Where did Ralph Boston live?

U.S. Olympic track and field legend Ralph Boston is known to have split his time between living in Atlanta, Georgia and Knoxville. Boston was born in Laurel, Mississippi. He was invited to compete in a major track meet at Madison Square Garden in New York City in the summer of 1959, and he flew in an airplane for the first time. He also fulfilled his ambition to compete against the best athletes in his sport, regardless of race.

As a student at Tennessee State University, he won the 1960 National Collegiate Athletic Association title in the long jump.

At the Mt. SAC Relays in August of the same year, he broke Jesse Owens’ 25-year-old world record in the event. Already the world record holder, he broke it by jumping 27′ 1/2″ at the Modesto Relays on May 27, 1961.

Boston qualified for the Summer Olympics in Rome, where he won gold in the long jump, setting an Olympic record of 8.12 m (26 ft 7+12 in) and narrowly defeating American teammate Bo Roberson by a centimeter.

From 1961 to 1966, Boston won the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) national championship in the long jump six times in a row.

In 1963, he also had the longest triple jump for an American. He returned to the Tokyo Olympics as the world record holder after losing the record to Igor Ter-Ovanesyan, then regaining the record a couple of months before the games, first in Kingston, Jamaica and improving it at the 1964 Olympic Trials.

Boston’s final record improvement to 8.35m came at the Modesto Relays in 1965. Ter-Ovanesyan tied it at altitude in 1967. He lost the national title to Jerry Proctor in 1967.

When rival Bob Beamon was suspended from the University of Texas at El Paso for refusing to compete against Brigham Young University, claiming that it had racist policies, Boston began unofficially coaching him. Boston guided Beamon to the 1968 Olympics, and watched him destroy the tied world record by jumping 8.90 m (29′ 2 1/2″).

From 1968 to 1975, Boston worked as the University of Tennessee’s Coordinator of Minority Affairs and Assistant Dean of Students in Knoxville, Tennessee.

He also worked as the field event reporter for CBS Sports Spectacular’s domestic track and field coverage.

Boston was inducted into the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1974 and into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1985.

Boston died on Sunday, April 30, 2023 at age 83 from complications from a recent stroke.