Pioneering Olympian Patterson-Tyler Is Dead Times Picayune 08-31-1996 ************************************************* Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Audrey "Mickey" Patterson-Tyler, a New Orleans native who in 1948 became the first black American woman to win an Olympic medal, died Aug. 23 of heart failure at Paradise Valley Hospital in San Diego after suffering a stroke and a heart attack. She was 69. She won a bronze medal in the 200-meter dash at the 1948 Olympics in London, the first time women had run the distance in Olympic competition. Mrs. Patterson-Tyler was born in New Orleans, where she attended Danneel Elementary School and Gilbert Academy and developed a passion for running. She earned a scholarship to Tennessee State University in Nashville and graduated from Southern University in Baton Rouge. Unbeaten as a prep and college competitor, she was a star in the 100- and 200- meter races and 400-meter relay and a national and international champion in the two individual events. She won the 200-meter race at the U.S. Olympic trials in 1948, making her one of nine black American female track athletes to compete at the London Games. She was 22 when she won her Olympic medal, covering the 200 meters in 25.2 seconds, the same time as Shirley Strickland of Australia. It took officials 45 minutes to decide that Miss Patterson would get the bronze medal; Strickland was placed fourth. Fanny Blankers-Koen of the Netherlands, considered the greatest female Olympian of her time, won the race, earning her third gold medal of the 1948 games. "When I learned that I had placed, it was the greatest feeling that you could possibly have," Mrs. Patterson-Tyler said. " 'This is it,' I thought. Never in my life could I feel so happy." She was named Woman Athlete of the Year in 1949 by the Amateur Athletic Union. She later became a teacher in Lutcher and moved in 1964 to San Diego, where she taught physical education in the public schools until 1980. In 1965, she founded "Mickey's Missiles," a track club for girls 6 to 18. Boys joined the group several years later. It grew from three members its first year to more than 125 and produced Olympic sprinters Jackie Thompson, who competed in the 200-meter race in 1972, and Dennis Mitchell, who ran in the 100-meter dash in 1988, 1992 and 1996. "Mickey was Miss Track and Field for San Diego," said San Diego Councilman George Stevens, a longtime friend. "She inspired people, not just in sports, but in getting young people involved in school and deterring them from crime." Besides developing track and field talent, Mrs. Patterson-Tyler often said one of her goals was to promote good harmony among racial groups in a setting that mixed competition and camaraderie. She coached more than 5,000 young people and had, in her words, "an impeccable record for developing athletes, physically, mentally and spiritually." She managed the U.S. women's track team that toured the Soviet Union and Germany in 1969 and coached the team that competed against a Russian squad in Texas in 1974. In 1982, she founded the Martin Luther King Freedom Run in San Diego. She was a past first vice president of the Amateur Athletic Union, a director of the Pacific Southwest Association and the YMCA, a governor of the Western District of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women, and a member of the Urban League, NAACP and 1984 Olympic Spirit Team. She received the San Diego Woman of the Year and Press Club Headliner awards. She was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame at the Superdome. Survivors include her husband, Ronald A. Tyler; two sons, Herbert Hunter of Las Vegas and Gerald Hunter of Chula Vista, Calif.; two daughters, Cynthia Lowery of Spring Valley, Calif., and Andrea Nelson of El Cajon, Calif.; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. A funeral was held Friday at Bayview Baptist Church in San Diego.