Glenn Morris

Who was Glenn Morris?

Glenn Edgar Morris was a U.S. track and field athlete. He won a gold medal in the Olympic decathlon in 1936, setting new world and Olympic records.

Morris was born on his family's horse ranch near Simla, Colorado, the second of seven children. A natural athlete whose record in the 220 hurdles stood for forty years at his high school, Morris entered Colorado Agricultural College in 1930. He became a star athlete for the school, excelling in several sports and being named All American in track and field. Working as an assistant coach and automobile salesman after graduation in 1934, Morris began training as a decathlon athlete in hopes of competing in the 1936 Olympics.

In the U.S. Olympic track and field trials for 1936, Morris scored a new world record of 7,880 points, earning him Newsweek's sobriquet "the nation's new Iron Man." Morris broke his own world record, and the Olympic record, in the Berlin games, with a decathlon score of 7,900 points. It was said that Adolf Hitler never left his seat while Morris was competing, and that the Germans thereafter offered Morris $50,000 to stay in Germany and appear in sports films, an offer Morris refused.