Quotes

[on winning a silver medal at the 1936 Olympics] It's not too bad to be the second best in the world at what you're doing, no matter what it is. It means that only one other person in the world was better than you. That makes you better than an awful lot of people.

[on his brother Jackie Robinson] There was no one more competitive than Jackie. No one could ever tell him he couldn't do something he wanted to do. No one was more appropriate for the tough assignment he received.

I am getting awfully tired of being referred to as just Jackie Robinson's brother.

If anybody in Pasadena was proud for me, other than my family and close friends, they never showed it. I was totally ignored. The only time I was ever noticed was when somebody asked me during at an assembly at school if I'd race against a horse.

Jesse [Jesse Owens] got the coaching, I didn't. I saw his television program about his return to Berlin. He said that he and the coaches had studied the styles of every runner. That was true. They studied me, too.

[on several local businessmen in Pasadena raising the $150 dollars he needed to pay the train fare so he could attend the Olympic trials in 1936] No one paid an athlete's way in those days. The trials were in New York, and Pasadena Junior College didn't have any money to send me. And I didn't have a dime to make a trip like that on my own.