cigarette smoker for 35 years, starting at age 32. Beginning in December 1979, he was hospitalized on and off with an extremely aggressive and drug-resistant type of lung cancer. He died of the disease at age 66 in Tucson, Arizona, on March 31, 1980, with his wife and other family members at his bedside. He was buried next to the Lake of Memories at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago, near where his children and extended family still lived. The grave is inscribed: Jesse Owens. Olympic Champion. 1936. Athlete and humanitarian. A master of the spirit as well as the mechanics of sports. A winner who knew that winning was not everything. He showed extraordinary love for his family and friends. His achievements have shown us all the promise of America. His faith in America inspired countless others to do their best for themselves and their country. September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980. Although Jimmy Carter had ignored Owens's request to cancel the Olympic boycott, the president issued a tribute to Owens after he died: "Perhaps no athlete better symbolized the human struggle against tyranny, poverty and racial bigotry." The dormitory that Owens occupied during the Berlin Olympics has been fully restored into a living museum, with pictures of his accomplishments at the games, and a letter (intercepted by the Gestapo) from a fan urging him not to shake hands with Hitler. In 2016, the 1936 Olympic journey of the eighteen Black American athletes, including Owens, was documented in the film Olympic Pride, American Prejudice. 1936: AP Athlete of the Year (Male) 1936: four English oak saplings, one for each Olympic gold medal, from the German Olympic Committee, planted. One of the trees was planted at the University of Southern California, one at Rhodes High School in Cleveland, where he trained, and one is rumored to be on the Ohio State University campus but has yet to be identified. The fourth tree was at the home of Jesse Owens's mother but was removed when the house was demolished. 1970: inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. 1976: awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford. 1976: inducted into Silver Olympic Order for his quadruple victory in the 1936 games and his defense of sport and the ethics of sport. 1979: awarded Living Legend Award by President Jimmy Carter. 1980: asteroid newly discovered by Antonín Mrkos at the Kleť Observatory named 6758 Jesseowens. 1981: USA Track and Field created the Jesse Owens Award which is given annually to the country's top track and field athlete. 1983: part of inaugural class into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. 1983: Track and field stadium at Cal State Los Angeles is named in Owens's honor. 1984: street south of the Olympic Stadium in Berlin renamed Jesse-Owens-Allee 1984: secondary school Jesse Owens Realschule/Oberschule in Lichtenberg, Berlin named for Owens. March 28, 1990: posthumously presented a Congressional Gold Medal by President George H. W. Bush. 1990 and 1998: two U.S. postage stamps have been issued to honor Owens, one in each year. 1996: Owens's hometown of Oakville, Alabama, dedicated the Jesse Owens Memorial Park and Museum in his honor at the same time that the Olympic Torch came through the community, 60 years after his Olympic wins. An article in the Wall Street Journal of June 7, 1996, covered the event and included this inscription written by poet Charles Ghigna that appears on a bronze plaque at the park: 1999: ranked the sixth greatest North American athlete of the twentieth century and the highest-ranked in his sport by ESPN. 1999: on the six-man shortlist for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Century. 2001: Ohio State University dedicated Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium for track and field events. A sculpture honoring Owens occupies a place of honor in the esplanade leading to the rotunda entrance to Ohio Stadium. Owens competed for the Buckeyes on the track surrounding the football field that existed prior to the 2001 expansion of Ohio Stadium. The campus also houses three recreational centers for students and staff named in his honor. 2002: scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Owens on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. 2009: at the 2009 World Athletic Championships in Berlin, all members of the United States Track and Field team wore badges with "JO" on them to commemorate Owens's victories in the same stadium 73 years before. 2010: Ohio Historical Society proposed Owens as a finalist from a statewide vote for inclusion in Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol. November 15, 2010: the city of Cleveland renamed East Roadway, between Rockwell and Superior avenues in Public Square, Jesse Owens Way. 2012: 80,000 individual pixels in the audience seating area were used as a giant video screen to show footage of Owens running around the stadium in the London 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, just after the Olympic cauldron had been lit. In Cleveland, Ohio, a statue of Owens in his Ohio State track suit was installed at Fort Huntington Park, west of the old Courthouse. Phoenix, Arizona named the Jesse Owens Medical Centre in his honor, as well as Jesse Owens Parkway. Jesse Owens Park, in Tucson, Arizona, is a center of local youth athletics there. For his contribution to sports in Los Angeles, Owens was honored with a Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum "Court of Honor" plaque by the Coliseum commissioners. In July 2018, Ohio Governor John Kasich dedicated the 75th state park Jesse Owens State Park. It is located on AEP reclaimed mining land south of Zanesville, OH. 1984: An Emmy Award-winning biographical television film of Owens's life, The Jesse Owens Story, is released, with Dorian Harewood portraying Owens. 2006: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is released, in which a character named Rudy Steiner idolizes Owens. 2016: A feature film titled Race about Owens with Stephan James portraying Owens was released. 2017: In the Jordan Peele-directed film Get Out, Roman Armitage, the villainous patriarch, lost the qualification round for the 1936 Olympics to Owens, instigating his neurosurgical research and theft of young black men via brain transplant. 2019: In Jojo Rabbit, directed by Taika Waititi, an incarnation of Adolf Hitler humorously refers to the character Elsa as "a little female Jewish Jesse Owens". 2023: In The Boys in the Boat, Jyuddah Jaymes portrays Owens in a cameo as the University of Washington Eight rowing team enters the stadium with the United States Olympic team. List of multiple Olympic gold medalists at a single Games Official website Jesse Owens Museum Jesse Owens Information Footage of Jesse Owens winning 100m Olympic gold in 1936 Jesse Owens Archived February 24, 2017, at the Wayback Machine – An American Experience Documentary This is your Life: Jesse Owens, with Ralph Edwards (video, 25 min.). NBC, 1960 Obituary, New York Times, April 1, 1980 Jesse Owens at IMDb Jesse and Me (2019) at IMDb Official "Jesse Owens Movie" Website at the Wayback Machine (archived November 29, 2006) Owens's accomplishments and encounter with Adolf Hitler (ESPN) Jesse Owens video newsreel Jesse Owens video in Riefenstahl's Olympia (1936) Jesse Owens at the United States Olympic Team at the Wayback Machine (archived July 5, 2006) Path of the Olympic Torch to Owens's birthplace in North Alabama at the Wayback Machine (archived March 24, 2005) Jesse Owens article at the Wayback Machine (archived October 6, 2013), Encyclopedia of Alabama Jesse Owens at the USATF Hall of Fame (archived) Jesse Owens at the Team USA Hall of Fame

2. Bob Beamon (b. 1946)

With an HPI of 66.31, Bob Beamon is the 2nd most famous American Athlete. His biography has been translated into 50 different languages.

Robert Beamon (born August 29, 1946) is an American former track and field athlete, best known for his world record in the long jump at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. By jumping 8.90 m (29 ft 2+1⁄4 in), he broke the existing record by a margin of 55 cm (21+3⁄4 in) and his world record stood for almost 23 years until it was broken in 1991 by Mike Powell. The jump is still the Olympic record and the second-longest in history unassisted by wind. Robert Beamon was born in South Jamaica, Queens, New York, to Naomi Brown Beamon and grew up in the New York Housing Authority's Jamaica Houses. When Beamon was eight months old, his mother died from tuberculosis, and, as a result of his stepfather's incarceration, he was placed into the care of his maternal grandmother, Bessie. When Beamon was attending Jamaica High School, Larry Ellis, a renowned track coach, discovered him. Beamon later became part of the All-American track and field team. Beamon began his college career at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University to be close to his ill grandmother. After her death, he transferred to the University of Texas at El Paso, where he received a track and field scholarship. In 1965, Beamon set a national high school triple jump record and was second in the long jump. In 1967, he won the AAU indoor title and earned a silver medal at the Pan American Games, both in the long jump. Beamon along with eleven other Black athletes were dropped from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) track and field team the week following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. for participating in a boycott of competition with Brigham Young University because of what has been described as the Book of Mormon's racist teachings, Despite losing his athletic scholarship, Beamon returned to UTEP to continue his studies after the Mexico City Olympics. Fellow Olympian Ralph Boston became his unofficial coach. Beamon entered the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City as the favorite to win the gold medal, having won 22 of the 23 meets he had competed in that year, including a career-best of 8.33 m (27 ft 3+3⁄4 in) and a world's best of 8.39 m (27 ft 6+1⁄4 in) that was ineligible for the record books due to excessive wind assistance. That year, he won the AAU and NCAA indoor long jump and triple jump titles and the AAU outdoor long jump title. He came close to missing the Olympic final, overstepping on his first two attempts in qualifying. With only one chance left, Beamon re-measured his approach run from a spot in front of the board and made a fair jump that advanced him to the final. There, he faced the two previous gold-medal winners, fellow American Ralph Boston (1960) and Lynn Davies of Great Britain (1964), and twice bronze medallist Igor Ter-Ovanesyan of the Soviet Union. On October 18, Beamon set a world record for the long jump with a first jump of 8.90 m (29 ft 2+1⁄4 in), bettering the existing record by 55 cm (21+3⁄4 in). When the announcer called out the distance for the jump, Beamon—unfamiliar with metric measurements—still did not realize what he had done. When his teammate and coach Ralph Boston told him that he had broken the world record by nearly two feet, his legs gave way and an astonished and overwhelmed Beamon suffered a brief cataplexy attack brought on by the emotional shock, and collapsed to his knees, his body unable to support itself, placing his hands over his face. The defending Olympic champion Lynn Davies told Beamon, "You have destroyed this event", and in sports jargon, a new adjective—Beamonesque—came into use to describe spectacular feats. Before Beamon's jump, the world record had been broken thirteen times since 1901, with an average increase of 6 cm (2+1⁄4 in) and the largest increase being 15 cm (6 in). In the years following the jump, the mark was considered unbeatable. It took 12 years for another human being to jump 28 feet, much less 29. Beamon's world record stood for 23 years until it was finally broken in 1991 when Mike Powell jumped 8.95 m (29 ft 4+1⁄4 in) at the World Championships in Tokyo, but Beamon's jump is still the Olympic record and 55 years later remains the second-longest wind-legal jump in history. Shortly after the Mexico City Olympics, Beamon was drafted by the Phoenix Suns in the 15th round of the 1969 NBA draft but never played in an NBA game. In 1972, he graduated from Adelphi University with a degree in sociology. Beamon has worked in various roles to promote youth athleticism, including collaborations with former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Beamon's work at the athletic programs of several universities. He is a graphic artist with work exhibited by the Art of the Olympians (AOTO), and was the former chief executive of the Art of the Olympians Museum in Fort Myers, Florida. In 1977, Beamon became a track coach at Alliant International University (formerly known as U.S. International University) in San Diego. Beamon is in the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, and when the United States Olympic Hall of Fame started to induct athletes in 1983, Beamon was one of the first inductees. There is a Bob Beamon Street in El Paso, Texas. Beamon, Bob, and Milana Walter Beamon. (1999). The Man Who Could Fly: The Bob Beamon Story. Columbus, MS: Genesis Press. ISBN 1-885478-89-5. Schaap, Dick. (1976). The Perfect Jump. New York: New American Library. Bob Beamon at the USATF Hall of Fame (archived) Bob Beamon at the Team USA Hall of Fame (archive September 22, 2023) Bob Beamon at Olympics.com Bob Beamon at Olympedia Video of Jump on YouTube

3. Carl Lewis (b. 1961)

With an HPI of 65.32, Carl Lewis is the 3rd most famous American Athlete. His biography has been translated into 72 different languages.

Frederick Carlton Lewis (born July 1, 1961) is a former American track and field athlete who won nine Olympic gold medals, one Olympic silver medal, and 10 World Championships medals, including eight gold. His career spanned from 1979 to 1996, when he last won the Olympic long jump. He is one of only six Olympic athletes who won a gold medal in the same individual event in four consecutive Olympic Games. Along with USA discus thrower Al Oerter, he is one of only two Olympians to win a gold medal in the same individual event in athletics in four Olympic Games. He is currently the head track and field coach for the University of Houston. Lewis was a dominant sprinter and long jumper who topped the world rankings in the 100 m, 200 m and long jump events frequently from 1981 to the early 1990s. He set world records in the 100 m, 4 × 100 m and 4 × 200 m relays, while his world record in the indoor long jump has stood since 1984. His 65 consecutive victories in the long jump achieved over a span of 10 years is one of the sport's longest undefeated streaks. Over the course of his athletics career, Lewis broke 10 seconds for the 100 meters fifteen times and 20 seconds for the 200 meters ten times. Lewis also long jumped over 28 feet seventy-one times. His accomplishments have led to numerous accolades, including being voted "World Athlete of the Century" by the International Association of Athletics Federations and "Sportsman of the Century" by the International Olympic Committee, "Olympian of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Athlete of the Year" by Track & Field News in 1982, 1983, and 1984. After retiring from his athletics career, Lewis became an actor and has appeared in a number of films. In 2011, he attempted to run for a seat as a Democrat in the New Jersey Senate, but was removed from the ballot due to the state's residency requirement. Lewis owns a marketing and branding company named C.L.E.G., which markets and brands products and services including his own.

4. Dick Fosbury (1947 - 2023)

With an HPI of 63.81, Dick Fosbury is the 4th most famous American Athlete. His biography has been translated into 41 different languages.

Richard Douglas Fosbury (March 6, 1947 – March 12, 2023) was an American high jumper, who is considered one of the most influential athletes in the history of track and field. He won a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics, revolutionizing the high jump event with a "back-first" technique now known as the Fosbury flop. His method was to sprint diagonally towards the bar, then curve and leap backward over the bar, which gave him a much lower center of mass in flight than traditional techniques. Debbie Brill was developing her similar "Brill Bend" around the same time. This approach has seen nearly universal adoption since Fosbury's performance in Mexico. Though he never returned to the Olympics, Fosbury continued to be involved in athletics after retirement and served on the executive board of the World Olympians Association. In 2014, Fosbury unsuccessfully challenged Steve Miller for a seat in the Idaho House of Representatives. Fosbury ran for Blaine County Commissioner against incumbent Larry Schoen in 2018, won the seat, and took office in 2019.

5. Ronnie Coleman (b. 1964)

With an HPI of 63.65, Ronnie Coleman is the 5th most famous American Athlete. His biography has been translated into 38 different languages.

Ronald Dean Coleman (born May 13, 1964) is an American retired professional bodybuilder. Known as "The King", Coleman shares the all-time record for most Mr. Olympia titles at eight with Lee Haney. The winner of the Mr. Olympia title for eight consecutive years, he is generally regarded as the greatest professional bodybuilder of all time. Winner of 26 IFBB professional titles, he is also renowned for his combination of size and conditioning, dominant body-parts and extremely heavy workouts. Coleman was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame in 2016 and was bestowed with the 'Arnold Classic Lifetime Achievement Award' in 2021.

6. Ray Ewry (1873 - 1937)

With an HPI of 60.97, Ray Ewry is the 6th most famous American Athlete. His biography has been translated into 33 different languages.

Raymond Clarence Ewry (October 14, 1873 – September 29, 1937) was an American track and field athlete who won eight gold medals at the Olympic Games and two gold medals at the Intercalated Games (1906 in Athens). This puts him among the most successful Olympians of all time.

7. Thomas Burke (1875 - 1929)

With an HPI of 60.86, Thomas Burke is the 7th most famous American Athlete. His biography has been translated into 39 different languages.

Thomas Edmund Burke (January 15, 1875 – February 14, 1929) was an American sprinter. He was the first Olympic champion in the 100 and 400 meter dash races.

8. Mike Powell (b. 1963)

With an HPI of 60.63, Mike Powell is the 8th most famous American Athlete. His biography has been translated into 39 different languages.

Michael Anthony Powell (born November 10, 1963) is an American former track and field athlete, and the holder of the long jump world record. He is a two-time world champion and two-time Olympic silver medalist in this event. His world record of 8.95 m (29 ft 4+1⁄4 in) has stood since 1991.

9. Florence Griffith Joyner (1959 - 1998)

With an HPI of 60.37, Florence Griffith Joyner is the 9th most famous American Athlete. Her biography has been translated into 50 different languages.

Florence Delorez Griffith Joyner (born Florence Delorez Griffith; December 21, 1959 – September 21, 1998), also known as Flo-Jo, was an American track and field athlete and the fastest woman ever recorded. She set world records in 1988 for the 100 m and 200 m. During the late 1980s, she became a popular figure due to both her record-setting athleticism and eclectic personal style. Griffith Joyner was born and raised in California. She was athletic from a young age and began running at track meets as a child. While attending California State University, Northridge (CSUN), and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), she continued to compete in track and field. While still in college, she qualified for the 100 m 1980 Olympics but did not compete due to the U.S. boycott. She made her Olympic debut four years later, winning a silver medal in the 200 meter distance at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. At the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials, Griffith set a new world record in the 100-meter sprint. She won three gold medals at the 1988 Olympics. In February 1989, Griffith Joyner abruptly retired from athletics. She remained a pop culture figure through endorsement deals, acting, and designing. She died in her sleep during an epileptic seizure caused by a birth defect in 1998 at age 38. Griffith Joyner is buried at the El Toro Memorial Park in Lake Forest.

10. Ellery Harding Clark (1874 - 1949)

With an HPI of 60.34, Ellery Harding Clark is the 10th most famous American Athlete. His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

Ellery Harding Clark (March 13, 1874 – July 27, 1949) was an American track and field athlete and a writer. He was the first modern Olympic champion in high jump and long jump.

People

Pantheon has 1,369 people classified as American athletes born between 1751 and 2006. Of these 1,369, 988 (72.17%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living American athletes include Bob Beamon, Carl Lewis, and Ronnie Coleman. The most famous deceased American athletes include Jesse Owens, Dick Fosbury, and Ray Ewry. As of April 2024, 727 new American athletes have been added to Pantheon including Sherm Clark, George Horine, and Sidney Johnson.