Bobby Joe Morrow

The plaque ends with a quiet return to the farm, but the Handbook tells a harder story. Morrow failed to qualify for the 1960 Olympic team, and a coach told him just before the plane to Rome that he would not be added after all. He retired at twenty-four, then attacked the AAU and Olympic president Avery Brundage over rules that barred athletes from pay, and testified to a Senate panel in 1965. In 1967 he coached the Houston Striders without pay; four of them won gold at Mexico City, including Bob Beamon and Jim Hines.

What the plaque says

Bobby Joe Morrow Born in nearby Rangerville to Bob Floyd (1907-1983) and Mattie Lucille (1908-1996) Morrow, Bobby Joe Morrow (1935-2020) grew up in a simple clapboard house on a 600-acre cotton farm. Morrow began running by chasing jackrabbits. He attended San Benito High School where he played football and, in 1951, started competing in track and field. Morrow won state championships in the 100-yard dash (twice) and the 220-yard dash. After high school, he attended Abilene Christian College where he won around 80 sprint championships, including the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championship in the 100-meter dash when he was a freshman. During college, he competed in the 1956 Olympic games in Melbourne, Australia. At the age of just 20, he won three gold medals for the 100-meter, 200-meter, and 4x100 meter relay, becoming the first man since fellow American and his personal hero, Jesse Owens (1913-1980), to win all three events. Only two men since Morrow have matched the feat. His Olympic performance also tied the world record for the 200-meter dash with a time of 20.6 seconds. Morrow received international acclaim for the achievement. He went on to set 14 world records and appear on the covers of famous magazines including Life and Sports Illustrated. Morrow is a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. After not participating in the 1960 Olympics, he returned to the family farm and maintained a quiet life in Texas until his death. (2022)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park — 14 mi
  A flat coastal prairie north of Brownsville where Taylor's army and Arista's Army of the North fought the first major battle of the Mexican War on May 8, 1846, now interpreted from both sides.
• Stillman House Museum — 19 mi
  The 1850 Greek Revival house of Charles Stillman, who laid out Brownsville in 1848 beside the army's Fort Brown, and for a century the home of the Treviño family.
• Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge — 19 mi
  A coastal refuge set up in 1946 for wintering redhead ducks, with 417 bird species recorded and, by the Fish and Wildlife Service's account, the largest ocelot population in the United States.
• Port Isabel Lighthouse State Historic Site — 28 mi
  A 72-foot brick tower finished in 1852 for the Brazos Santiago shipping lane, dark from 1905 until a reproduction lens was lit in 2022, and the only Texas lighthouse open to the public.

More markers nearby

• Joe Callandret School — 0.6 mi
• Baldemar "Freddy Fender" Garza Huerta — 0.8 mi
• San Benito — 1.2 mi
• Home of Col. Sam Robertson — 1.2 mi