Newswise — Wichita State University’s connection to the Summer Olympic games started 76 years ago with WSU basketball alums serving on the winning U.S. basketball team of the 1936 Berlin Olympics and the German oak trees given as special awards. Wichita State’s Olympic oak, a descendant of those trees, still stands proudly on campus.
Visitors to WSU’s special collections department will get a sense of history surrounding the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin; the basketball team from Kansas that brought home a gold medal; and Wichita State’s Olympic oak tree with an exhibit in Ablah Library now through Sunday, Sept. 30.
The exhibit is free and open to the public from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays and 8 a.m.-noon Fridays.
Lorraine Madway, curator of Special Collections, said the exhibit will include a poster of the winning Olympic basketball team from Kansas. That team, the McPherson Refiners, included McPherson players, former Wichita University players Francis Johnson and Jack Ragland, and former WU coach Gene Johnson, brother of Francis.
The poster shows all of the basketball players and coaches from that 1936 Olympic "dream team" and was autographed in 1996 by Francis Johnson. It includes an article about the 1936 team from a July 1992 Wichita Eagle.
Numerous university photographs will be on display of the two players from Wichita University, Francis Johnson and Jack Ragland, and the former WU coach, Gene Johnson, brother of Francis. On display will be a copy of Rich Hughes' book, "Netting Out Basketball, 1936: The Remarkable Story of the McPherson Refiners, the First Team to Dunk, Zone Press, and Win the Olympic Gold Medal."
The exhibit will also explain the significance of the Olympic oak tree and place the story of the team in the larger historical context of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Olympic roots
The Olympic oak tree at Wichita State was moved in the spring to make way for renovations to Rhatigan Student Center. The tree was transplanted near the entrance of Charles Koch Arena, the home of WSU basketball.
The tree has a rich and patriotic history with a connection to Wichita State basketball that dates back to its mother tree and the 1936 Berlin Olympics. George Platt, associate professor emeritus of the Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs, said all of the Gold Medal winners of the summer Olympics in 1936 were given a tiny oak tree, the national tree of Germany.
But the U.S. athletes faced a long journey home by sea with their 24 trees stowed on board.
"By the time they got back to the United States, most of the kids didn't care about the trees," Platt said. "When they got to the U.S. shore they were held in customs; some were never reclaimed." And, apparently, no one paid any attention to what happened to the surviving trees.The 1968 Olympic decathlon coach Donald L. Holst began a search for living Olympic oaks. Holst raised seedlings from Olympic oak found in Connellsville, Pa. (planted by John Woodruff, winner of the 800 meter in the 1936 games)
Fast forward to 1990
In spring 1990, Holst gave a seedling to 1936 Olympian Francis Johnson, who gave it to Wichita State. WSU’s Physical Plant planted the young tree on campus in 1990 along with a temporary market indicating the second-generation Olympic tree.
“Before long the marker got knocked down, and everybody forgot what the tree was doing," said Platt.
Memories were rattled, however, in summer 2011 with the premiere of a PBS program on Olympic oaks that WSU graduate Collin McKinney saw. That fall, McKinney, son of WSU professor emeritus James McKinney, contacted the Physical Plant and then Platt, who went to work on verifying and documenting the tree's history.
The rest of the WSU Olympic oak story is yet to be told. Planning is under way for a dedication ceremony in fall 2012.
This time, a permanent plaque will be installed and dedicated to the 1936 U.S. Olympic basketball team and the three participants from Wichita State: Francis Johnson, Jack Ragland and Gene Johnson.# # # # #
RSS